Yesterday, we attended the Monteverdi Chorale Christmas concert in a small Catholic church on the edge of campus. The acoustics seem good to me but I wear hearing aids and I am not clear on evaluating acoustics. I am clear on the effect of their singing on me.
I get teary. I sit there looking at friends I know and with whom I have spoken. They are sweet and friendly but they don't affect me the way the assembled group does when those voices strike me. The feminine tones, the masculine tones, the high notes, the low notes! My impluse is to just go up there and hug and kiss one after the other. Some of those men are big and strong and they might toss me back to my seat. Some of those women might not want my hugs and their husbands might do more than toss me.
The same sort of thing happened last year. I get elevated, lifted up, enthused, bewitched, over-powered.
Advanced singers have told me more than once that complex and demanding music is more fun to sing. My estimate is that yesterday was medium complex music, much of it written in the 1600's or so. Perhaps the emotional effect (I was not drunk or high!!) came from the singing being for the most part in languages I don't know. They sang in Spanish, French, Latin, German and Yoruba. They wound up with English, such as "We wish you a Merry Christmas" while demanding a figgy pudding be brought out to them.
I didn't have a figgy pudding but when those voices change while the wonderful throats seem to simply be emitting pure magic up and down, harmonizing and chilling me, I have to work to restrain my cheer. My hands are still a bit sore from applauding and applauding.
