Orchestra, choir perform at Irvine

Penn's famed Irvine Auditorium, the immense concert hall on the eastern end of campus, has had its share of acoustic problems and construction delays in its nearly 80 years of existence. Now, however, Irvine is looking mighty appealing. On Friday night, the University Symphony Orchestra and the University Choral Society tried out the new, more mellifluous Irvine with a joint concert performed before a sold-out crowd of 1,800 people. It was the first time the two groups had performed together in two years. The program included two of the more renowned and challenging works written for a combined orchestra and choir, Arnold Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden -- or Peace on Earth -- and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The event marked the inauguration of Irvine as the permanent performance hall of both groups, according to Regina Christian, the concert coordinator for the Music Department. In past years, the lack of a true concert hall forced the orchestra and choir to play at other campus venues, such as the Annenberg Center and the Cathedral Church of the Savior. "Now we have a home in that we can rehearse here and play here," Christian said. In the past, she noted, it required a great deal of work to transport instruments from practice halls to the performance sites. Now, much to the happiness of both groups, the practice and performance sites are all under one roof. The performance of Beethoven's Ninth was especially momentous for both orchestra and choir because it marked the Philadelphia debut of a new edition of the symphony, Orchestra Director Ricardo Averbach said. Musicologists recently discovered many imperfections in previous performance editions, including wrong notes and tempos. The corrected edition, according to Averbach, is far more true to what Beethoven had in mind. Beethoven's Ninth was years ahead of its time when it was written, he explained, pointing to the fact that it was almost twice the length of traditional symphonies. It was also the first time choir soloists accompanied an orchestral performance of a symphony. "People at the time said, 'This is crazy,'" Averbach said. "But it went on to become "maybe the most important piece [of all time]." Traditional versions of the symphony were quite flawed, according to Averbach. He likened Beethoven's notes on his Ninth Symphony to a doctor writing a prescription. He wrote quickly, and often notes were miscopied by printers upon publishing. The result was a symphony that was not as it was intended to be. College freshman Julia Gottlieb, a bassist with the orchestra, agreed with Averbach. "It was very exciting to premiere the new edition, to be a part of history," she said. Aside from the novelty of playing a new edition, one of the aspects that makes the Ninth special to many of the musicians is that it is played with choral accompaniment, Concert Master and Orchestra President Tony Park said. "The energy in the orchestra shot up in a second [when the orchestra began practicing with the choir]," Park said. "There's nothing like a million voices that are singing together with the orchestra.