Thursday, February 23, 2006
Do you have the Passion?
Just noticed that the BBC are now asking for volunteer singers for the Good Friday thing. Let's all sign up! See here for details :-)
Semi-chorus panic
This is what resulted when Chris announced, right after the warmup, that those who'd put their names down to do the semi-chorus auditions after the rehearsal tonight should instead go immediately. We weren't told the reason for this change, but when we got down there everyone was in a panic, mainly because we'd all specifically chosen the after-the-rehearsal slot so we'd be properly warmed up! Oh well.
There were no men, oddly enough. I presume they all bit the bullet and did it earlier. But there were maybe 10-15 ladies waiting to put themselves through torture... Amusingly, the room Jamie was in was almost impossible to get into - it had a cupboard and a piano blocking the door, and we had to squeeze through a gap to get in! This meant, when it was my turn, that I was totally out of breath when I went in - I'd walked very quickly down the corridor, because I knew time was tight, and squeezing through a too-small gap didn't help! The audition itself was OK other than my lack of breath - some people were a bit taken aback to have to sing both the Tallis and the sight-reading with no accompaniment, but I'm pretty sure Jamie had said that was the plan. Anyway, we'll see.
Got back to the rehearsal to find David note-bashing the Byrd funky motet, which sounded pretty good by the time we finished. It was one of those occasions, though, when he said something that could be interpreted as being slightly rude (I forget what) and after that people were sniggering at every other instruction :p The only thing I wrote down was "Laude doesn't mean 'loud', by the way!"
(Oh, and two new pieces were given out tonight, although we didn't sing either of them - Byrd's "Christe qui lux es et dies" and Finzi's "God is gone up". I've done the Finzi once before - a long time ago - and I love it. I haven't yet got a recording of the Byrd - it's not on iTunes - but will post it if I get one. But I already had the Finzi on CD.)
God is gone up (Finzi) (6.1 MB)
Anyway, Jamie managed to make it to the second half of the rehearsal. And it turned out to be quite different! Apologies to those who were there, but I need to describe what happened for those who missed it (e.g. Dr Liz, who had to go to work at half time, and Liz L, who has fractured her coccyx, poor thing). First, Jamie asked for 4 volunteers. They stood in a line at the front and held their right hand up (as if taking a pledge of allegiance). The choir then chanted "1, 2, 3, 4", and after a few times, the four volunteers were instructed to raise and lower their hands at will, and the choir had to just chant the beats indicated. (The aim was to look ahead and not get faster, see.) After a few goes at this (and several new lots of volunteers) the next lot of volunteers had to hold both hands up, indicating quavers... and the chant became "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" ... and, later, "... and ... and ... and ... and" (when all 4 volunteers happened to have only their left hand up). A few goes later, there were 8 volunteers, 4 for each side of the choir, so there were two lots of chanting going on at the same time. I'm sure there were probably people muttering "I'd rather just sing" (there usually are!) but there weren't any near me - everyone seemed to be having a great time!
We went on to sing the Tallis "Loquebantur" (the semi-chorus audition piece). Unsurprisingly, with half the choir having spent a good bit of time practising it, it sounded really good (a clever plan, that!). We did a bit of work on breath management (one of these days I'll get better at that, but I'm nowhere near there yet) and this produced the only Jamieism I wrote down tonight: "Folks, you should feel desperate a lot more often!" By the end, though, he was so delighted he just made gibbering noises. Nice to make people happy :-)
The only other thing we sang was the Vaughan Williams, and even then it was only the last section. Before we did this, we spent a while practising singing notes in the scale of D major, using the Kodaly hand signals. Now, every class had a lesson each week on this when I was at school, with a guy called Peter Hatfield who was a Kodaly expert. (It was called "aural" on the timetable, but it was mainly Kodaly stuff.) I don't think we appreciated at the time how useful it was, but I'm pretty sure that's how I learned to sight-sing. So it reminded me that I'd promised to do a post explaining how I do it... and I will, eventually, but the short version is "like that!"
Anyway, World of Warcraft beckons. But one final thing - some more info about the Good Friday passion play in Manchester, thatSheena Barbara alerted us to a while ago. Looks fun!
There were no men, oddly enough. I presume they all bit the bullet and did it earlier. But there were maybe 10-15 ladies waiting to put themselves through torture... Amusingly, the room Jamie was in was almost impossible to get into - it had a cupboard and a piano blocking the door, and we had to squeeze through a gap to get in! This meant, when it was my turn, that I was totally out of breath when I went in - I'd walked very quickly down the corridor, because I knew time was tight, and squeezing through a too-small gap didn't help! The audition itself was OK other than my lack of breath - some people were a bit taken aback to have to sing both the Tallis and the sight-reading with no accompaniment, but I'm pretty sure Jamie had said that was the plan. Anyway, we'll see.
Got back to the rehearsal to find David note-bashing the Byrd funky motet, which sounded pretty good by the time we finished. It was one of those occasions, though, when he said something that could be interpreted as being slightly rude (I forget what) and after that people were sniggering at every other instruction :p The only thing I wrote down was "Laude doesn't mean 'loud', by the way!"
(Oh, and two new pieces were given out tonight, although we didn't sing either of them - Byrd's "Christe qui lux es et dies" and Finzi's "God is gone up". I've done the Finzi once before - a long time ago - and I love it. I haven't yet got a recording of the Byrd - it's not on iTunes - but will post it if I get one. But I already had the Finzi on CD.)
God is gone up (Finzi) (6.1 MB)
Anyway, Jamie managed to make it to the second half of the rehearsal. And it turned out to be quite different! Apologies to those who were there, but I need to describe what happened for those who missed it (e.g. Dr Liz, who had to go to work at half time, and Liz L, who has fractured her coccyx, poor thing). First, Jamie asked for 4 volunteers. They stood in a line at the front and held their right hand up (as if taking a pledge of allegiance). The choir then chanted "1, 2, 3, 4", and after a few times, the four volunteers were instructed to raise and lower their hands at will, and the choir had to just chant the beats indicated. (The aim was to look ahead and not get faster, see.) After a few goes at this (and several new lots of volunteers) the next lot of volunteers had to hold both hands up, indicating quavers... and the chant became "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" ... and, later, "... and ... and ... and ... and" (when all 4 volunteers happened to have only their left hand up). A few goes later, there were 8 volunteers, 4 for each side of the choir, so there were two lots of chanting going on at the same time. I'm sure there were probably people muttering "I'd rather just sing" (there usually are!) but there weren't any near me - everyone seemed to be having a great time!
We went on to sing the Tallis "Loquebantur" (the semi-chorus audition piece). Unsurprisingly, with half the choir having spent a good bit of time practising it, it sounded really good (a clever plan, that!). We did a bit of work on breath management (one of these days I'll get better at that, but I'm nowhere near there yet) and this produced the only Jamieism I wrote down tonight: "Folks, you should feel desperate a lot more often!" By the end, though, he was so delighted he just made gibbering noises. Nice to make people happy :-)
The only other thing we sang was the Vaughan Williams, and even then it was only the last section. Before we did this, we spent a while practising singing notes in the scale of D major, using the Kodaly hand signals. Now, every class had a lesson each week on this when I was at school, with a guy called Peter Hatfield who was a Kodaly expert. (It was called "aural" on the timetable, but it was mainly Kodaly stuff.) I don't think we appreciated at the time how useful it was, but I'm pretty sure that's how I learned to sight-sing. So it reminded me that I'd promised to do a post explaining how I do it... and I will, eventually, but the short version is "like that!"
Anyway, World of Warcraft beckons. But one final thing - some more info about the Good Friday passion play in Manchester, that
Monday, February 20, 2006
Semi-chorus angst
Well, like many, many other members of the choir (including 15 altos - I counted) I signed up for a semi-chorus audition, and I'm getting more and more anxious about it. Now I can guess that several of you are probably thinking that's silly, but, you see, Jamie's never yet picked me for a semi-chorus (I did sing in the semi-chorus in the first gig he prepared, which was Gerontius in St Paul's, but that was because I'd been in it the previous time and, not knowing the choir at that point, he just had the same people). And his vocal assessment comments about me have always been "great sight reading, but try to make a nicer sound". (Which is fair enough.) Now, I think I've improved a bit, but this Wednesday's audition will be the test - and if I fail it, it won't do much for my confidence!
Anyway, in case anyone wants to practise with the harmony but can't play it and doesn't have a recording, I've put one online, together with all the other bits of music we've been given so far. All the tracks are on iTunes (79p a track - bargain!) so you can buy your own copy if you like (I won't be keeping these up forever). PLEASE NOTE that not all of these are in the same key as our music - the first one, in particular, is a tone lower (i.e. the 1st alto part on page 4 starts on an A flat not a B flat). But I hope they'll be useful anyway.
Loquebantur variis linguis (Tallis) (4.9 MB) - pages 4 and 5 of this are the semi-chorus audition piece, and here is just that bit (1.4 MB)
Laudibus in sanctis (Byrd) (6.8 MB)
Salvator mundi (Tallis) (2.6 MB)
O nata lux de lumine (Tallis) (2.1 MB)
Mihi autem nimis (Tallis) (2.5 MB)
The Lamb (Tavener) (3.9 MB)
Lord, thou hast been our refuge (Vaughan Williams) (9.1 MB)
Oh, and I almost forgot - anyone who received last week's choir info email and didn't read it very closely, do so - you may have missed our chairman's new name :p
Anyway, in case anyone wants to practise with the harmony but can't play it and doesn't have a recording, I've put one online, together with all the other bits of music we've been given so far. All the tracks are on iTunes (79p a track - bargain!) so you can buy your own copy if you like (I won't be keeping these up forever). PLEASE NOTE that not all of these are in the same key as our music - the first one, in particular, is a tone lower (i.e. the 1st alto part on page 4 starts on an A flat not a B flat). But I hope they'll be useful anyway.
Loquebantur variis linguis (Tallis) (4.9 MB) - pages 4 and 5 of this are the semi-chorus audition piece, and here is just that bit (1.4 MB)
Laudibus in sanctis (Byrd) (6.8 MB)
Salvator mundi (Tallis) (2.6 MB)
O nata lux de lumine (Tallis) (2.1 MB)
Mihi autem nimis (Tallis) (2.5 MB)
The Lamb (Tavener) (3.9 MB)
Lord, thou hast been our refuge (Vaughan Williams) (9.1 MB)
Oh, and I almost forgot - anyone who received last week's choir info email and didn't read it very closely, do so - you may have missed our chairman's new name :p
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
"I might look stupid, but at least I'm in tune!"
Firstly, before I forget, someone mentioned the ladies' choir a cappella version of I Predict a Riot to me earlier, so I thought I'd repeat the link to it, since the Kaiser Chiefs won the top prize at the Brit Awards tonight. (I first mentioned this mp3 on 13th January...)
Anyway, SUCH a fun rehearsal tonight! We sight-read through lots of new stuff for the a cappella concert, and it was all very wonderful. Also, we sat in 2 choirs (i.e. 1st altos on the opposit side of the room to 2nd altos) and I love it when we sit like that, especially when there's antiphonal stuff like in Belshazzar. There wasn't any antiphonal stuff tonight, but it was still good. Also the talking was practically nil, at least near me...
New stuff we sang tonight: Tallis - Salvator mundi; Tallis - O nata lux de lumine; Byrd - Laudibus in Sanctis; Vaughan Williams - Lord Thou hast been our refuge. The Byrd is, I presume, the fast funky motet previously referred to. The Vaughan Williams is the piece with the semi-chorus (for which it appears just about the whole choir is voluntarily auditioning.... I guess that's a positive sign!). All the pieces have really nice low alto parts (the first Tallis one had the 1st altos significantly lower than the 2nds in many places, which is a bit odd) but none of them was all that hard, except the Byrd, which was interestingly tricky! Lots of people were having a proper go at the sight reading, which is great - a few years ago, most of the choir would not even have attempted to sight-read something that hard, but tonight only a few sat there listening rather than give it a go.
Maggie started the evening off (well, after the 2nd alto vocal coaching session, which was very useful) by saying "I'm going to open your vowels over the next few weeks!" Some of the tenors misheard her and were a bit alarmed... Then, "Good evening", said Jamie, and promptly broke his music stand :p He was on good form after that though. Some samples:
"Elgar, with a Salvador Dali twist!" (this referred to an imaginary moustache)
"OK, I'll conduct like this now..." (at which he crossed his arms and conducted with them the wrong way round)
"Imagine a baby's bib... what's on yours? spaghetti? mine too! ... now throw the pizza across the restaurant..."
Bit of a visual one - his impressions of the faces of the tenors, when he was illustrating how he can tell from their facial expressions whether or not they're resonating...
"I don't know what sort of horses you hang out with!" (to the 2nd altos, after some instruction involving ambling to the starting box rather than racing to the finishing line... i.e. relax...)
"I can hear all your voices individually!" he said, after listening to the 1st altos. He then (somewhat offputtingly, given that comment) came to stand in front of the 2nd altos to listen. "You sound completely different! In 7 weeks, you'll all sound the same." We weren't at all sure whether he meant "different" in a good or a bad way, but a few minutes later he told the 1sts they sounded much better that time, and he didn't say anything to us. I'm inferring from that that we were great the first time :-)
Anyway, SUCH a fun rehearsal tonight! We sight-read through lots of new stuff for the a cappella concert, and it was all very wonderful. Also, we sat in 2 choirs (i.e. 1st altos on the opposit side of the room to 2nd altos) and I love it when we sit like that, especially when there's antiphonal stuff like in Belshazzar. There wasn't any antiphonal stuff tonight, but it was still good. Also the talking was practically nil, at least near me...
New stuff we sang tonight: Tallis - Salvator mundi; Tallis - O nata lux de lumine; Byrd - Laudibus in Sanctis; Vaughan Williams - Lord Thou hast been our refuge. The Byrd is, I presume, the fast funky motet previously referred to. The Vaughan Williams is the piece with the semi-chorus (for which it appears just about the whole choir is voluntarily auditioning.... I guess that's a positive sign!). All the pieces have really nice low alto parts (the first Tallis one had the 1st altos significantly lower than the 2nds in many places, which is a bit odd) but none of them was all that hard, except the Byrd, which was interestingly tricky! Lots of people were having a proper go at the sight reading, which is great - a few years ago, most of the choir would not even have attempted to sight-read something that hard, but tonight only a few sat there listening rather than give it a go.
Maggie started the evening off (well, after the 2nd alto vocal coaching session, which was very useful) by saying "I'm going to open your vowels over the next few weeks!" Some of the tenors misheard her and were a bit alarmed... Then, "Good evening", said Jamie, and promptly broke his music stand :p He was on good form after that though. Some samples:
"Elgar, with a Salvador Dali twist!" (this referred to an imaginary moustache)
"OK, I'll conduct like this now..." (at which he crossed his arms and conducted with them the wrong way round)
"Imagine a baby's bib... what's on yours? spaghetti? mine too! ... now throw the pizza across the restaurant..."
Bit of a visual one - his impressions of the faces of the tenors, when he was illustrating how he can tell from their facial expressions whether or not they're resonating...
"I don't know what sort of horses you hang out with!" (to the 2nd altos, after some instruction involving ambling to the starting box rather than racing to the finishing line... i.e. relax...)
"I can hear all your voices individually!" he said, after listening to the 1st altos. He then (somewhat offputtingly, given that comment) came to stand in front of the 2nd altos to listen. "You sound completely different! In 7 weeks, you'll all sound the same." We weren't at all sure whether he meant "different" in a good or a bad way, but a few minutes later he told the 1sts they sounded much better that time, and he didn't say anything to us. I'm inferring from that that we were great the first time :-)
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Grovel, grovel, cringe, bow, stoop, crawl
I've been writing Joseph music out for hours, and I decided I couldn't stay awake any longer and abandoned it for the night, but I lay there wide awake for an hour - with the tunes going round in my head - before admitting defeat and getting up again to finish it. Argh.
Anyway, just wanted to point out the Times review of Shost 3. This one does at least mention the choir. He didn't like Shost 3 though! "When a symphony by a famous composer is never played there is usually a good reason." "I won’t be petitioning the gods of concert programming for more performance." Heh. (He doesn't actually say what he thought of the choir, although the implication is that we were "vigorous"...)
Oh, and Graham E discovered this page while faffing online. It's quite interesting. Graham's not at all well, btw - do send him your best wishes.
EDIT: Graham sent this scan of the M.E.N. review of the Shost 3 gig, which hasn't made it online yet. Yet again, nothing about the choir. Sheesh.
Anyway, just wanted to point out the Times review of Shost 3. This one does at least mention the choir. He didn't like Shost 3 though! "When a symphony by a famous composer is never played there is usually a good reason." "I won’t be petitioning the gods of concert programming for more performance." Heh. (He doesn't actually say what he thought of the choir, although the implication is that we were "vigorous"...)
Oh, and Graham E discovered this page while faffing online. It's quite interesting. Graham's not at all well, btw - do send him your best wishes.
EDIT: Graham sent this scan of the M.E.N. review of the Shost 3 gig, which hasn't made it online yet. Yet again, nothing about the choir. Sheesh.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Have you ever seen a giraffe who's NOT content?
Well, the guy from The Guardian doesn't mention the choir again, but he seems to have liked the concert. You could infer from his review that he thought we sang ecstatically and gloriously, but only if you read it very carefully (and desperately!) I see it's a different guy from last week, so it's not even as if it's just one of them who's blind...
Sorry to not blog till now, after Thursday night. I had house guests who arrived later that night. (I cursed them all day, because the last thing I wanted to do when I got back from the concert was to tidy and clean the house and make up 4 beds, but by the time I'd done it I realised that the bonus was that my house was tidy for the first time in weeks, so that automatically put me in a better mood, plus it was lovely to see Ruth, who's one of my oldest friends.) Then I had to go straight from work yesterday to a hotel in Gisburn, for our school's annual staff residential training and team-building course. Got home just in time to see United beat Portsmouth, and I'm going to bed in a minute. First chance to catch up on sleep in about 3 weeks \o/
Shostakovich 3 went well. Liz L says that Petroc mentioned the sashes! He did come over and speak to Dr Liz and me, but that was just to ask whether the RNCM chorus was present. (I'd like to think that he asked us because we were clearly the most knowledgeable people there, but in fact it was probably be we were sitting closest to him :p ) The fabulous trumpet bit at the end was as fabulous as ever, but the early part of the symphony (which we hadn't heard till the performance) had some good bits too. Our bit was the best though. Including the page which I belatedly realised reminded me of Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi. No, NOT the bit where she's in the gold bikini. Before that, the first time she appears in the film, she's disguised as a bounty hunter and talks in some strange language. Well, the Russian on one particular page in the middle of Shost 3 sounds exactly like that speech.
No, I don't know which page, I've handed my music in.
Yes, I do realise how sad it is that I noticed the similarity :p
Some good Jamieisms during the warmup. The title of this post comes from the end of one of them, a real classic, which he called out while we were doing a repeated exercise: "Imagine you're a rhinoceros, with a really big horn... An elephant, with a trunk!... A duck-billed platypus, with a, erm, double bill!... An angry gorilla!... A cheeky monkey!... A content giraffe!... What am I saying?!? Have you ever seen a giraffe who's NOT content?"
Also we got "Sopranos, you could really help here by not being asleep." But my favourite moment was when we were doing the quiet "laughing arpeggio" exercise. Jamie's piano accompaniment to this became more and more funky and impressive, in a Jools Holland-ish way. I became convinced that he was prolonging the exercise mainly so he could show off his boogie-woogie skillz :p
Sorry to not blog till now, after Thursday night. I had house guests who arrived later that night. (I cursed them all day, because the last thing I wanted to do when I got back from the concert was to tidy and clean the house and make up 4 beds, but by the time I'd done it I realised that the bonus was that my house was tidy for the first time in weeks, so that automatically put me in a better mood, plus it was lovely to see Ruth, who's one of my oldest friends.) Then I had to go straight from work yesterday to a hotel in Gisburn, for our school's annual staff residential training and team-building course. Got home just in time to see United beat Portsmouth, and I'm going to bed in a minute. First chance to catch up on sleep in about 3 weeks \o/
Shostakovich 3 went well. Liz L says that Petroc mentioned the sashes! He did come over and speak to Dr Liz and me, but that was just to ask whether the RNCM chorus was present. (I'd like to think that he asked us because we were clearly the most knowledgeable people there, but in fact it was probably be we were sitting closest to him :p ) The fabulous trumpet bit at the end was as fabulous as ever, but the early part of the symphony (which we hadn't heard till the performance) had some good bits too. Our bit was the best though. Including the page which I belatedly realised reminded me of Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi. No, NOT the bit where she's in the gold bikini. Before that, the first time she appears in the film, she's disguised as a bounty hunter and talks in some strange language. Well, the Russian on one particular page in the middle of Shost 3 sounds exactly like that speech.
No, I don't know which page, I've handed my music in.
Yes, I do realise how sad it is that I noticed the similarity :p
Some good Jamieisms during the warmup. The title of this post comes from the end of one of them, a real classic, which he called out while we were doing a repeated exercise: "Imagine you're a rhinoceros, with a really big horn... An elephant, with a trunk!... A duck-billed platypus, with a, erm, double bill!... An angry gorilla!... A cheeky monkey!... A content giraffe!... What am I saying?!? Have you ever seen a giraffe who's NOT content?"
Also we got "Sopranos, you could really help here by not being asleep." But my favourite moment was when we were doing the quiet "laughing arpeggio" exercise. Jamie's piano accompaniment to this became more and more funky and impressive, in a Jools Holland-ish way. I became convinced that he was prolonging the exercise mainly so he could show off his boogie-woogie skillz :p
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
*grumble*
Am in oh so very bad a mood. Grr. Tonight's orchestral rehearsal finished just after 8 pm, and I only got home 10 minutes ago. (It would've been 20 minutes ago, to be fair, but I stopped at the chippy because I couldn't be bothered to cook.) There was a committee meeting after the rehearsal, which I decided I'd really better not stay till the end of, as I have hours of work that must be done before tomorrow. So I said I was leaving at 8.55. At 8.54 a perfect opportunity arose to say something I'd wanted to say all meeting, so I did, and this resulted in me not leaving till 9.00 and hence missing the 9.19 train by 30 seconds and having to wait an hour for the next one. Again!!!
I've been in a bad mood all day, though, mainly because of something life-changing that happened to me on 8th February 1996, which was very much on my mind today. (My mind is annoying like that - it remembers all sorts of anniversaries it would be better to forget.) And then I got to the Bridgewater Hall and saw something on the notice board that really offended me (I might've laughed it off if I was in a good mood, but not tonight), so then I was annoyed with myself for getting so annoyed about such a tiny thing. At least the rehearsal was pretty good (nothing noteworthy to report), and there was far less talking than usual (well, the two girls behind me chatted nonstop, but they were from the RNCM).
Oh well. Tomorrow is another day, as they say :-)
I've been in a bad mood all day, though, mainly because of something life-changing that happened to me on 8th February 1996, which was very much on my mind today. (My mind is annoying like that - it remembers all sorts of anniversaries it would be better to forget.) And then I got to the Bridgewater Hall and saw something on the notice board that really offended me (I might've laughed it off if I was in a good mood, but not tonight), so then I was annoyed with myself for getting so annoyed about such a tiny thing. At least the rehearsal was pretty good (nothing noteworthy to report), and there was far less talking than usual (well, the two girls behind me chatted nonstop, but they were from the RNCM).
Oh well. Tomorrow is another day, as they say :-)
Monday, February 06, 2006
A gruesome choral text
Finally - a review! in The Times. It says Shost 2 is "a crazily avant-garde curio, climaxing in a gruesome choral text marking the October Revolution’s 10th anniversary. The Hallé chorus, doomed to sing lines such as “October is happiness in the field and at the work bench” (it sounds better in Russian), were brave and robust."
I suppose it could be worse....
EDIT: And a 5-star review from The Guardian. Which is a fabulous review other than, as has been pointed out below, not mentioning the choir AT ALL. Sheesh. This is a great line, though: "I don't believe that I have ever been so comprehensively bullied by a symphony orchestra before."
I suppose it could be worse....
EDIT: And a 5-star review from The Guardian. Which is a fabulous review other than, as has been pointed out below, not mentioning the choir AT ALL. Sheesh. This is a great line, though: "I don't believe that I have ever been so comprehensively bullied by a symphony orchestra before."
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Mark's on the radio tonight!
He's on Classic FM on The Guest List. "The conductor Mark Elder tells us why taking charge of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester was a chance not to be missed." 10pm till midnight, but I don't know what stage of the programme he'll be on. Thanks to Sheena for pointing this out.
EDIT: He was on right at the start, for half an hour including music, but Graham E has sent a recording that helpfully has just the chat (about 10 minutes - 9MB). Mark didn't mention the choir! We will have to have words >.<
She also alerted me to a concert by the Alteri chamber choir (conducted by David Jones, the Hallé accompanist, and featuring several Hallé singers). It's at Manchester Cathedral on Saturday 18th February and features the music of Jeffrey Lewis. Details are here and a flyer here.
No reviews yet for Thursday's gig, at least not that I can find. The commodore of my sailing club was there, though, and said it was fabulous and the choir was the highlight. He didn't hear the siren, though... Graham E sent me an email saying "here's the men's entry" and after my initial shock that he thought I might want to see such a thing, I noticed (with some relief) that he'd attached an mp3 rather than a picture, and guess what - no siren! In my defence, Libby says she didn't notice it was missing either :-)
Graham's email reminded me of another one he sent me a while ago, alerting me to the fact that our Music Makers CD was picked as one of the best classical albums of 2005 by the Manchester Evening News.
While searching for Shostakovich 2 reviews, I did find two interesting things. Firstly, this Times review says that our concert is not to be missed, which is nice... but I noticed an odd thing. It doesn't say anywhere what Shostakovich was actually played in the concert under review! Pity, because he obviously really liked it... This Independent review is better though. Listen to this bit, when it moves from reviewing the BBC Phil concert to the Hallé concert: "Though the gap between Manchester's symphony orchestras has closed of late, the following night's performance was of a far higher quality. Where the BBC Phil use Bridgewater Hall's flattering acoustics like a therapeutic bath, the Hallé have found a way to cut through the gloss without losing any glow or shimmer." Go team!
EDIT: He was on right at the start, for half an hour including music, but Graham E has sent a recording that helpfully has just the chat (about 10 minutes - 9MB). Mark didn't mention the choir! We will have to have words >.<
She also alerted me to a concert by the Alteri chamber choir (conducted by David Jones, the Hallé accompanist, and featuring several Hallé singers). It's at Manchester Cathedral on Saturday 18th February and features the music of Jeffrey Lewis. Details are here and a flyer here.
No reviews yet for Thursday's gig, at least not that I can find. The commodore of my sailing club was there, though, and said it was fabulous and the choir was the highlight. He didn't hear the siren, though... Graham E sent me an email saying "here's the men's entry" and after my initial shock that he thought I might want to see such a thing, I noticed (with some relief) that he'd attached an mp3 rather than a picture, and guess what - no siren! In my defence, Libby says she didn't notice it was missing either :-)
Graham's email reminded me of another one he sent me a while ago, alerting me to the fact that our Music Makers CD was picked as one of the best classical albums of 2005 by the Manchester Evening News.
While searching for Shostakovich 2 reviews, I did find two interesting things. Firstly, this Times review says that our concert is not to be missed, which is nice... but I noticed an odd thing. It doesn't say anywhere what Shostakovich was actually played in the concert under review! Pity, because he obviously really liked it... This Independent review is better though. Listen to this bit, when it moves from reviewing the BBC Phil concert to the Hallé concert: "Though the gap between Manchester's symphony orchestras has closed of late, the following night's performance was of a far higher quality. Where the BBC Phil use Bridgewater Hall's flattering acoustics like a therapeutic bath, the Hallé have found a way to cut through the gloss without losing any glow or shimmer." Go team!
Thursday, February 02, 2006
"Stand! ... And BE!"
This was Jamie's instruction for the end of Shostakovich 2 (i.e. don't move, stare at the audience till the piece ends) and I must admit I was totally in the moment when it got to that bit. For a second I worshipped Lenin :-)
Gig went pretty well. Not much to say, which is just as well as I have a million things I still have to do before I can sleep, and I was already nodding off hours ago in the concert (not because it was in any way boring, I was just so tired). The ladies' new red sashes made their debut... here are Delphine and Claire modelling them:
I thought they looked pretty good, although there was quite a wide variety in how they looked. A surprising number of people had actually managed to find time to sew them, but there were also loads (including me, naturally) who couldn't have done it if we'd had a week off work. Pat said it would only take a couple of minutes, and I do own a needle - but not a sewing machine, and I'm not entirely sure where the needle is, so it may as well be in a haystack... So I looked at the instructions yesterday with the intention of having a go. But when I saw that step one was "remove the velcro from the shoulders of your choir top" I abandoned the plan there and then, as I knew that step alone would take easily an hour, and there were quite a few more steps! But it was fine, because Pat, in addition to sewing all the sashes in the first place, found the time - and patience! - to help everyone pin theirs on if they hadn't been able to sew them. Thanks Pat :-)
(I must admit I kept expecting someone to accuse me of laziness, saying that if I had time to write a load of waffle on my blog, I must've had time to sew my scarf. But please believe me - writing a load of waffle takes me 10 minutes. It'd take me longer than that to find the needle!)
Claire pointed out that the audience might think the reason we'd got new sashes for this gig was that we were playing the part of revolutionaries, so red was more fitting. I never thought of that! Wonder if Petroc Trelawney mentioned them? He was sitting with the altos, you know. I did a double-take when I realised it was him. He was sitting all on his own with a pair of headphones and a huge furry mic, which he talked quietly into between pieces. It was really weird to have the total silence in the hall broken by this man muttering "Now, Mahler..." etc. The Mahler was the Rückert Lieder, sung by Sarah Connolly, who was fabulous. (I must admit I preferred the Bach, though, which was the first item on the programme - some bits from The Art of Fugue.) And when I left the hall she was sitting in the artists' entrance and admired my hat! It is a great hat, though. I bought it yesterday and it has occasioned much comment since.
Gig went pretty well. Not much to say, which is just as well as I have a million things I still have to do before I can sleep, and I was already nodding off hours ago in the concert (not because it was in any way boring, I was just so tired). The ladies' new red sashes made their debut... here are Delphine and Claire modelling them:
I thought they looked pretty good, although there was quite a wide variety in how they looked. A surprising number of people had actually managed to find time to sew them, but there were also loads (including me, naturally) who couldn't have done it if we'd had a week off work. Pat said it would only take a couple of minutes, and I do own a needle - but not a sewing machine, and I'm not entirely sure where the needle is, so it may as well be in a haystack... So I looked at the instructions yesterday with the intention of having a go. But when I saw that step one was "remove the velcro from the shoulders of your choir top" I abandoned the plan there and then, as I knew that step alone would take easily an hour, and there were quite a few more steps! But it was fine, because Pat, in addition to sewing all the sashes in the first place, found the time - and patience! - to help everyone pin theirs on if they hadn't been able to sew them. Thanks Pat :-)
(I must admit I kept expecting someone to accuse me of laziness, saying that if I had time to write a load of waffle on my blog, I must've had time to sew my scarf. But please believe me - writing a load of waffle takes me 10 minutes. It'd take me longer than that to find the needle!)
Claire pointed out that the audience might think the reason we'd got new sashes for this gig was that we were playing the part of revolutionaries, so red was more fitting. I never thought of that! Wonder if Petroc Trelawney mentioned them? He was sitting with the altos, you know. I did a double-take when I realised it was him. He was sitting all on his own with a pair of headphones and a huge furry mic, which he talked quietly into between pieces. It was really weird to have the total silence in the hall broken by this man muttering "Now, Mahler..." etc. The Mahler was the Rückert Lieder, sung by Sarah Connolly, who was fabulous. (I must admit I preferred the Bach, though, which was the first item on the programme - some bits from The Art of Fugue.) And when I left the hall she was sitting in the artists' entrance and admired my hat! It is a great hat, though. I bought it yesterday and it has occasioned much comment since.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
"Sustain the guy's name - whatever we think of him!"
That's L(y)enin, in case you were wondering... I think possibly the most most amusing moment of tonight was when Jamie said he couldn't remember what the very last word of Shostakovich 2 was. He was somewhat embarrassed when we told him it was L(y)enin :-)
Orchestral rehearsal for Shostakovich 2 tonight. Went quite well. It's much easier with the orchestra - and the siren! Lots of siren-related fun, including it being too loud and often coming in at the wrong place. The highlight, though, was when Rory Macdonald, the Hallé's new Assistant Conductor, who was controlling the siren from a laptop at the back of the hall, managed to broadcast an extremely loud Windows error alert tone through the loudspeakers :p Mark turned round very slowly to glare at him!
We did a new thing tonight, which was that instead of the people sitting on the outside edges of the choir shuffling inwards to join the others when they stood up to sing, we all moved outwards until the whole choir was spread out sufficiently for no-one to be touching each other. This felt pretty good! Made us look - and hence feel - more numerous and confident. Which was the stated aim, so it's just as well :-)
Mark seemed - by the end, at least - fairly happy with our singing. (Although he kept calling the altos "mezzos". Grrr.) The rehearsal finished with the orchestra playing the whole symphony so we could see where we came in. It's not a tuneful piece - we knew that - but I enjoyed it more than I'd expected to. (I don't see myself playing it as relaxing background music any time soon, though!) The highlight for me was the trumpets (this is often the case). There was one bit in particular where there were four totally independent - but equally impressive - trumpet parts. Later on they got to do a fabulous fanfare, but it wasn't as good as the first bit. Oh, and just before we sang, there was a lengthy section which can only be described as the whole orchestra going mad at once. I don't mind a bit of dissonance when there's so much to watch :-)
(We're live on Radio 3 tomorrow night, btw. However, the BBC don't even mention there's a choir in the concert, and neither does the Radio Times. Tsk.)
Incidentally, I am trying to decide which is the most ridiculous Russian word. From symphonies 2 and 3 my personal shortlist is:
• khrabr
• vzmyit
• fploshadee (I was so disappointed when it turned out not to be "sploshadee", as printed... how good a word is that?!?)
Oddly enough, the one word I think we can all say is "ryevalyootseeya". Probably because we can all remember what it's supposed to sound like :-) My favourite Russian word ever, though, remains one from that Prokofiev thing we did (Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, was it called?). It was one of the first words in the piece and was something like "leeshrazhleechnim". I forget what it meant, but I just loved the feeling of saying it :-)
Anyway, enough of the Russian. After the break we'd done all that we needed to do on Shostakovich, so we went elsewhere in the Bridgewater Hall to start work on stuff for the a cappella concert (hint to those who can never remember how to spell that: two words, two Ps, two Ls). It's to be mainly stuff by Vaughan Williams and Tallis (one of which Jamie says is a "fast funky motet which is a bit like a madrigal"), but tonight we just got two of the pieces - Tavener's The Lamb (which many of us had done before) and Tallis's Loquebantur variis linguis ("The apostles spoke in many tongues of the great works of God") (which we hadn't). The latter was very lovely, even at first sight-read. (Jamie was stressing sight-reading methods, and people were doing pretty well tonight. It occurred to me, though, that sometime I must try writing down an explanation of how I sight read, because it's the one thing I'm unnaturally good at - that sounds really arrogant, sorry, but hey - and people often ask me how I do it! I'll try to do that in the next few weeks.)
The tenors were a big focus of the Tallis. There was much amusement at Jamie referring to them as the putty that holds the piece together, but I think it was one of those "you had to be there" moments... There was also Jamie's "Show us your lifebuoy - not show us your life, boys" (referring to them using their stomach muscles). Oh, and today's bits of random music-related trivia:
• where there's a C flat in one part and a C natural in another part in the same bar, that's called a false relation
• tunes like the one in the tenor part of the Tallis are called cantus firmus
• such tunes are usually in the tenor part rather than any of the others, and this is actually the reason why the part got its name - it comes from the Latin for "to hold", because it holds the tune while the other parts add decoration.
There you are, now you blog-readers can impress the people next to you next time we sing the Tallis, by mentioning these things before Jamie does (he hasn't yet...) :-)
A couple of final things. Firstly, I forgot to say yesterday, but Martin brought his son's drawing for us to see. It's extremely impressive. I passed it round the choir - hope it got back to Martin, because I never saw it again!
Secondly, I just noticed tonight that the Hallé official website has some new bits - their archives are now online, including orchestra and choir lists going back a very long time. Go and look!
And finally - if you haven't been in the Green Room at the Bridgewater Hall, or you've been in but weren't paying attention to the walls, go in there the next chance you get. There are loads of signed photos on the wall from visiting performers. I was very amused by the Eddie Izzard one, but the Simon Rattle one is good too :-)
EDIT: Can't sleep - again - so am faffing online. Just saw this article in the Guardian, featuring interviews with stressed-out orchestra players, including Morris Stemp (ex-Hallé). Food for thought. And I'm alarmed to realise that today is Groundhog Day. Imagine if the film came true and we had to sing Shostakovich 2 every day for the foreseeable future :p
Orchestral rehearsal for Shostakovich 2 tonight. Went quite well. It's much easier with the orchestra - and the siren! Lots of siren-related fun, including it being too loud and often coming in at the wrong place. The highlight, though, was when Rory Macdonald, the Hallé's new Assistant Conductor, who was controlling the siren from a laptop at the back of the hall, managed to broadcast an extremely loud Windows error alert tone through the loudspeakers :p Mark turned round very slowly to glare at him!
We did a new thing tonight, which was that instead of the people sitting on the outside edges of the choir shuffling inwards to join the others when they stood up to sing, we all moved outwards until the whole choir was spread out sufficiently for no-one to be touching each other. This felt pretty good! Made us look - and hence feel - more numerous and confident. Which was the stated aim, so it's just as well :-)
Mark seemed - by the end, at least - fairly happy with our singing. (Although he kept calling the altos "mezzos". Grrr.) The rehearsal finished with the orchestra playing the whole symphony so we could see where we came in. It's not a tuneful piece - we knew that - but I enjoyed it more than I'd expected to. (I don't see myself playing it as relaxing background music any time soon, though!) The highlight for me was the trumpets (this is often the case). There was one bit in particular where there were four totally independent - but equally impressive - trumpet parts. Later on they got to do a fabulous fanfare, but it wasn't as good as the first bit. Oh, and just before we sang, there was a lengthy section which can only be described as the whole orchestra going mad at once. I don't mind a bit of dissonance when there's so much to watch :-)
(We're live on Radio 3 tomorrow night, btw. However, the BBC don't even mention there's a choir in the concert, and neither does the Radio Times. Tsk.)
Incidentally, I am trying to decide which is the most ridiculous Russian word. From symphonies 2 and 3 my personal shortlist is:
• khrabr
• vzmyit
• fploshadee (I was so disappointed when it turned out not to be "sploshadee", as printed... how good a word is that?!?)
Oddly enough, the one word I think we can all say is "ryevalyootseeya". Probably because we can all remember what it's supposed to sound like :-) My favourite Russian word ever, though, remains one from that Prokofiev thing we did (Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, was it called?). It was one of the first words in the piece and was something like "leeshrazhleechnim". I forget what it meant, but I just loved the feeling of saying it :-)
Anyway, enough of the Russian. After the break we'd done all that we needed to do on Shostakovich, so we went elsewhere in the Bridgewater Hall to start work on stuff for the a cappella concert (hint to those who can never remember how to spell that: two words, two Ps, two Ls). It's to be mainly stuff by Vaughan Williams and Tallis (one of which Jamie says is a "fast funky motet which is a bit like a madrigal"), but tonight we just got two of the pieces - Tavener's The Lamb (which many of us had done before) and Tallis's Loquebantur variis linguis ("The apostles spoke in many tongues of the great works of God") (which we hadn't). The latter was very lovely, even at first sight-read. (Jamie was stressing sight-reading methods, and people were doing pretty well tonight. It occurred to me, though, that sometime I must try writing down an explanation of how I sight read, because it's the one thing I'm unnaturally good at - that sounds really arrogant, sorry, but hey - and people often ask me how I do it! I'll try to do that in the next few weeks.)
The tenors were a big focus of the Tallis. There was much amusement at Jamie referring to them as the putty that holds the piece together, but I think it was one of those "you had to be there" moments... There was also Jamie's "Show us your lifebuoy - not show us your life, boys" (referring to them using their stomach muscles). Oh, and today's bits of random music-related trivia:
• where there's a C flat in one part and a C natural in another part in the same bar, that's called a false relation
• tunes like the one in the tenor part of the Tallis are called cantus firmus
• such tunes are usually in the tenor part rather than any of the others, and this is actually the reason why the part got its name - it comes from the Latin for "to hold", because it holds the tune while the other parts add decoration.
There you are, now you blog-readers can impress the people next to you next time we sing the Tallis, by mentioning these things before Jamie does (he hasn't yet...) :-)
A couple of final things. Firstly, I forgot to say yesterday, but Martin brought his son's drawing for us to see. It's extremely impressive. I passed it round the choir - hope it got back to Martin, because I never saw it again!
Secondly, I just noticed tonight that the Hallé official website has some new bits - their archives are now online, including orchestra and choir lists going back a very long time. Go and look!
And finally - if you haven't been in the Green Room at the Bridgewater Hall, or you've been in but weren't paying attention to the walls, go in there the next chance you get. There are loads of signed photos on the wall from visiting performers. I was very amused by the Eddie Izzard one, but the Simon Rattle one is good too :-)
EDIT: Can't sleep - again - so am faffing online. Just saw this article in the Guardian, featuring interviews with stressed-out orchestra players, including Morris Stemp (ex-Hallé). Food for thought. And I'm alarmed to realise that today is Groundhog Day. Imagine if the film came true and we had to sing Shostakovich 2 every day for the foreseeable future :p
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