Spee reet een eet!

JAMIE: Are you still saying 'spiritu'? I don't recommend it. It sounds dull. Say 'spee ree too'.

CHOIR: Spee ree too.

JAMIE: Yes! That's so much better. It's actually got spirit in it.

CHOIR: Spee reet een eet!

---

This was the most amusing moment from a REALLY long and tiring - but good - day today. It was the Mozart C minor mass gig with Mark. We were there at 11.30 a.m. this morning, having also rehearsed last night. And of course we had the piano rehearsal with Mark on Wednesday. And I haven't blogged about any of them, due to various nightmarish non-choir-related reasons that I can't go into here - at least, not yet - but those who don't know may be able to guess if they notice that my profile has changed ever so slightly... Sorry, anyway. I should be asleep now but several people asked me today what had happened to the blog, so I thought I'd better at least post the accumulated Jamieisms and Markisms!

The concert went really well, by the way. We got Petrushka in the first half - not really my cup of tea - and then the stage was totally rearranged for the Mozart. (Mark, ever innovative, had the woodwind right at the front, i.e. in front of the strings. Never seen that before!) The soloists were all fabulous, particularly Susan Gritton. (Although we almost scared her away with our tractors... she arrived in the choir assembly area just as we started warming up, and seemed quite startled!) And I must admit I hardly spotted any mistakes from the choir. The 1st altos got their F# right in the middle of Qui Tollis for possibly the first time ever, although the C-G-Eb-Bb bar in the Credo was still a disaster area for the altos as a whole (very few people got the G) and a scary number of people were still double-dotting in the Gratias - I say 'scary' because of the number of times this was mentioned and practised. But apart from these two aspects, I think everything was pretty good. (Well, apart from the alto seating plan, which has been riddled with mistakes for ages now - every time a new one is produced, we have to amend it by swapping seats with each other so that the firsts are actually all sitting with firsts and the seconds are all with seconds. There are quite a few people who have given up hope of ever being put in the right place. At least everyone was ON the plan today, though, which is a big improvement on the last few rehearsals, so maybe there's hope yet!)

Anyway, a few more quotes from the last week:

Jamie: My favourite joke just happens to involve pandas. (Dr Liz went to find out what this joke was, and it was so rubbish I can't even remember!)

Mark: Ma-éstro! (suggesting that this was a word that we might like to practise in addition to 'Deo'!)

Mark: "Sancto-sss - it's a Spanish word originally. ... I'm lying."

A tenor came in early at one point.... Jamie: "Nice!" (nodding a la Fast Show jazz guy)

Jamie: Sometime we'll have to get a video camera in - you'd be surprised what tenses up when you're singing.

Jamie: Have you had sun-dried tomatoes in the last week? (I can't remember why on earth he said this! But it seemed relevant at the time....)

Must sleep now. Word to the wise: if you have your own copy of The Music Makers, you might wish to dig it out and put it in your choir bag....