Spem in Alium

Sorry for the long hiatus. I've been organising a big project that I couldn't talk about here, because it was a secret. But it happened today, and it was BRILLIANT. So I can tell you about it now! (I have a million links saved to share with you, and no doubt other stuff to tell you, but I'll do that in the next day or two.)

Dr Liz - a fellow 2nd alto in the choir - is, as many of you are aware, moving to Australia in a few weeks' time, as she has a job there. She has been extremely helpful to me while I've been broke (which I still am, by the way - more so than ever!) - in particular, she has paid my ISP bills for the past three years. So I wanted to do something for her as a farewell present.

Here's the thing: Dr Liz has been saying for years that one of her all-time ambitions is to perform the Tallis 40-part motet (Spem in Alium) with one to a part. She and I both sang it in June 2006 as part of the BBC People's Chorus event with a thousand singers, and she's wanted to try the one-to-a-part idea ever since, so I thought it would be fun to organise it as a surprise for her. And I did!

Her husband came up with a timeslot in which she was available and (more importantly) he could guarantee she would STAY available. I found forty really good singers, who have all been practising industriously for the last few weeks. (I had to actually ask 112 people before I had forty who said they could do it! There are still about twenty people who never replied to any of my emails - their loss.) (Dr Liz herself was one of the singers, of course, and she obviously couldn't have practised before the day, but I arranged the schedule so that there was an hour between her finding out what was going on and the first part of the rehearsal that involved her singing, and I arranged for a practice room (with a piano) to be available, and created an mp3 of the piece which had her part played over it clearly, and sent it to her husband so that he'd have it available on his iPhone. Also, I remembered which part she sang four years ago, and I made sure she was on that part, which hopefully helped a little.)

The venue might have been a problem, because not only did it need to be a decent-sized room with a piano in Manchester city centre, it also had to be one that I wouldn't have to pay for, since (as previously mentioned) I have no money! But, much to my surprise, Plan A actually worked: when I dreamed up this idea, I imagined it happening in the Baronial Hall at Chet's, which is not only one of my favourite rooms in the WORLD (I'm an ex-pupil of the school, so I'd loved that room since I was ten years old), it's perfect for the sort of music we were singing (particularly as it's one of the few rooms in existence that's older than Tallis!) So, on the basis that "if you don't ask you don't get", I wrote to the headteacher of Chet's and explained what I wanted to do... and it turns out that the hall was available, and she let me use it free of charge! (I did agree to have a collection among the participants, with the proceeds going to the Chet's building appeal, and people seemed happy to contribute to that.)

So, it finally happened this afternoon (Sunday 27th June). Needless to say, the way the football fixtures turned out was VERY annoying, but it couldn't be helped - and it sounds as if we didn't miss much anyway! My sister texted me updates, which I passed on to the singers (although we had to warn Fanny not to listen each time, as she was convinced she could get home without hearing the score...) And poor Catharina couldn't decide who to support, but was leaning towards England. She kept quite quiet as the German goal count increased!

I was convinced someone would cancel at the last minute, or just not turn up. But no-one did, so everything worked perfectly. Dr Liz's husband hatched a plot that ensured that she didn't work out what was going on until she actually entered the Baronial Hall with him and saw thirty-nine singers... because everyone was in their seat, with just one left for Dr Liz. We were suspicious that she'd somehow found out the secret, because she didn't show much surprise or shock... but she says she really didn't have a clue, and her not-showing-shock face is probably one that she's acquired as a result of working as a doctor for quite some time!

I'd arranged the chairs so that all the singers were round the outside of the hall in a square with ten on each side, and we had seats in the middle for spectators (there were a few friends and family who wanted to watch). I was very keen to have the circular arrangement after experiencing the amazing swirling effect when we sang the piece with a thousand people in the Bridgewater Hall, and our spectators said it was just as effective today. (Lots of people took photos, but I didn't have time to take any myself - Caroline took loads, so I'm hoping she'll send me copies of hers, and I'll put them online if she does.) (EDIT: she has, and so has Martin, and sometime I will put them all up together, but for now here's a sample...)



We were only in the hall for three hours, but the time flew by. We started with a 5-minute condensed Maggie-type warmup (well, it wasn't just "Maggie-type"... I asked Maggie what she recommended for an ideal 5-minute warmup for people who were already familiar with the usual warmups, and I followed her instructions!) Then we rehearsed ten people at a time (for those of you who don't know, the piece is written for eight groups of five singers each, and each group has soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass - so you will understand why I ended up asking ALL the men in the choir (and several from the youth choir) before I had enough of them who were available, whereas there are lots of ladies in the choir who know nothing about it). We were all immediately impressed at how great it sounded, whichever group was singing. Not every note was perfect (this piece is DIFFICULT!) but enough of them were that it sounded mostly correct, and we all got to the end together. But the overall vocal sound was spectacular, I thought, and of course it helped that the acoustic was perfect. And we stayed bang in tune every time!

I'd been a little worried that people might get bored sitting around while their group wasn't involved, but it was a lovely day, and a beautiful location, and people just sat out in the courtyard and chatted. And Mr Dr Liz went out and bought a whole tableful of refreshments for us all, which was very much appreciated. (I didn't get any of it till after the event was finished - because I was conducting as well as singing, I didn't get a gap when I could eat, but it was fine. Plus, I ended up taking all the remnants home with me as a result, which solved some of my current food problems!)

After we'd rehearsed each pair of mini-choirs together, we rehearsed with choirs 1-4 (i.e. twenty singers) and then with choirs 5-8. (All the rehearsals were only twenty minutes long, so there wasn't time for note-bashing - but everyone had worked really hard at learning their parts, so it wasn't necessary.) Then, finally, the audience arrived, and after a brief bit of explanation (mainly to convey the fact that there was a good chance we wouldn't get to the end at the first attempt) we tried it with all forty singers. Much to everyone's surprise (and delight!) it worked first time - we DID all get to the end at the same time, with everyone ending on the right note, and it sounded amazing. The audience loved it. They asked for a repeat performance, and I'd always planned to do it twice, but that was mainly because I didn't expect it to be that good the first time! So we did it again, and it was amazing again. And yes, we still stayed perfectly in tune \o/

Anyway, Dr Liz's husband filmed the performance, so at some point we will put it online and you can see it for yourself. (I noticed that YouTube has a surprising lack of videos of this piece actually being performed - there are many versions of it there, but they all have the music with just a still image. Apart from the King's Singers one, which doesn't count because there are only six of them and they used multitracking. Or the Dresden chapel choir one, which doesn't count because there are more than forty of them, and they don't do the whole piece anyway. So maybe we will end up as a YouTube sensation!)

EDIT: Zip file of photos from the day
Video of Dr Liz arriving
Video of the first attempt (preceded by my introduction)
Video of the second attempt