Concert cancelled due to waterlogged pitch

This is certainly a first for me. I was supposed to be singing for FC United this afternoon, but the game (at Gigg Lane) was postponed due to the pitch being unable to cope with all the rain. Probably just as well, because Alison currently can't speak above a whisper, and without her our repertoire is rather restricted. (She can't do Messiah tomorrow either, which makes my transport arrangements quite a bit more complicated, since the first train into town on a Sunday for me doesn't arrive till 1001 - assuming it's on time - and the last one home leaves at 2215. The latter would be OK for any concert other than Messiah, but as it is the only way I can get home involves getting a taxi for the last part of the journey. Do you think the HCS will reimburse me? No, I don't either, which is why I won't also be getting a taxi in time to get there for the start of the rehearsal, I'm afraid - I'll just have to be late!)

I'm not particularly looking forward to Messiah - I haven't for years - and I'll explain why in a minute. So if you're one of the people who loves it above all other concerts (i.e. the majority of the choir, as far as I can tell), you may wish to stop reading at that point, as I'm unlikely to say anything you'll agree with. In fact, you should probably ALL stop reading immediately, as I'm only going to whinge. I've been angry at just about everything lately (not just choir-related things, although lots of them are) - I suspect lots of it is to do with having too much to do. (The cancellation of today's gig was a disappointment, but it's been lovely to have a day when I didn't have to leave the house - first one in several weeks. I should have been at Old Trafford but I'd already given my ticket away. So I'm currently well-rested and in a much better mood than I *was*!)

For example, things I did on Wednesday night/early Thursday morning after returning from choir: 1. Wrote out the music for "Fairytale of New York" so that when we sing it there is no uncertainty over how the tune goes; 2. Amended the guitar chord sheet for "Merry Christmas Everyone" so that it involves a capo and hence is in G major going into A major rather than A major going into B major; 3. Spent a while considering (and then typing out) set lists for today's gig (which turned out, the next day, to have been a waste of time, because the organiser had changed his mind about what he wanted); 4. Amending the lyric sheet for "Do They Know It's Christmas" to clarify who sings which line, because our personnel has changed since the last time we performed it; 5. Printed out all the above and sorted the copies into a pile for each person; 6. Put my folder in order as per set lists in step 3 (again, this turned out to be a waste of time even BEFORE the gig was cancelled).

I didn't get to bed till 4am and had to be up again at 7 - and then I was late for work anyway because Northern Rail cancelled my train. So my bad mood wasn't shifting any time soon. I could continue telling you what else went wrong that day but you get the picture! And if you're wondering why I didn't start the above tasks *before* 11pm on Wednesday, that's because that's the first chance I'd had since Sunday's gig at which the need for most of them became apparent.

A few links before I tell you the stuff I forgot about the Verdi Requiem and then rant about Messiah...

Via ChoralBlog, the fabulous Stubby Symphony. (Don't worry about the "Are you over 18?" question - it's only because alcohol is involved, there's nothing rude.)

From Barbara: Songs of Praise with subtitles.

A possible reason for vocal problems - too many bones!

Hands up who knew that Roy Goodman (this year's Messiah conductor) was the boy treble soloist on the famous recording of Allegri's Miserere? Well, now you do!

Some fabulous photos of the London trip from Martin, one of our new basses. (Who I think is the kind gentleman who brought me a copy of Carols for Choirs 4 - am I right? Thank you, anyway - it was most useful and saved a lot of photocopying!)

So, the Verdi Requiem PS (i.e. the bits I meant to say the other day but forgot). I enjoyed the Manchester concert far more than the London one (well, except for the amazing echoes). This was mainly because of the different personnel involved. The London Symphony Chorus sang with us in both concerts, and they seemed very well rehearsed and blended well with us. However, in London (but not Manchester) there was another choir too, which I won't name, because of what I'm about to say... which is that they ruined it for me.

Quite apart from the red sash element (which I'm STILL furious about), they just didn't enhance the performance, and the ones who were near me (male altos) actually detracted from it. For a start, they refused to join in the warm-up, saying "we warmed up at 6 this morning". This was at 1.15 pm... They didn't seem to have any of the breaths etc. in their scores, and seemed quite surprised at the roving in the Dies Irae etc. Then, their voices just didn't blend. I didn't really expect they would, but it was far worse than I feared - they pronounced all their words with extremely clear English consonants and vowels. For example, they were very careful to enunciate both Ts in "et tibi". I found this really demoralising - we worked so hard to get the Italian pronunciation in place, and it was ruined by these people. (And even when the instruction to make the Ts Italian was repeated several times during the rehearsal, they still ignored it!) On top of all this, one of them, who was leading on a row, decided to ignore the instruction he'd just been given about walking to the middle of the stage before going up to his row, and cut straight across - with the result that everyone behind him did the same, and it looked awful. And then the last straw was when I noticed they had no folders!

Anyway, in Manchester it was just us and the LSC, and it was much better. The trumpets were spectacular again (I was sad they didn't get a bow at the end, but I expect they were in the pub long before that) and I could see them much better this time. The bit when they pointed their bells to the roof and blasted out the Ab minor arpeggios... WOW.

Oh, and Amy and I were amused at the idea of Mark quoting titles of Take That songs. We got this idea because of the trumpet bit having been used in Never Forget, and then he said something about having Patience, and shortly after he advised someone to Pray. There was scope for so many more - he could easily have worked in Shine, or Sure, or It Only Takes A Minute, or Everything Changes, or even Could It Be Magic... but he stopped!

And finally, Messiah, a.k.a. "the piece I'm most heartily sick of above all others". I was going to write something about its good bits but I can't summon the enthusiasm. I did realise the other day that if I was asked to list my top 10 works we've ever sung, Messiah wouldn't even make the Top 10. And I used to love it - I've just been put off it by the experiences of the last few years. I've only enjoyed it once in all the times I've done it with the Hallé, and that was the year Jamie conducted it and we did the last bit from memory. Now THAT was something special. But every other year... meh.

It's not particularly the fault of any of the conductors. Most of them have had all sorts of interesting ideas - some I've liked, some I've hated, but at least they tried to do something different. What I hate is the way the choir is when it's Messiah. For so many people it's their favourite piece, at least partly because they know it so well. But the trouble is that because we only rehearse it for a very short time, people aren't confident enough to look up from their scores, so they sing it on autopilot and never leave their comfort zone. I'm bitter about the fact that we didn't build on the doing-the-end-from-memory year - we should be doing it ALL from memory by now. That's the only way people would respond properly. The guest conductors are quite happy because they get a very competent performance - but they don't hear how much BETTER we can be! To me, when we sing Messiah, it feels as if we've slipped back several years.

I don't think I'm explaining myself very clearly, so I'm going to try to illustrate my point with another example from Wednesday's rehearsal. In the warmup, Maggie asked us to sing "Joy to the World", and explained that this was because of the fact that it has a descending scale followed by half an ascending scale, followed by similar patterns, and she wanted us to think about pivot points and tuning the top and bottom notes. But what happened? At least half the choir sang the HARMONY parts that they know so well, thus TOTALLY MISSING THE POINT OF THE EXERCISE.

And it got worse. She then asked us to finish with "Ding Dong Merrily On High", explaining that this was so that we got to practise a big sweeping "Gloria" which would help with the runs in Messiah. The choir knows this carol better than any other, so needless to say 90% of the altos, tenors and basses sang their well-known harmony parts instead of the tune - and therefore wasted the exercise, because they didn't get to sing a run at all.

This is what I mean by hating the way the choir is when it's singing Messiah. Far too many people forget how fantastically they can sing, and ignore the work they've done over the past few years, preferring to lapse into "we like this because we know it". And I HATE it. I'd be quite happy if we didn't do Messiah again for at least 5 years. Or if we have to - and I imagine TPTB will say we do, for financial reasons - at least insist that it's from memory. Or do SOMETHING to shake people out of the choral society mentality they slip into at this time of year.

I imagine that lots of people will love this year's performance due to the fact that it's the most traditional one I remember. There are two things that please me about that, actually: one is that it's a female alto soloist rather than a male (well, actually it's a mezzo, but we can't have everything) and the other is that HOPEFULLY he will allow the audience to decide for themselves if and when to stand for "Hallelujah". That's my favourite moment of the whole piece, and I hate it when conductors spoil it by giving a signal. It's just not the same!

Anyway, maybe I'll be wrong and the choir will sing as well tomorrow as they did last Saturday. Fingers crossed :-)