Benedicite

Quite often, I am asked to help out other choirs by joining them for concerts. (The invitations generally come via fellow Hallé Choir members.) Today was such a day, and it really reinforced something I already knew but tend to forget, which is how fortunate we are to be able to sing with singers who are generally in tune, an orchestra whose players can all actually play in tune, and above all, conductors who can conduct well. It's incredibly frustrating, when this is what I'm used to, to experience "how the other half lives". (Although, in some ways it's actually kind of nice, because I do feel useful being able to help.)

The concert today was at a big independent boarding school in the middle of the countryside, and the choir consisted of a mixture of schoolchildren, staff, parents, local people and "associate singers" such as myself. Not sure about the orchestra but it looked a similar make-up. The soloists were schoolchildren (well, one of them was an RNCM student, but I think I heard someone say that she was an ex-pupil of the school). The conductor was a teacher at the school, I think, and I'm afraid I didn't think much of him. People who know little about music occasionally say to me that they can't see why a conductor is necessary - surely the musicians will stay together if they just count properly? Tonight's concert showed why a conductor is needed, because many of the things that went wrong could plainly have been avoided if we'd had a better one. The main problems were that (a) he wasn't consistent (e.g. movements that he'd done in 4 in the rehearsal were in 2 in the concert) and, more seriously, (b) his beat was insecure - if the violins went slower, he followed them; he hesitated before downbeats, which consequently got later and later; that sort of thing.

The Vivaldi Gloria was a safe enough programming choice; it worked well enough in rehearsal, although the two girls who sang the "Laudamus Te" duet didn't seem to know it very well, and one of them ran out in tears after a fairly disastrous attempt at it. (Oh, and I found out that the Ricordi edition - which I have - is quite different from the OUP edition - which everyone else had - in many places! Helpful!) And it worked fine in the performance, despite the conductor trying to bring the choir in a beat early for their first entry. But it was a reasonable choice for the group to attempt. The other work on the programme - Andrew Carter's "Benedicite" - really wasn't, in my opinion.

It's a pity it didn't work, because it's a piece I didn't know at all, and I really enjoyed discovering it. (In particular, I loved having some proper sight reading to do!) It has interesting harmonies, foot-tapping rhythms, and good tunes. And it's not actually that hard, despite offputting details (for example, the opening time signature being 2+2+2+3 over 8). But it needs a confident choir, which in turn needs a confident conductor. Tonight it had neither. And I can't help blaming the conductor; the choir actually knew it pretty well, but were not confident in their leads, and they needed support that they just didn't get.

Despite this, I did actually enjoy the day, although I do have a bit of a sore throat from singing tenor very loudly to help the guys in front :p