Is it Christmas?

My new favourite website will tell you!

It certainly feels like Christmas. Last night I sang in the first of 11 concerts in a month. That only happens at Christmas! I was helping out Sotto Voce at an interesting concert in Sale. I say "interesting" because the programme consisted entirely of music by two composers, both of whom were present and took part in the concert - one conducted the choir and one played the organ. I don't think I've ever been in any other concert where this was the case! The music was much more tuneful than you might expect from modern composers, but it was quite difficult. However, I thought the concert went pretty well. (I always enjoy singing with Sotto Voce but it's very tiring because they rehearse at the opposite side of Manchester to me, so I don't get home till midnight. For that reason only, I'm relieved that the project is now over. Now I can concentrate on the remaining 10 concerts I have before Christmas!)

(In case you're wondering... Verdi Req 29th Nov and 1st Dec; Pleiades at a community Christmas fair on 2nd Dec; Pleiades at FC United on 8th Dec; Messiah on 9th Dec; Pleiades at Henry Watson Music Library on 15th Dec; carol concerts on 21st, 22nd and 23rd Dec (x2).)

The Verdi is going to be fun. Wednesday's rehearsal did indeed start with the Sanctus as I predicted, and everything feels pretty secure now. Mind you, the altos were somewhat unimpressed to be told, at one point, that it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever whether we sang or not. I feel a challenge, ladies! (For anyone who missed the moment in question, it referred to the bit in the Tuba Mirum where we've supported the tenors in the past.) Pity the rehearsal was followed by England's exit from Euro 2008 - we had a very tense drive home listening to the end of the match on the radio, and I imagine we weren't the only ones.

Which reminds me - I presume everyone has received the message that Tuesday's rehearsal has been moved to the BBC? Please also note that Man Utd are at home that night - Sporting Lisbon are in town, so expect to be delayed by Portuguese traffic :p (The third consecutive home game I'm missing due to choir. I'm not impressed!)

Oh, and another football-related thing (thanks to Despina for this): apparently the guy who sang the anthems at Wembley on Wednesday wasn't perfect in his Croatian....

NIce review of the whole Sibelius cycle in the MEN. They particularly praise the Youth Choir, but they liked the men too. I guess the ladies' efforts at Finnish made no impact! We'll have to quadruple our efforts for the Verdi... see if we can get a reviewer to acknowledge our existence!

Five Years Gone

The episode of Heroes that's on BBC2 tonight ("Five Years Gone") is probably my favourite of all of them, so don't miss it! I was reminded the other day that I haven't mentioned Heroes for a while, when someone who I thought read this blog asked me if I ever watched it.... The number of readers has plummeted since the events of the summer - probably at least partially because so many people used to come here from the link on my website, which I had to remove. But there are still one or two people reading, because some of them have asked me stuff recently, so I thought I'd do a quick post to answer questions and share stuff.

Most urgently, the Radio 4 programme mentioned during last night's rehearsal is Tracing Your Roots, and it's at 1.30 pm today (Wednesday). If you read this after that, you should be able to hear it online for the next week.

The Verdi mp3s that I posted were in this post, where I also mentioned some of my favourite features of the Requiem (other than THE WHOLE THING!); and the list of interesting things to circle in your score was in this post. I was asked tonight to explain how to download the mp3s so that they are saved on your own PC (and can then be put on a CD). Assuming you're using a PC and not a Mac, here's how: right-click on the link (i.e. the underlined bit). A small menu should pop up, which should include the option "save target as..." (or something similar like "download linked file" etc.) Select that option, and a dialogue window will appear to let you specify where to save the file and what to call it (just like when you save anything any other time). (If you're using a Mac and you have a mouse with only one button, just hold down the "ctrl" key when clicking the link - this has the same effect as right-clicking.) (Note that if you can see the "save target as..." option but you can't select it, you may have your security set too high - try turning off the content advisor.)

And, finally... notes on "Behold the Lamb of God" (in Messiah) - at least one person wants to know specifically what the changes are, so maybe others might need this too. Hmmm.... I really must do some rubbing out - I can't remember which markings are this year's and which are old ones! But I *think* this year's version (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) is: "Behold" starts with a SEMIQUAVER upbeat every time it comes. "The sin" = quaver upbeat. "That taketh" = quaver. "The Lamb" (bar 16-17) = quaver. And finally, the alternative editorial rhythms (e.g. bar 20)... I'm not sure which ones are in and which are out! I have conflicting marks. Can anyone help?

For those who missed last night's rehearsal, it was great, but then we were doing my favourite piece. Slight shock when we (altos and basses) were asked to do some roving in the famous loud bit of the Dies Irae - the one bit everyone knew, and suddenly we don't any more! Oh well, no doubt we'll get the hang of it. Other than that, we spent most of the rehearsal, somewhat predictably, on the Libera Me, but since that's my favourite bit I was quite happy! We also did a bit on the Sanctus, but no doubt there will be more tomorrow. See you then!

Choir Wars

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. This can't be good.

While I'm doing links, there's an email doing the rounds that claims that Mama Cass's vocal range increased when she was hit on the head by a pipe. It's not true! And, while we're on the subject, can I please implore you all to bookmark Snopes? Then, next time someone sends you one of those emails that says "warning from Microsoft, forward this to everyone you know!" you can be the one who points out that it's a hoax, rather than one of the many who just look stupid because they believed it. 99% of such emails are hoaxes - trust me on this.

Anyway, Sunday night was our Sibelius gig, and it went really well. Even the bits where the sopranos kept going flat (whoever else kept being accused, it sounded like the sopranos to me - sorry, sops) stayed in tune. Only one review so far, in the Telegraph, and they seemed to like it. Well, they liked the choir... they liked the 4th symphony more than the 5th, which seems amazing to me - I love the 5th a lot, and Sunday's performance satisfied me. (Unlike that one in the Proms this summer, which I was very disappointed with even though the reviews all disagreed with me.) It's true that the 4th was played very well on Sunday (hey, it's the Hallé Orchestra, they don't often play badly!) but it's just not a listener-friendly piece....

A colleague who works in my office came to the concert and she loved it - and she liked the a cappella songs the best. And a guy from my sailing club (who goes to all the Hallé concerts) rang me up tonight to tell me how much he enjoyed the choral parts of the concert. And, actually, it seemed to me that the a cappella songs got the best reaction from the audience - there were whoops! If I'd seen any of the Youth Choir there I'd have assumed it was them, but I didn't see any of them.

Open rehearsal for the Verdi tomorrow, which will be fun. I'm really sad we're not doing the Classical Spectacular again this year, though. It's depressing to see posters ALL OVER TOWN for something that we used to be in every year. Which of our other events are advertised that heavily? None of them. There are still people I know who go to the Classical Spectacular and not to any other concert. My own MOTHER isn't coming to Messiah because it's the same weekend as the Classical Spectacular, which she wouldn't dream of missing. Oh well.

But our Proms Gerontius is on Radio 3 again on Thursday!

My land is strawberry

This picture is from the link I posted about the Finnish proverb, but I thought I'd make it a bit more prominent because not many people clicked on the link and I think it's really pretty!

This week it's Sibelius all the way. The men have their Origin of Fire concert tonight, and tomorrow it's the whole choir for Oma Maa and the 4 a cappella songs. (All the Sibelius concerts are billed under the title "Origin of Fire", which is a bit confusing, but it's tonight's that features that actual work.) We had the orchestral rehearsal last night, and it doesn't sound too bad at all. The men sounded spectacular in the Origin of Fire - although they were very behind at times, but they usually get better at that by the actual performance. At least they did eventually manage to all stand up together! And the Finnish soloist reported that he could understand every word they sang :-)

Oma Maa is much yummier with the orchestra, but I like the a cappella songs the best (which we rehearsed in the Bridgewater Hall foyer last night! That was a first!) I think my favourite is Min Rastas - especially the men's bit on the first page - but they're all lovely. Carolina the Finnish language coach (at least I think that's her name) told us that Sydameni Laulu is much loved in Finland - it's about the death of a child, but was sung at Sibelius's funeral as his coffin was lowered into the ground.

We spent a lot of time on the a cappella songs on Wednesday too, but we also did a bit of Messiah - this was planned, but I didn't think it would actually happen! There was the first batch of new markings (these particular ones clarified which notes in Behold the Lamb of God are quavers and which are semiquavers - it changes every year!) and we also sang through a couple of choruses that aren't as familiar as the others (because they're often cut) but are in this year's performance: But Thanks be to God and Let All The Angels of God Worship Him.

And next week it's VERDI! I can't wait. But before that, here are a few links.

There are posters all over the trams reminding people that there are no trams going through St Peter's Square for a few hours tomorrow. People who are going into town early before the rehearsal may find this useful to know. (Oddly enough there is no mention of it on the actual Metrolink website, but nothing they do surprises me. I wrote to them a few weeks ago with some questions and comments, and have had no response.)

A Guardian blog story about Sibelius performances in general.

Another Guardian story, this time about a rediscovered Requiem by John Foulds. EDIT: And I just saw a BBC news story about an even more unlikely Requiem!

News of a new music research centre at the University of Manchester.

News of restricted bits of St Paul's being opened up. Sadly I doubt it'll be in the next 3 weeks!

Have you seen the new Guinness advert with the dominos?

You know I love great footballing names? Well, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink is still my favourite, but recently I discovered one almost as good - Danny Invincible! What a great name! He's Australian and he plays for Kilmarnock. (His actual name is Daniele Invincibile, but all the commentators say "Danny Invincible".) I will watch his career with interest!

Finally, keep an eye on the sky - there are great astronomical things going on! For details, have a look at my Astronomical Notes page (this is part of a website I put together for a school I used to work at, and because several of them still look at it, I update it when I remember). Currently there are 4 planets easily visible, plus a comet! (Here's a diagram of exactly where the comet is, but it won't mean much to you unless you already know how to find Cassiopeia etc.)