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!