"Like a glass of lime juice after a chocolate pudding."

I don't think this is a literal translation of "Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck". (Well, in fact I know it's not, because the score tells us that means "Merry in tempo and bold in expression".) But it's how Mark Elder says the 5th movement of Mahler 3 should be. (He also said "you're here to give simple, direct pleasure", which I kind of liked the sound of but wasn't sure how to do, and that we were to be, above all, cheeky. Cheeky, we agreed, is easier. Although I had to restrain Gill from doing Cheeky Girls impressions for the rest of the rehearsal after this instruction...)

EDIT: I forgot to mention the oboe! In the few bars before the 5th movement when the choir joins in, there is a prominent oboe cue. But he played it in a really weird way - with a strange tone and a glissando from the F to the A. Never heard an oboe do that before - and I'm an oboist! Never heard Mahler 3 played that way before either. Am fascinated as to whether it's a Mark invention or whether Mahler wanted it that way. The direction in the score is 'hinaufziehen', which means 'approaching from below'... which I suppose could be interpreted like this...

EDIT 2: A couple of people asked me to find out which way the coach will be going to Sheffield on Saturday. I have enquired, and unfortunately the coach will be unable to stop en route, so the route is a moot point. Sorry.

I have to admit that the thing that amused me most tonight (which was the piano AND orchestral rehearsal for the Mahler, in case you were wondering) was the repeated mention of the word "Keck!" (which is German for "bold") However, you have to be a World of Warcraft player to understand why this is so funny, and I suspect that the Hallé Choir/WoW intersection is an extremely small group... You'd be surprised how many random visitors come here looking for "orcish translators", though, so I may as well point out that if a Horde player says "LOL" (in Orcish) it appears as "kek" to Alliance players. (If there are any WoW players among the choir, can I direct you to my WoW reference page? And in particular to the LotR-WoW animated gif linked from it, which features the funniest ever use of "kek"...)

That last paragraph was possibly the saddest, geekiest one ever, wasn't it? Sorry about that :p I'd better regain the attention of my non-geeky readers by pointing them to a couple of interesting features from the Guardian and the Observer - one about a tone-deaf woman trying to learn to sing 'Happy Birthday', and a great speech about why we should talk more about the music we listen to. (You may have to register to read those, but it's free and well worth the effort.)

Need to sleep soon - only just got home, because there was a committee meeting after the rehearsal (quite a productive one). Couple of things to point out before I go, though - firstly, after the live baseball on Channel 5 finished in the early hours of this morning (about 4 am), I was flicking through the channels and was very surprised to suddenly find the choir on TV! BBC4 were repeating our Gerontius thing from the Proms. Hadn't noticed that in the listings. (And, before you ask, I'm still being promised DVDs of that... yes, really...) And finally, our gig on Thursday is live on Radio 3. Not sure who I'll be able to persuade to listen when it's also Big Brother launch night :p