"Let the 2nd tenors have their moment of glory!"

I was incredibly tempted to just do a post that repeated "I love it I love it I love it!" lots of times. Have I mentioned that the Verdi Requiem is my absolute favourite work and I love it more than all the other things we've ever done ALL PUT TOGETHER? Well, I do :-)

And last night we sang the whole thing. It was extremely wonderful. Can't wait to do it in more detail and get it even better! (Mind you, it'll immediately improve when everyone realises that the dynamics are there for a REASON. There were far too many people who seemed to think pppp didn't apply to them, and didn't sing below mf until TOLD they were too loud. Why would he have wasted ink writing pppp if he didn't mean it?!) We had the lovely David Lawrence guiding us through the experience, and he did a brilliant job - apart from anything else, he managed to time things so that we finished the last note at 9.15! Impressive!

The 2nd tenors quote isn't from last night - it's something I already had written in my score, although I can't remember who said it. It's from page 67 in the Rex tremendae bit of the Dies Irae, and in that bar the 2nd tenors go up to a top B flat while the 1st tenors stay on middle C. I presume someone must have asked whether it would make more sense to switch the parts round, and the answer above is the one that was given! (Seems fair enough to me - our current 2nd tenors are really rather brilliant.) Wish I could remember who/when it was - I've done the Requiem several times, but I'm told the last time was in 2001. (If anyone can remember who it was with etc. I'd love to know!)

Anyway, I thought I'd post a few other things I discovered scribbled in my score. I know there are a few of you who like to know random bits of information about the music! Note that I don't know who any of these quotes are from, sorry - but none of them are mine. I suspect a lot are Stuart Beer (Manchester Cathedral) - the first time I did the Requiem properly was with him. (I don't count the first time I *actually* did it, which was a "Verdi Requiem from scratch" alumni day at my old university. As is often the case on this occasions, I sang 1st tenor that day.)

Requiem/Kyrie

p.7 last bar: "Like a door opening into a world of light"

p.8-9: In this section the soloists "dance across the stage one by one, like ballerinas making their first entrance and saying 'hi!'"

Dies Irae

p.22: Watch the audience (obviously!)

p.23: Note the difference between the first bar of the bottom line and the first bar of the previous page.... the MOST FAMOUS BASS DRUM IN ALL MUSIC. Just wait till you hear it live. (Oh, and also, this is the first time it plays in the piece, and the direction in the score is "le corde ben tese onde questo contrattempo riesca secco e molto forte". Which I'm having a bit of trouble translating, but I think it's something to do with making the snares tight so that the sound is dry and very loud (I'm sure you got that last bit!))

p.31: "Sing as if you're too nervous to sing legato, but also too nervous to breathe in the gaps." "DON'T LOOK DOWN."

P.32-7: Trumpets! The score shows which bits are played by the trumpets in the distance. But it doesn't show that the "afar" bits switch from side to side (e.g. the entry in the 3rd bar might be on the right, and the octave echo on the left). All the trumpets join in one by one, and get louder, till they're joined by the rest of the orchestra at letter D. But if you thought the trumpet bit ended at letter D, read on! After the men try to drown out the orchestra with their "tuba mirum" entry, the trumpets play arpeggios all over the place, and they echo each other. Plus, I've done the piece at least once when the distant trumpets were asked to move closer to the stage every few bars, until in the bar before E, when it says "trumpets afar", they were actually onstage. The effect was electric.

(On pages 36 and 37, everything I have written - which is a lot - is in much, much bigger writing than I usually use. I suspect this is probably because I'm always so excited in this section!)

(For the last chord in this section - on "omnes" - in one performance I did, we were instructed to sing the highest note in that chord that we could manage, regardless of what our part said...)

p.37-8: Look at all the notes marked "con 8va sotto" on the last beat of each bar. That means "with the octave below", and it's that bass drum again (just a BIT quieter than its previous entry) along with a pizzicato double bass note (that's where the octave comes in). The bass players have to work hard here, because (unlike the bass drum) they have to play the rest of the bar too, but the first three beats each time are marked arco. Always fun to watch! Will this be the year one of them drops their bow? Also, watch out for the 2-bar-long F sharp halfway down p.38. This is a unison note played by all the oboes, clarinets, bassoons (did I mention there are 4 bassoons in this piece? I'll mention them again later) and horns. But the horns always stand out, because (a) they're marked frizzante (sparkling), and (b) they're horns! And I'm an oboist... but I love horns doing stuff like this.

p.46: The top line is in 4. The rest of the page is in 2. So, although it looks at first as if there are fewer notes, it actually goes from groups of 6 to groups of 8. ("Lo stesso movimento tra le sei e le otte note" means, more or less, that the six notes ('sei note' and the eight notes ('otte note') are the same speed as each other - i.e. the beat stays the same despite changing from 4 to 2.) On the bottom line I have written "Scream!" I *think* that was an actual instruction....

p.50-55: The bass line of the accompaniment here is a virtuoso bassoon solo. The two clarinets play the first bar and similar bits (until the violins steal it from them beautifully at the start of p.54), and the strings do very subtle backing chords, but otherwise it's the 1st bassoon all the way. Oh, and page 51 starts with a Neapolitan chord - you know how I love those!

p.56: Lots of instruments play along with the basses, but it's the trombones that usually make their presence most felt. Then the horns double the tenors. Just in case you were wondering.

p.63: I love the last bar of this page, where (although it's shown in the vocal score) a solo horn doubles the mezzo solo. It's yummy! You'll see.

p.66-7: A quadruple-dotted note! I don't remember ever seeing one of those anywhere else. And actually, in my miniature score, the preceding three phrases have quadruple dots too, and I think we've usually been asked to do them all like that. Then on p.67 is the famous 2nd tenor glory bit. And, not to be outdone, the 1st sops were asked to sing along with the soprano soloist last time we did this....

p.76-9: Last bar of page 76 is the start of another mega bassoon solo. I think Verdi liked bassoons. Whereas the top line of page 78 is a lovely *oboe* solo. About time. And the last line of page 79 is a *very* Verdi-ish operatic tenor bit.

p.80: The second bar of the bass solo has lots of instruments joining in, but it's the timps that always grab my attention. Also in this section I really like the double bass/bassoon (again!) octave bit on the bottom line of page 80, and the wildness (with the piccolo leading the attack) in the last bar of page 81.

p.84: It's watch the audience time again! And for utmost shock value, we've usually been instructed to only stand when the moment actually arrives. My score says "STAND IN TERROR!"

p.88: Bottom line... Officer Krupke bit. Or is that just me?

p.91: "Light at the end of the tunnel."

p.92-4: The trombones, timps and bass drum play a ppp oom-cha-cha type accompaniment. You'll never notice it unless you're watching out for it, especially because we all have a good tune to sing at the same time.

p.96: I *love* the descending bass line here (cellos and - guess what - bassoons). The basses in the choir join in halfway through, but the orchestral basses have already done a full octave scale before that. Similarly, the 2nd basses have another good line on page 100.

Domine Jesu

p.106: Lovely cello solo that goes on till the bottom of the next page, when - shock horror - the 1st bassoon joins in.

p.112-3: The semiquaver arpeggios here are much more complicated than they look. The piccolo goes down one octave then up again; the 1st flute goes down *two* octaves then up again (so they're only going the same way at the start and end of each bar); the 1st clarinet goes up two octaves *then* down; and the 2nd violins split themselves into 4 parts and play on alternate semiquavers while going down one octave then up again. No, I'm not making this up. (Oh, and of COURSE the bassoon joins in when the violins stop.)

p.121: The first bar of this page, in the soprano line, is a hint of the Agnus Dei tune that we've not yet heard.

p.127: I like the ppp string quavers on the top line.

Sanctus

p.131: This is a double fugue, which means two subjects (= main tunes) that fit together even after they've developed themselves. The first subject is the one that the 1st sops lead off with; the countersubject is the one that the 2nd sops lead off with. Everything different is just filler. (In particular, the violins start to get a bit clever on pages 140-1, but the last three bars of p.141 are the ones I usually notice - just after the soprano soloist blasts out her top B flat. p.144 onwards is a similarly pretty bit of accompaniment.)

p.149: The chromatic scales start in the last bar of the page, and continue for 3 pages... the high instruments get one first, then the bass instruments (yes, the bassoons again) and then in the last bar of page 151 the whole orchestra joins in (usually drowned by the trombones, but in a good way!) and we get a WOW moment.

p.153: My score says "preposterous!!!" I wish I could remember who said that!

Agnus Dei

p.155: "Like an Italian monastery."

p.156-7: Flute and clarinet have a nice almost-counter-melody in octaves. And I really like the chord progression at the top of page 157.

p.159: The accompaniment here is a flute trio (and nothing else). Lovely.

Lux Aeterna

p.163: The demisemiquavers in the vocal score are actually a double timp roll - 2 different players both rolling at the same time, one on a B flat and one on an F. This goes on for ten bars, and for large parts of those ten bars it's the only accompaniment. I also like the bit that I've got annotated as the "very requiemish trombone bit" on the top line, and the flute solo (the A to B flat) on the bottom line is much more impressive than it looks!

p.168: Good flute and clarinet bit on bottom line. (They do it again on the last page of the movement, and this time the flute gets the last word.)

Libera me

p.175: "Like priests at the far end of a cathedral."

p.176: Remember those 4 bassoons? As if they haven't had enough flashy bits earlier, halfway down this page they get a quartet all to themselves! The last two notes before letter A are the first time all four of them are in unison, and it's a weird sound. It's followed immediately by the flutes playing chromatic crotchets while the violins dance around them.

p.177: On the second line, the 1st violins continue their semiquavers and the flutes move to a unison low trill. But the fun bits are in the 2nd violins and violas, who swoop up and down as if they're chasing each other. (The viola swoops are in the vocal score, but the 2nd violin ones aren't shown - they come in between the viola ones.)

p.178: Watch the audience again :-) This bit has different words to before - it makes it much harder for some reason.

p.189-192: THIS is my favourite bit of the whole piece. It occurred to me the other night that when I said "the a cappella bit in the last movement", you might have thought I meant the chanting at the start of it - but no. The last four bars are my VERY favourite (they finish on a pppp top B flat! Imagine!), but I do love the rest of it too - especially the Neapolitan-with-extra-bass-note at the bottom of page 191. Mmmmmmmm.

p.193: And then, not satisfied with showing off her quiet top notes, she continues with another dramatic bit! But this one's even better than the first one, because it leads to another funky fugue, and this time THE ALTOS START IT. Clearly Verdi realised that it was safest to give it to the best people in the choir - things could go horribly wrong horribly soon if this bit wasn't right :p I also like the fact that it's totally a cappella apart from the cadential chords from the ENTIRE ORCHESTRA. Whee!

p.196: Last bar top line, the tenors are the last of the four parts to finish the fugue subject, so at this point the development starts and the whole orchestra joins in with the voices.

p.203: The soprano soloist gets bored with being out of the limelight, and interrupts to change the mood. However, the choir sops are on the warpath by now, and they battle for top note supremacy with her. I suspect this upsets her, so she drops out again at the end of page 207.

p.208: The fugue gets going again, this time in a stretto section (that means the subject comes in much sooner so the tunes overlap more) accompanied by a woodpecker motif thrown round the upper woodwind. (The quavers shown in the vocal score in (e.g.) the last-but-one bar of the page are part of this motif, but the vocal score is very misleading - there are actually 6 quavers in almost every bar of these couple of pages.)

p.211: I have "WATCH!" and "READY!" etc. written all over this page. Last time we did it, it slowed down dramatically in the last two bars of the page... then it was a tempo AND subito ppp immediately after the page turn. You can imagine the carnage until people got the hang of this :p

p.215: "STEADY, then... VOOM!" The sops were distraught to learn, last time, that the small notes that lead them up to the top C are an editorial addition, and nothing to do with Verdi at all! Just as well, because if they sang that, we'd probably never hear the repeated quavers the trumpets are blasting out at that point, and I like that bit :-)

p.217: Unbelievably, every time I've sung this, on this page there's always been someone who either hasn't come in, or sang the wrong line. This suggests to me that they were too lazy to mark their score. It's bad enough that they sang it the first time without having looked ahead to see which line they were singing - but every time I've performed the piece, people have still got this page wrong in the orchestral rehearsal. Hopefully the choir is enlightened enough these days that it won't happen this time!

p.218 (last page): I can't remember who said this, but I have a feeling it might have been Mark.... "Verdi was agnostic. So the end has to be uncertain... but hopeful." The octave semiquavers on the bottom line are actually a timp roll (not in octaves at all - that's just to make it easier on the piano), which is the only accompaniment that continues under the whole of the last line.

That ended up rather longer than I'd expected. If you read this far, I hope at least some of it was interesting and/or useful!

---

Oh, and before I forget, Man Utd are at home on Wednesday (when the choir are rehearsing in Salford, not far from the ground). You may wish to plan your travel accordingly. (I may yet go to the match instead of the rehearsal - depends on whether or not I can get anyone to use my ticket.)