Kansalliskuorolle kiitollisuudella omistettu

This fabulous phrase appears above the title of Oma Maa. I've been wondering what it meant ever since I first noticed it. Tonight I finally got round to doing a bit of googling. I can tell you that the middle word appears to mean "gratefully" or "with thanks", but I got nowhere with the other two. However, I assume it's just a dedication rather than anything more interesting.

It was the Sibelius piano rehearsal tonight. It was an awful lot better than many of us expected it to be - either people had done some homework, or Mark inspired them, or both! It was all a bit behind the beat, but no doubt it will get better as the words become second nature. (Personally, I'm finding it VERY hard to say "yön" or "yöt" without the y, but I'll get there. At least I know how to say that one in theory - there are still a few sounds I don't think I've been told about!)

I think I need to mutter Finnish to myself for the next week and a half. (Luckily everyone already thinks I'm weird...) If you want to see the words on their own, try this Finnish wiki page. Oh, and while I was looking for that, I also found this, about a Finnish proverb. Pretty!

EDIT: I noticed that the words on that wiki page don't all correspond to our version, so here's an accurate version for you to download. (That's the alto line, but I'm sure others can edit it if they need to.) I had it by my desk at work today and found myself muttering "Raittihit talviset säät". Bits of it are starting to stick!

Some memorable moments of the rehearsal were: the Finnish language coach (I *still* haven't caught her name) illustrating how we should sing page 6 as if we were shivering in snow at -20 degrees; Mark telling us that every house in Finland has a ladder built onto the side of it so that people can easily climb onto the roof to remove snow; the fact that I sat next to Adam from the youth choir, who allowed me to grumble at him about life in general, knew who I was as soon as I told him my name, and said nice things about this blog! Oh, and best of all - the ladies got an early night! I don't think I was the only one who failed to put two and two together and work out that the men also had to rehearse The Origin of Fire tonight. Whee!

2nd EDIT: Someone at work today showed me the Man Cold clip, which amused me a lot :-)

"The mood is right... The spirit's up... We're here tonight... And that's enough!"

I imagine I'm not the only one who's already rehearsing Christmas stuff. My band is taking part in the Henry Watson music library's Christmas Music Day on 15th December, so it's sleigh bells all the way till then! Last week I did a new a cappella arrangement of "Wonderful Christmas Time" (which is where the title of this comes from). I'd planned to save a bit of time by adapting parts of the Youth Choir arrangement that we all enjoyed so much (I bet I'm not the only one who surreptitiously photocopied it!) but then I realised that it omitted some of my favourite bits (like the intro!) so I started from scratch. I was delighted to find that it worked perfectly first time, although I'm not sure whether or not we'll include it at the Henry Watson. But I've had it on the brain ever since.

Sorry for the gap in posting. Since I can no longer write about the most entertaining aspect of choir rehearsals, it's hard to get motivated to write at all. But I seem to have accumulated a few links to share, so here you are!

I've just updated my online choir schedule to reflect recent changes. There are several football fixture changes too, for those who like to know about such things. I'm unimpressed that I can't go to any of United's home games in November - 7th and 27th clash with choir, and the game on 10th (which I could have gone to) has now been moved to 11th (when I can't). Argh. Although, I suppose it balances out, because they've also moved a game from 1st December (when I couldn't go) to 3rd (when I can). And I was alarmed to find they'd moved one from 22nd December (which was easy) to 23rd (which is a day featuring 2 concerts). But it's a 12 noon kickoff, so I reckoned I could still go to that *and* make the 3pm concert, if I could get from my seat at Old Trafford to the Bridgewater Hall in less than an hour. I knew it'd be more or less impossible by tram or bus or car (if I had one) so it came down to whether or not I could walk it in that time. So I tried yesterday. The players left the pitch (and I left my seat) at 4.55pm, and I reached the Hall at 5.40. Easy!

I had a couple of unexpected emails this week. The first says "Hi - is the expression 'Halle racket' anything to do with the choir?" to which I replied "Not as far as I know - I have to admit I've never heard the expression, and I've been in the choir for 14 years! I'll ask around though. Where did you hear this expression?" and received the response "It is a very common expression used to describe a great noise, in a respectful way. I was told many years ago that it came from either the Halle Choir or the Halle Orchestra." ... Is it just me that's NEVER heard this expression? I googled it and found nothing. I also asked a few people, and none of them had ever heard of it either. We did wonder whether she'd got it muddled with "hell of a racket".... any other suggestions?

Other unexpected email, which I can only imagine he intended me to mention here (although he didn't say so): "I'm contacting you regarding our forthcoming BBC1 Saturday night primetime television series 'The Ultimate Tribute' - hosted by Graham Norton. We are looking for singers for this new talent show, who think they have what it takes to be transformed into a successful tribute artist for a number of musical icons. And the stakes are high - with a performance contract in Las Vegas for the winner! Auditions will be held around the country from November 2nd 2007. We are looking for both amateur and professional performers around the country - so anyone who may feel that they have a talent can apply to come along and audition. There's not long until auditions, so people who are interested must get in touch soon! Deadline for applications is midnight on Thursday 1st November 2007. More information can be found here. Should you have any further queries, you can contact me on: 020 8222 4786." (I should add, for people who like this sort of thing, that you can also audition for Big Brother soon...)

And one more thing I've been meaning to mention for ages: I heard on the Guardian Unlimited Football Weekly podcast (which I highly recommend to any footy fans) that the Spanish word "cantar" not only means "to sing" (as you'd expect) but also "to make a goalkeeping error". So a few weeks ago, they said, there were lots of headlines in Spain comparing a certain goalie to Pavarotti, because he had a nightmare of a game. However, I can't find anything to back this up - can any of you confirm or deny?

So, finally, those links I promised.

The BBC Phil did The Planets without us! I'm unimpressed. I wonder if we were even asked? We could easily have squeezed it in.

For Harry Potter fans: the Leaky Cauldron has a page where they're summarising all the info released by J.K. Rowling since book 7 came out. They're a little bit behind but they're always very industrious so I'm sure they'll get caught up soon.

Here's a link to a YouTube video that the Guardian blog called the greatest of all time. See if you agree.

Recently I discovered the existence of a company called Big Wilf's Bell Muffles (Big Wilf himself emailed me at work). I found the FAQ - and, in fact, the very existence of the company - totally fascinating! Do have a read.

Also work-related: I discovered an online British Sign Language dictionary (with videos). (It works on mobile phones too.) From this, I discovered the sign for "sing", which amused me greatly!

FreeRice is a vocabulary game (for a good cause) that's far too addictive. Hint: don't waste time, like I did, trying to get higher than a vocab level of 50 - you can't!

We're getting a new Santa on top of the Town Hall this year. About time... although it's never been quite the same since we had the old Santa climbing up the tower and his reindeer on the roof, in my opinion.

Have any of you noticed the huge poster on the side of the Palace Theatre and exclaimed "That CAN'T be David Essex!" Well, apparently there is some discussion going on about how large he is, too...

Kent Nagano's been upsetting his choir in Canada. I can just imagine it - "If only you were as good as that choir I used to work with in Manchester!"

And finally, I'm sure that we all wish Russell Watson a speedy recovery.

ASBOs for strings

I'm sure everyone must have heard about the Hallé noise nuisances. Thanks to the many people who emailed or texted me about this story. I actually first saw it when I went out yesterday lunchtime and saw the word Hallé plastered across all the Manchester Evening News billboards. I don't normally pick up free papers (it seems such a waste of trees when I read all my news online) but on this occasion I did. I'll be interested to see what happens, but in the meantime I imagine the Hallé are secretly delighted at the free publicity!

(I was on my way back from Office Angels, who not only found me a great temp job half a day after I'd registered (particularly good since the first temp agency I'd approached had turned me away), but they very unexpectedly sent me a birthday card (it was my birthday yesterday, and their card was actually the only one I received on time due to the postal strike, so I was doubly delighted!) Then, to impress me even further, they happened to choose yesterday to put on one of their regular free lunches for their temps. So I'm very happy to give them some free publicity here!)

I'm currently watching England hammer Estonia - 3-0 up so far, with little over half an hour gone. The anthems were sung by an Estonian singer called Hannah, who has a very low voice - she sang the English national anthem down the octave, which I've never heard a female singer do before. (The Estonian anthem was very low too, but maybe it always is!)

Not much to report from choir this week - we didn't see the men because they were off doing Brahms (I'd be interested to hear how that went) so we did a bit of Sibelius with Jamie and then a lot of Holst with Fanny and David. We rehearsed altos and sopranos separately for a while, and there were some very strange noises coming from the sops when they came back, but they improved rapidly, and by the end of the rehearsal, when we were together to run the Holst, it sounded pretty good. I've had it on the brain since.

Anyway, it occurred to me that there are still some bits of Sibelius I haven't posted, so here's all of it again plus the new bits. Many thanks to Graham and Terry for supplying the mp3s.

EDIT: Some of the links weren't working. They're fixed now, but you may still get a 404 error the first time you try. If so, try hitting refresh and it should work.

Choral songs:
Sibelius - Saarella
Sibelius - Venematka (slow version)
Sibelius - Venematka (fast version)
Sibelius - Min Rastas
Sibelius - Sydameni laulu

With orchestra:
Sibelius - Origin of Fire (original version)
Sibelius - Origin of Fire (revised version)
Sibelius - Origin of Fire (choral bit only)
Sibelius - Oma Maa

And, in case anyone missed it last time I posted it:
Holst - Ave Maria

To finish, a pretty picture. (If you don't already have Astronomy Picture of the Day bookmarked, I suggest you do!) This isn't actually Finland, but it's how I imagine Finland to be. Maybe one day I'll go there and all my illusions will be shattered!

Urhoin or yö?

I can't decide which is my favourite Finnish word. It's one of these two. "Urhoin" means "hero" or "brave" or something like that, and has what was described as a "character-giving r". "Yö" means "night" and is the sound everyone seemed to most enjoy making - I certainly did!

We finally met our Finnish language coach on Wednesday, you see, and she was very nice. Sadly I've forgotten her name - can anyone remind me? She spent the second half of the rehearsal telling us how to pronounce the words of Oma Maa. It's not actually as hard as it looks - once it had all been explained, I found it much harder to find the words on the page (see last post for explanation) than to remember how to say them. Anyway, it's nice to be able to add another language to the list of those I can claim to be able to read. That's quite a long list - must write it down sometime! (With the proviso, of course, that I may not actually REMEMBER how to pronounce, say, Hungarian, even though we only did it a year ago.)

That was just the second half of the rehearsal - the first half was spent in sectionals, with the ladies learning Holst's 8-part Ave Maria with David while the men went off to polish the Brahms with Jamie. The Holst was very lovely - and not that hard - although I got more and more irritated by the fact that a large number of people didn't seem to know the meaning of pp, sotto voce or senza crescendo. Argh. But no doubt they'll catch on eventually.

And I've just realised I haven't posted since our first gig of the season, the Eric Chadwick Memorial Concert in Salford. That went really well despite our numbers being very depleted - Komm Jesu Komm was possibly the best it's ever been, although the audience (predictably) seemed to prefer the Hallelujah Chorus. But that was good too :-) Plus, I was excited to notice that the tenor part of Onward Christian Soldiers starts the same as the tune, except with the two phrases reversed. I've never spotted that before! Sadly no-one else seemed as interested as me :p

Anyway, I seem to have accumulated a load of links I've been saving to post. That'll teach me to leave it for nearly two weeks! These aren't in any particular order....

Lucky Voice Pods in Tiger Tiger - the new variation on karaoke. Has anyone tried this?

G sharp is the hardest note to identify, allegedly. I'm not convinced by the explanation either.

An interesting article about how they get the fireworks to explode in time with the music at outdoor gigs.

An article about a choir of Russian monks.

A very strange set of Gilbert and Sullivan comics.

It seems Mozart wrote something very rude. I'd never heard of this before.

A useful A-Z guide to Wagner's Ring cycle.

Iggy Pop's extremely long and detailed (and funny) rider (i.e. what his requirements are when he comes to do a concert).

A review of the opening Hallé concert of the season. (I'm quite taken by the reference to the Elder Wand! But you know I love Harry Potter.)

Talking of Harry Potter, Fred and George Weasley are coming to the Bridgewater Hall!

An article investigating why Sibelius wrote nothing in the last 30 years of his life.

Is there anyone else who's baffled about why they're having swimming championships in the MEN Arena next year, when we have a perfectly good Olympic-standard pool at the Manchester Aquatics Centre?

Some of you might be interested by this video on writing fugues. The narration is irritating, because they did THAT like a fugue too, which means that for most of it you can't understand a word... but the fugue itself is clever, and the only one I've ever seen that's based on a Britney Spears song! If you don't really understand how a fugue works, this might help. (The "Der Saure Weg" section of Komm Jesu Komm is the most recent fugue we've sung, in case you were wondering. Also, the Sanctus and Libera Me sections of Verdi's Requiem both have fugues.)

Sadly Manchester Cathedral has had a stained-glass window smashed by vandals. I just can't begin to understand the mindset of someone who would do that.

English National Opera's new production of Carmen is not receiving as much praise as they might have hoped.

An interesting story about what the Hallé marketing director does at concerts!

An analysis of the theme from Some Mothers Do 'Ave "em. I never realised it was based on Morse code!

And, finally, more details on the Manchester Boys Choir story that I mentioned last time.

Oh, and I almost forgot... the Finnish word that's the one most commonly used in English is indeed SAUNA. Well done, the anonymous person who guessed that (or looked it up on Wikipedia like I did!)