Germmtits!

(I discovered tonight that trying to text "Gerontius" using predictive text produces the above...)

No Jamie tonight (he was supposed to be there but couldn't make it; we didn't find out why) so David took the rehearsal and his place as accompanist was taken by the lovely Jonathan. We like it when he's with us because he usually appears to be enjoying himself. Plus, he's very cute :p

We sang through just about the whole of Gerontius. This was interesting as it was (I think) the first thing we ever did with Jamie, in St Paul's Cathedral in 2002, and (to me at least) it really showed how much progress we've made since he took over. There are parts that I remember always sounding less than great, but they were pretty good first time tonight. (I hasten to add that none of these bits were in the alto parts!) But it also made me realise that I've personally improved in some ways; in particular, I found that I could sing through most of the phrases without running out of breath. I've done this piece several times and never managed that before. It's encouraging :-)

David was absolutely correct, though, to point out that while the loud singing is fantastic, the quiet bits need work before they can sound as exciting. I've noticed this before; a lot of choir members seems unable to sing quietly when the music calls for it, at least until it's been pointed out to them several times that they're singing too loudly. (I have been accused of singing too loudly myself in the past, probably with good reason, but that's been in loud bits... I like to think that if it says "ppp" then you can hardly hear me.)

Sometime I will share my list of "good bits to watch out for in Gerontius". I know you all want to see that :p (you won't be surprised to hear that I have many such moments marked in my score!) Highlights from tonight, though: "I know this piece is about death, but...!" (David to the basses, after hearing them sing a line alone) ... and of course the "Dispossessed" contest, which the altos won hands down (there were impressed whooping sounds coming from the tenors after we did it the first time!)

Other stuff: It was great to see Rachel back tonight, amongst others who've been missing for a while. She's not been to choir since before Christmas. Oh, and we were given music for the opera stuff coming up, although we didn't try any of it. 4 things: Brindisi is familiar enough; Tannhäuser has us singing for a total of 23 bars (looks as if it might be offstage, which would be useful as then we wouldn't have to sit through the rest of it!); the Scottish Refugee chorus from Macbeth has, typically, no alto part at all, although the soprano part divides into 3 and goes down to bottom A... go figure!; and the Fire Chorus from Otello has the tenors split into 3 parts while the sops and alts hardly split at all. This isn't the first time this has happened, by any means - I often wonder whether choirs a century ago were drastically different (in terms of balance of parts) than choirs today!

Oh, and two final Gerontius points: firstly, some information about the story and musical details is online here, and a discussion of how to pronounce Gerontius is here. Summary: It's almost certainly a HARD g (i.e. not Jerontius)... I'm pretty sure this is how both Mark and Jamie pronounce it, too.