The Vineyards

Last Tuesday, December 7th, at about 10pm, I got on stage with nearly two hundred other people in the biggest concert hall in the country to sing the most well known piece of classical music ever. Beethoven's 9th Symphony, 4th Movement: "Ode to Joy".

The Tenors, among whom I stood, were to the left and back, behind the Contraltos; the Sopranos were to the right, in front of the Basses. Basses? Ah, whatever are called those tall strong guys with grave voice that always play the villains or some secondary character in operas, and are paid less. Those, yes.

The stage was packed. Because the choir area is too far away from the orchestra area it was decided to put the choir on the stage. And the choir seats, behind the stage, were all sold. So we had people looking at us from behind, and probably not hearing a thing. I doubt any of them paid any attention, but if they did they might had noticed one of the Tenors had a ring in his right hand that was identical to a ring in the right hand of one of the Sopranos - assuming they could see the Sopranos at all from there, not to mention their hands.

I knew very little about choirs before I joined the school's choir. But I remember, whenever I listened to any piece with a choir, that I was quite sure of one thing: that those women singing with the high pitched voices must be saying the most beautiful lines, because obviously they represent the speech of angels - most classical tunes being religious and all.

When I joined the choir, most of what I had always assumed was proven wrong. The lyrics are nearly the same for everyone (except the soloists), so the women with high pitched voices do not represent the speech of angels. Honestly, I still think they do, but it is better not to argue.

But whether the Sopranos represent der Cherub that steht vor Gott or not, one among them was wearing in her right hand a ring identical to that Tenor's. These two rings say "14-11-03" inside of them, which, in Brazilian date notation, means November 14th, 2003. That was the day where the Tenor woke up quite early, drove in a completely different direction than usual, parked near a commercial area and paced outside for an hour waiting for the flower shops to open. And the six pink and six red roses kindly waited in their full beauty for almost four hours, when they finally found their way to the one they were meant to.

It was a wonderful year, completely different than all years before - which were looking very similar to each other. It was a year where things worked, where I found support in someone and gave support in return - and together we walked forward and dealt with issues and reached goals neither of us had dared to face or try before.

On December 7th, almost two hundred people who practiced hard for many months had a big achievement to celebrate, after getting up on stage and doing a great job in singing their Freude schöner Götterfunken. Two of those people had even more. It would have been bad writing by Fate's hand if it had been exactly on November 14th, but even though almost a month late that concert crowned a beautiful year. And even though there were two hundred people on that stage, and about half of them were directly between that Tenor and that Soprano, those rings showed how close together they were.

A few months of choir lessons and a presentation taught me the women with high pitched voices are called Sopranos and they do not represent angels. Considering the past year, however, I must say there is an angel among them, after all.

- An angel with butterfly wings.

Happy thirteenth mensiversary, ruby-chan.

Posted by Etienne at December 14, 2004 08:02 PM