Ye who dance not know not what we are knowing

I haven't updated here for a while – I kept meaning to, but since I haven't had any comments since August, I didn't think anyone was reading anything I wrote, so I couldn't get motivated! But my blog was mentioned in last night's choir rehearsal, so I thought I'd better update on the offchance that anyone actually came to investigate :-)

We are learning three works over the rest of this season: two that I know very well indeed, and one that I've never done before. (The title of this post is taken from one of them - guess which one!) The two I know very well are Holst's The Hymn of Jesus (which was the finale of my last ever concert as a Chetham's pupil) and Beethoven 9. The one that's new to me is Elgar's The Apostles, which seems very boring so far, but maybe it will grow on me! Currently the main thing that's interesting me about it is that it features a shofar. When this was mentioned at last night's rehearsal, it seemed that most of the choir had never heard of a shofar. Wikipedia has a particularly interesting (and thorough) article which tells you everything you need to know.

I'd better do a recap, though, hadn't I? December was the usual musical madness. This year my tally was 15 performances in an 18-day period, which I think might be a personal best. Several of those were with my band (pictured below at the annual Shouting in the Library gig).



I enjoyed those more than any of the choir ones, but the choir gigs had their moments too. Messiah was the one that started the 18 days of madness, and I enjoyed it even more than last year's. We even had a female alto instead of a countertenor! I was beginning to think we never would again. And the conductor did not ruin the Hallelujah Chorus, as so many of them do (including last year's) by their attitudes to standing audiences. I've heard recently that our 2012 Messiah will be conducted by our 2010 conductor, so I will have to prepare myself for disappointment. Maybe this will be the year I can finally find some cast-iron reason not to sing.

The carol concerts – all five of them – were fun (nowhere as good as last year's, but a million times better than the previous year's), although it felt very odd having Sleigh Ride as a regular programme item rather than an encore. Still, at least they did play it. Remember the year the powers that be decided not to include it? I still haven't recovered from the trauma!

Picture below is courtesy of one of the orchestra's horns on Twitter. Oh, and you may have missed this MEN article about our compere, or this Oldham Chronicle review of the concerts.



The other big choir-related news story of December was undoubtedly the Military Wives and their quest for the Christmas number one single (in which they were successful). I enjoyed the Military Wives TV programme much more than I expected to (I cried my eyes out several times!), but even if I hadn't it would have been great to see a choir in the charts. There have been loads of great stories in the media, but here are some of my favourites: a Guardian editorial in praise of Gareth Malone; a Telegraph article about the series (I was very disappointed to find that Keep the Home Fires Burning, described in this article, never made it into the finished series, though. I love that song. Perhaps it was too emotional?); and another Telegraph article which features Gareth explaining to the writer how to sing better and talking about why carol-singing is so great; a Guardian article about the feelgood factor of the series in general; and, finally, yet another Telegraph article, this time listing a few other choirs that have been in the pop charts (I didn't know about lots of these!)

Actually, there was one little thing that fascinated me about the Military Wives song after I saw the sheet music. Here's the first page. Here's the recording. What the soloist sings in the third bar isn't quite what the music says, is it? The same thing happens on the last page, and she does it differently then too. This creates a dilemma for choirs who've bought the sheet music in order to perform the song: do they do what the composer actually wants, or do they copy the recording? If they do the former, everyone will think it's them that are wrong! And I felt particularly sorry for the deputy soloist that the Military Wives had when their usual one was on holiday, because she did it perfectly correctly (i.e. she sang what the music says) but I bet most people think she didn't!

I think it might have been on Strictly Come Dancing that I saw the Military Wives with their stand-in soloist. I mention this mainly so I can point out that my beloved McFly are finally starting to conquer the world: Harry won Strictly, and Dougie won I'm a Celebrity. And they're just the drummer and the bass player! Who knows what Tom and Danny have in store for us?

I have quite a few other links I've been saving - I think I'll use the remaining seasonal ones first. Here's one: hands up who knew that the original lyrics of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas were really morbid and depressing? It starts: "Have yourself a merry little Christmas - it may be your last" and gets worse from there! The whole story of the song's evolution surprised me greatly when I read about it a few weeks ago.

Here's a Telegraph article about John Rutter, in which we learn a bit more about him, including his favourite Christmas songs. (Coincidentally, one of them is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and it sounds as if he's well aware of the original version. Another is O Magnum Mysterium, which we sang in our carol concerts this year, but I don't share his enthusiasm for it - sorry, John!)

The Boston Globe had an article explaining why we're all confused about how to pronounce 2012.

The ever-wonderful Neil Gaiman always has wise words to bring in the new year, but I particularly liked his message this year.

Not seasonal as such, but timely: Eric Whitacre is running another Virtual Choir project (his third), and you have until the end of January to become part of it. The song this time is Water Night, and full details are on his website. I think I was the only member of my choir to be in the last video - I'm hoping there'll be a few more of us this time!

I hope lots of you saw a programme that was on last month, called Come Bell Ringing with Charles Hazlewood. It's no longer on iPlayer, but if they repeat it (which I'm sure they will), do watch it if you missed it. It's mainly the last ten minutes of the programme that I fell in love with: they had all the church towers around Cambridge, plus a load of handbell ringers in the market square, all performing together in an arrangement of Greensleeves for bells only. It was absolutely magical. I'm wondering whether or not there'll be a similarly magical effect on the morning the Olympics start (Friday 27th July)... in theory, all the bells in the country (yes, I said ALL THE BELLS IN THE COUNTRY) are going to ring nonstop for three minutes, starting at 8am. It might work... but already there have been arguments about it, and only yesterday another group of bell-ringers announced that it isn't very practical! I can see their point, but I do sort of hope it works anyway :-)

This is great: 11 sounds that your kids have probably never heard. There are one or two of them I haven't heard, which reassures me that I can't be quite as old as I thought I was!

A while back, I heard a very excited Radio 3 presenter talking about how fragments of a possible 8th symphony by Sibelius have been discovered and played. But I think I'm in agreement with the viewpoint of On An Overgrown Path - it seems very sad that we're doing exactly what Sibelius clearly didn't want us to.

I'm a big fan of TED talks, and this is a particularly interesting one: David Byrne talks about how music is shaped by architecture. Summary: "Does the venue make the music? From outdoor drumming to Wagnerian operas to arena rock, he explores how context has pushed musical innovation."

This is a bit scary: would I survive a nuke?

In November, the London Philharmonic Orchestra did a concert featuring Bruckner and Tchaikovsky. The Guardian review mentioned that a member of the audience stormed out, yelling criticism as he did so. Norman Lebrecht received an eye-witness account of what happened, but the most unbelievable part is that the culprit then wrote to Norman Lebrecht to explain why he believed he was in the right... and then argued with everyone in the comments!

I can't decide whether this is more or less offensive: this week, the New York Phil had to stop a performance during the last few minutes of a Mahler symphony because someone's phone was ringing (in the FRONT ROW!) and they didn't do anything about it until the conductor stopped, turned and looked at them.

Speaking of conductors, this is interesting: a New York music critic decided to try to learn how to conduct.

I love this: these people went round the world and filmed buskers and other street performers everywhere they went. The results are fabulous.

Here's a great BBC news feature about illnesses that exist only in Italy.

Have you heard of the vocal fry register? I hadn't either. But apparently it's the latest American language fad.

Normally I think Tom Service is great, but I have to disagree with him here: in his post about the 21st anniversary of Symphony Hall, he says it's "the country's best, big acoustic for orchestral music" and that it "shames any other big hall in the country". Shame on you, Tom! I actually have proof (well, sort of!) that the Bridgewater Hall is better. One of my best friends used to play in the Royal Opera House orchestra, and years ago they went on a tour round the country, while the ROH was being refurbished or something. Anyway, they happened to play the same programme in Symphony Hall and the Bridgewater Hall on consecutive nights, and they all agreed (she said) that the Bridgewater Hall was superior. So there :-)

(Although, I will admit that Symphony Hall has better paintings!)

And finally: the unreasonably amusing Norwegian butter crisis! I first read about this in the Vancouver Sun, but there was an update in the Guardian a few days later, and - also in the Guardian - a Swedish writer explaining how delighted her country is about the whole thing!