I chose Elijah as one of my pieces of music from the live performance that I attended for one main reason. The singing in the piece was unlike any I have seen before. The piece of music is extremely long in the clips I found on YouTube, however, at the live performance they only played about 45-50 minutes worth of the piece. However, it was such an amazing performance by the Delaware Symphony Orchestra that I felt the need to include it in my project. The singing accompanied by the violins in the background rising and falling provided great emphasis on the lyrics and the tone of the singers. The violin, cello, and singing all blend together beautifully for a great flush and precise piece of art. When we were at the event, my parents made me listen extra closely to the detail in the tone changes of the opera singers voice. You could tell that the build up of the melody was going to lead to a more rapid tone of song, while a fall down in the melody lead to a more drawn out note performed by the orchestra. There are multiple accents and different tones behind all the different aspects of the work. Watching this piece on YouTube did not give me the same sense of emotion through the opera singers as I felt while watching the performance live, however, both of the clips I found gave me a flashback in my head of that beautiful moment listening to this work of art at the Hotel du Pont.
YouTube #1
YouTube #2
While watching the performance of Elijah through a screen rather than in the magnificent ballroom at the Hotel du Pont, you do not experience the true emotional aspects of the music. Instead, you get a better sense of the moving parts that go into a symphony. The first clip is much more asthetically pleasing for me to enjoy due to the quality of the video recording. However, the second clip seems to place much more emphasis on the opera singers, who are the ones I paid most attention to while watching the piece live. Within the first clip, I got a better sense of the violins and other string instruments contributions to the overall sound and melody of the music more than I did from the second clip. Both clips however, do a great job showing the true beauty of Felix Mendelssohn’s piece, Elijah.
When comparing to the live performance that I saw in Wilmington on February 18th, I would say the emotion is the one thing that is not expressed as well through the video outlet. The true feeling and chills you get throughout your body when the opera singer begins singing in person is something that is extremely hard to describe to someone strictly watching the virtual performance.
Concert Comparison 