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“ ese are madrigals …
the precursor to
opera
.
ere’s somuch
color
and
drama
and sense
of
anguish
and
spiritual
light
that takes over
just om
phrase to
phrase.”
– GRANT GERSHON
Sellars and Gershon had collaborated
with Adams on a number of his works,
including
e Gospel According to the
Other Mary
, which Gershon and the
Los Angeles Master Chorale brought to
Ravinia in
. Adams would go “in
another direction for
e Other Mary
,”
as Sellars puts it, but the recommenda-
tion stayed with Gershon, who began
poring through pieces by Lasso, seeking
repertoire for the Master Chorale, and
came upon
Lagrime di San Pietro
—
e
Tears of Saint Peter
.
“It is to the Italian Renaissance what
Bach’s B-minor Mass is to the Baroque
period,” assesses Gershon. “It’s an
incredibly towering masterpiece and is
a summing up of everything that this
great composer had learned and expe-
rienced over his long lifetime. He knew
it was the last thing that he was going to
write. He was virtually on his deathbed
as he nished it. It’s interesting because
again, similar to Bach and the B-minor
Mass, he took incredible pains to make
sure that the piece would be engraved in
the most elaborate fashion for posteri-
ty. And yet it’s hard to imagine that he
actually thought himself that this piece
would ever be performed. It’s not a
liturgical piece.
“I was aware there was a disconnect
between the recordings that I knew of;
very beautiful recordings of
Lagrime
,
but they tend to have a sameness to
them. It felt like they were treating
the material from a distance and only
concerned with the purity of that
Renaissance vocal tradition. Whereas
I thought immediately that these are
madrigals, which, of course, are the
precursor to opera. Within years of
the completion of this piece, Monteverdi
would be transforming that madrigal.
Actually, if you look at the piece in those
terms, there’s so much color and drama
and sense of anguish and spiritual light
that then takes over just from phrase to
phrase. e key to unlocking this piece
is to really look at the poetry in a very,
very deep way and think very clearly
about how a true reading of the poetry
would really change the way that one
approaches the music.”
When Gershon and Sellars were
working together on a Vivaldi opera at
Santa Fe Opera in the summer of
,
Gershon told Sellars, “ ‘You have to get
into the
Lagrime di San Pietro
,’ ” Sellar
recalls, “the
summa
, the nal work, of
Lasso. It is kind of this compendium of
Renaissance polyphony to the max. It’s
the most accomplished and fully real-
ized and beautifully polished work.”
“I knew that Peter was doing a deep
dive into the Bach passions at the time,”
explains Gershon. “He had just staged
the Saint Matthew Passion for the Berlin
Philharmonic and was about to embark
on the Saint John. I knew that Peter
works with choruses in a very deep and
very speci c way. But I also knew that
he had never attempted a completely
a
cappella
work before. So I brought up
RAVINIA MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 3, 2018 – MAY 11, 2019
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