A serving suggestion
/My car is not new — it currently has that whole “check engine” thing going on, and the only reason I am driving it around unconcernedly is that my dealer assured me that the first appointment they could book me for was three weeks away, so it must not be that ominous. I mean, there’s no smoke or anything. Yet.
It should come as no surprise, then, that while the radio and the CD player work, the car long ago fell behind in the software updates, losing its ability to communicate with my iPhone way back when it was an iPhone 7. That means that I am currently playing Pandora or my Music library through a Bluetooth speaker. Pretty basic.
All of which is to say that recently I’ve just relied on the CD player, and the CD in there is the Fragments of a Mass in C, which you will recall from my shameless self-promotion from Monday. and today as the 'Agnus Dei’ began to play, I had this bit of stage chicanery pop into my head.
You may wish to follow along:
Agnus Dei/Dona nobis pacem | score [pdf] | mp3
The chorus is on risers on the stage. During the preceding Hosanna, a children’s choir positions itself in the aisles of the auditorium. Lights on the chorus fade down so that the auditorium is largely dark.
mm.1–6: As the piano slowly, quietly chimes, the children randomly begin to light the candles in their hands, electric, of course. They sing the opening “Agnus Dei” and are answered by the men of the chorus.
mm.7–11: The phrase repeats. More children light their candles.
mm.12–13: The women of the chorus join in the “Miserere.”
mm.14–33: Repeat with children singing the “Agnus Dei,” the men replying with the “qui tollis peccata mundi.” The children begin moving onto the stage. The sopranos and altos rejoin at m.24, and the children form into rows in front of the chorus. The lights are still down on the chorus.
mm.34–end: The children lead off with the “Dona nobis pacem.” The chorus joins them at m.38. The chorus now begins to light its own candles, slowly, one by one, until we hit THAT MOMENT at mm.45–46, and the stage lights start to come up, illuminating the singers, more and more brightly and brightly. At the ‘Amen,’ the lights fade once again, until the choir is lit only by their candles.
End.
But Dale, I hear myself whine, doesn’t that kind of stage shenanigans distract from the music? Surely your music and should stand on its own? Yeah, of course we can do without the candles and the lighting shtick — but that staging is boffo, believe me. There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.
I will, in any case, put these stage directions into the octavo setting of the piece for the delectation of future generations.
