Well, men obviously can say "der", but why is it that they have to be constantly reminded to say it as "deer", and they do it brilliantly, and then 5 minutes later they're back to "dair"? It's not even as if this instruction has ever changed - it's been the same very time we've EVER done anything in German. (I'm sure there are some men who pronounce it perfectly every time, but they are sadly overshadowed by those who don't.)
The picture at the top, by the way, is Suzanne, who's our new 1st alto whose first concert was last night. In recognition of this, Jamie gave his flowers to her. Sweet eh? (It was Dimitri's first concert as well, but Jamie only had one lot of flowers and he happened to pass Suzanne first!)
The concert (Kodaly and Beethoven, for those who aren't keeping track) went pretty well - the audience seemed to love it. I enjoyed it in the end - it's hard NOT to enjoy performing when spontaneous cheers erupt at the end - but I can't help suspecting how much better it would have been if we'd done the Beethoven from memory. Like many of the choir, the Oldham performance of 1999 is one of my best memories of all my time in the choir. I was SO proud to be in the choir that night. And last night just felt as if the choir had gone backwards - how come the 1999 choir could memorise something but the 2006 choir couldn't? The 2006 choir is SO much better vocally, but there are too many people in it whose general attitude seems to be "I'm not doing that, why should I?"
It's unfortunate, of course, that the Beethoven wasn't rehearsed in the summer as scheduled, so people didn't get as early a start as they needed. Although the Ravel and Kodaly obviously needed much more rehearsal than the Beethoven, I think it would have really helped people to have sung through it once (which would have taken 20 minutes). But it's also unfortunate that Jamie's message, via David Lawrence, that people who'd never sung the piece before and couldn't learn it in time could stand at the back with their copies, was apparently interpreted by most of the choir as "oh, so we don't have to do it from memory then", with the result that Jamie was confronted, at the PIANO REHEARSAL of a piece that we were due to sing from memory, with the sight of at least 80% of the choir with their copies out. (I didn't count how many people it was, but it looked like at least that many to me - does anyone disagree?) And David Lawrence must have told him that when we sang it from memory at the end of the previous rehearsal, there were a significant number of people (not 80%, but quite a few, and by no means just new people) who refused to even try, and stood there with their copies. Faced with all these circumstances, I can understand why Jamie reached the decision he did, although I still don't like it.
Sorry to whinge, but I'm just fed up with life in general at the moment, and although I get like this from time to time, choir is generally the one thing that cheers me up and takes my mind off other problems - so when choir is ADDING to my bad mood, I'm unimpressed. Also, I'd like to point out that although I'm sure lots of you are thinking "it's all very well for her to go on and on about memorising, she already knew it!", the reason I've appeared so confident is that I have put in a LOT of work on the Beethoven in the last few weeks. I did already know it from memory, it's true, but singing the tenor part of it in Todmorden a few months ago really unsettled my knowledge of the alto part, so I've had to put in extra effort to make sure I didn't sing the wrong part by mistake. And then there were changes, for example a couple of bits where the 2nd altos were asked to sing the tenor part, so they needed extra practice because I had the original version so firmly in my head. And then on Wednesday night there were a few details that Mark asked for, which I hadn't been doing, so I spent quite a bit of time on Thursday getting those bits into my head. Thursday was a horrible day anyway, as I've already said, but to get to choir and find that all that work had been wasted was just the last straw. And I don't blame Jamie - I blame the people who caused him to reach that decision because they just couldn't be bothered to try.
Anyway, the anonymous-commenters-who-hate-me will probably only hate me more for saying all that, but I don't really care. (Well, I do, but not enough to delete it.) But I do have some fun things to finish with - Jamieisms from yesterday!
There were a few alto-related ones, not all complimentary - for example, when he was talking about the end, and said "it's not over till....." and then looked at the altos! The cheek! There was also "There's no faffing around, altos!" (this referred to the first entry in the Beethoven, but I'm not sure now why it was so funny!) And of course "Altos, on that extraordinarily altoid moment..." (this referred to our solo "steht")
There was lots of amusement over Jamie's loo-chain-pulling analogy, which concerned the stressing of the crotchets rather than the minims in the main theme. (The sops demonstrated this an octave lower in order to save their voices, and most of them sang a D below middle C before realising what they'd done. Amazing!)
The one that amused me most, though, was: "Now. Your bathroom. Page 40." And that's because I still have no clue what the bathroom had to do with it! It was the start of the big fugue, though - can anyone explain the bathroom link? Unless it's just back to the loo-chain-pulling...
I must go do some work now. But I almost forgot - the M.E.N. gave our CD a 5-star review, although typically they didn't mention the choir. But Graham E says The Hills was played on Radio 3 this afternoon, so at least someone's paying attention!
9 comments:
Is it possible for you to be specific in your repertoire? I'm wondering what Kodaly piece you did.
Sorry, I should have said - it was Psalmus Hungaricus. Great piece!
I remember it cos Der rhymes with Beer! Then I draw little pictures of tankards of beer in my music, which reminds me and amuses me!
I wanted to do it from memory, although I was very scared by the prospect as the words really didn't stick in my head. I agree that if we'd maybe had a little more rehearsal then it might have been better. But then you can never change some people's attitudes, can you?
By the way, I loved the rehearsals with David Lawerence, and I've asked Jamie if he might become the regular stand in. I felt that compared to other stand in conductors we generally just seem to tread water with and not make much progress, but with David I felt it came together really well and we made real progress.
Are we getting a copy of the CD (those of us who were at the recording.)? I hope so!
My guide to the pronunciation of 'der' gives 'dair' and was thus taught to me at WHGS!
The word appears in e.g. the conversation in Exeter University's German course:
http://www.ex.ac.uk/german/abinitio/chap6-1.html
'Deer' it isn't!
Given the problems which were caused by thoughtlessness on (and before) Saturday, I really feel that agonizing over the pronunciation of 'Der' is navel contemplation of the highest order.
I also feel that the reasons we did not do it from memory were much more complex than has been suggested. It is easy to blame 'other members of the choir' but the reason why scores were used at the piano rehearsal was because of the way it was chosen to conduct the rehearsal.
Don't you mean 'middle order', Terry?
I agree that we got a lot done with David Lawrence. I think at least part of it is (although certainly not the only reason) that he spoke loudly enough. Some of the other stand-in conductors are very difficult to hear, so the people who are prone to chat just do it all the more, so the situation gets worse!
Graham, I was always taught that it's pronounced "dair", but that in order to make it sound properly German it needs to be "deer". (For a similar reason, I was always taught to pronounce Gloria as "Kloria" when in choirs, as the combined effect makes it sound as it should.)
And Terry, I know the "der" is a small point but it really bugged me! And yes, the no-scores issue is probably more complex than I'm implying, and I have no idea of the actual reasons why Jamie changed his mind, or why no-one asked people to put their scores down at the piano rehearsal. I'm just describing the way it seemed to me.
Well, I said to the soprano rep weeks ago that we should be starting to do bits of the Beethoven to get it committed to memory. I remembered a lot from before but had spent loads of time singing along to it in the car and having it going through my head when I was going to sleep. There were at least three sopranos who went on the platform with empty folders and some people in the audience did notice we weren't turning pages. The most annoying thing was that I could have spent this time learning O Holy Night which I'm singing at the Police & Fire Service combined carol service at Chester Cathedral, and would like to do from memory, instead of wasting time learning the Beethoven when in the end I didn't need to. Problem is, will anyone bother to learn anything from memory ever again? I agree that the concert in Oldham was very memorable - especially the look on Mark's face when he saw we had no books.
There were quite a few altos who had empty folders too. I wondered if anyone noticed.
If it was up to me, we'd be doing the whole of Messiah from memory. How hard can it be? We already memorised the hardest-to-memorise bit. I bet most people could do most of it from memory tomorrow. (I thought it was insane that we didn't do the end from memory last year, building on what we'd done the previous year. But what do I know?)
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