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!