I just returned home from Paris, where I had the incredible opportunity to study at La Schola Cantorum under the auspices of the European American Musical Alliance (EAMA). The month-long program is modeled on the pedagogy of Nadia Boulanger, the iconic teacher of Aaron Copland (and dozens of other influential 20th century musicians). While the program is predominantly geared toward composers, there were five of us who studied conducting.
Of course, one of the benefits of hosting a program such as this in Paris is, well, Paris ! Some of the most famous churches in the world are there and we wasted no time exploring them. As it happens, while we were there, the Ensemble vocal de Notre-Dame de Paris performed a concert at Notre-Dame Cathedral. The repertoire consisted largely of music that was written and performed in and around Notre-Dame between 1518 and 1731, with a particular focus on Léonin and Pérotin and the Ars Nova period.
The concert began with an Ave Maris Stella, a chant whose original manuscript currently resides in the Bibliothéque Nationale de France in Paris, to which the performing ensemble had access. As soon as they began singing, the audience of over 1,000 people was transported back 500 years. I got chills up my spine when I realized that I was hearing the same music in the same space as the very first performance of this piece. The effect of sitting in the middle of Notre-Dame Cathedral hearing music that was intentionally written for this space 500 years ago (yet I was hearing it LIVE) was absolutely astonishing.
It was then that I remembered something that Rev. Louis Weil, professor emeritus of liturgics at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, once said, “Don’t argue with the building: the building always wins.” The reason why that music sounded so perfect was because it was being performed exactly where it was written to be performed, the very church in which we were sitting. The design of the church, the acoustics of the church, the materials with which the church is constructed, these were all taken into consideration before a single note was ever sung.
May we, as conductors, always remember this lesson when we are choosing pieces for our concerts and programs, and the buildings therein; the building always wins.
Stephanie Henry says
Ronald Richard Duquette says