"I know you did beautiful Elgar. Forget about that now!"

... said Xenia, at the start of tonight's piano rehearsal for The Bells. Which went a lot better than most people expected, but was very long (nearly 9.40 when we finished) and extremely hard work. We started with Jamie, polishing a few bits that needed it (including the infamous page 51 section, although by the end of the rehearsal there were still a LOT of altos behind me who were a tone too high every time they reached page 53. I wasn't sure exactly who it was, so I didn't like to tell them. But I will tomorrow if it still sounds as wrong as it did tonight, I think.) and then Mark came later. He seemed surprisingly impressed with things, which I think inspired people to sing better. He also said that the LPC is struggling with the text. They're not coming up till Saturday - I'm looking forward to hearing how they're getting on with the music. They were pretty good in Gerontius, but The Bells is a lot harder!

I'm falling asleep (as ever) so I'm just going to list some quotes, in a minute. But there are a few other things I'd like to mention first. Firstly, I was really impressed with the basses tonight. They made a fantastic sound, but more usefully they actually SANG where they were supposed to - there were none of those all-too-familiar embarrassing moments when either none of the basses comes in, or if they do it's totally the wrong speed, and the wrong notes, and tentative. They even went with the "loud and wrong" philosophy, with the result, of course, that their very few mistakes could be corrected very easily. I really hope they continue like this :-)

Secondly, for those ladies who are unaware, we are definitely wearing our normal uniforms on Saturday. There will be no repeat of Sashgate!

Thirdly, they are switching the Christmas lights on in Manchester city centre tomorrow - from Albert Square - so many of the roads will be closed from 5 pm onwards. Avoid driving to the rehearsal if you can help it...

Finally, some quotes. The Jamieisms first:

"Mark won't do it that slowly, but I'm just being naughty. And so are you!" (to the men on page 42, when they weren't watching and hence finished several seconds before Jamie did)

"Write the word 'adrenalin' and then cross it out." (to the altos on page 41, when lots of people were singing sharp)

From Mark:

"See? Many, many pages are fine already!" (after we sang the whole of the fiendishly difficult 3rd movement)

"How lovely to hear a choir that sings so well in tune!"

"We've advertised 3 soloists, as you do, and I'm delighted to report that one of them will actually be coming!" (For those who don't know, Mark seems to have a curse when it comes to soloists. It's very rare for all the ones he books to actually end up singing in the concert. One or more of them always falls ill.)

But my favourite quote of the night is not from Jamie, or Mark, or even Xenia. It's from Dr Liz. You see, there was this very tall unfamiliar guy - who wore a bandanna (a la Cap'n Jack Sparrow). He turned up just before the rehearsal started, spoke briefly to Jamie, and sat with the 2nd basses and joined in. We'd never seen him before, and we were dying to know who he was and why he was there. I chickened out of asking him myself, but decided that since Dr Liz is much braver than me, she might agree to do it.

Dr Liz: "So do you want me to just have no shame and go up to him and say 'all the 2nd altos want to know who you are'?"

2nd altos: "Yes!"

:-)



P.S. I suppose you want to know the answer... His name was Adam and he's a post grad student at the RNCM who's working on Russian choral music - or possibly specifically Rachmaninov, I forget. He's not a member of the choir and won't be singing in the concert, he just came along for research purposes. Anything to add to that, Liz?