Eek! A month?!?

So sorry that I've neglected this blog for all that time, if you've been checking regularly. Back in the groove now though :-)

Spent most of the last month at home mainly playing World of Warcraft, so I have no excuse. I did spend 5 days in Glasgow, though (at the World Science Fiction Convention - I have some fabulous T shirts as a souvenir!) and I have sailed quite a bit. Back at work now, though, so the elves of Azeroth will have to manage without me...

Choir starts back on Wednesday. I've just spent a while updating the online schedule (if you don't have that bookmarked, do so now, because remember that it's deliberately not usually linked from anywhere else, and not Googleable - clever eh?). Oh, and the choir concerts page too.

I must say the thing I'm looking forward to most at the moment is the Sing with the Hallé day, but I can't decide whether I'm more excited about the prospect of the sound of all those people singing what is already one of the loudest pieces there is (and I'm presuming that for once none of the brass will have to be reined in!)... or finding out how on earth Jamie plans to teach it to everyone in just a few hours! (It's not even as if it's the only piece we're doing that day!) I think, on balance, the latter intrigues me more :p

Update on DVDs of our Proms performance: Five people have asked for copies so far. If anyone else wants one, now is the time to say so. The video file has now been transferred to the computer of the friend who's agreed to burn the DVDs. I don't want to nag him about it though, because he's doing it as a favour (and refusing to accept any money from me for doing it, so don't anyone try to give me any!) but I'm sure he'll do them pretty soon, if only to reclaim his disk space.

And finally - my very good friend Rachel Brown (of the 1st altos), who was very pregnant the last time most of you saw her, is in labour as we speak! Exciting! I'll post here if there's an update. Otherwise, see you on Wednesday :-)

Fly-by posting

I'm packing for a trip which starts in about 2 hours. Should probably try to sleep a bit before then... I'm off to Worldcon, which everyone seems to find very amusing for some reason.

However, I had to post this. Graham E sent it to me the other day (thanks Graham), but I only just got round to listening to it while packing. It's 8.9 MB, so if you're not on broadband it'll take a while to download, but it's worth it:

Music Makers excerpt (from the radio)

Mmm, Clark Kent!

What?!? I'm watching Smallville :-)

So, sorry for the delay in posting after London. I got distracted by non-choir things... (not all of which were World of Warcraft!)

I've just put up my photos from London - mostly not great, but some people may like to see them anyway. [EDIT: I've now added some more photos from Graham, and will add more as they are sent to me.] The Greenwich Pier one may need explaining - in the Sunday afternoon break I went to the National Maritime Museum to see the Nelson and Napoleon exhibition (which was great, btw - you should all go!) If you want a musical reason to go, it includes the autograph scores of both Haydn's Nelson Mass and Beethoven's Eroica Symphony (the one where he scratched out Napoleon's name from the title page - I see now why they said "scratched" instead of "crossed", it made quite a hole!) Anyway, I wanted to get a boat back to Embankment - prettier than the tube, and slightly less scary... or so I thought. As I walked onto the pier, a policeman started unfurling a "police line, do not cross" tape, and asked everyone to step away. A minute later, a police van turned up, sirens screaming and lights flashing. Loads of them jumped out and started asking everyone to move right away. I decided that it was probably a good plan to abandon the boat idea and go back the way I'd come - on the tube.

Anyway, the gig! Some reviews:

Manchester Evening News
Guardian
Times
Telegraph
Independent
London Evening Standard
Music OMH.com

General gist seems to be 4 stars, doesn't it? Although they do all say nice things about the choir. I actually thought Sunday's performance wasn't quite as good as the Manchester one (though only because of tiny things - a couple of places where people weren't watching and didn't notice how much Mark had slowed down, or an early S here and there). It was great though. I must say I felt a little frustrated watching it on TV when I got home, because the impact of the live performance just wasn't there. And was anyone else REALLY irritated by Verity thingummy listing the London choir first every time?

(If anyone hasn't managed to see the TV broadcast and would like to, a friend of mine has it on his hard disk, and we should be able to put it on a DVD sometime in the next week or two. Let me know if you want a copy. Oh, and remember that you can still listen online for the next few days.)

The trip as a whole was a great success, due largely to Naomi's fabulous organisation. I felt sorry for her when I arrived at the Bridgewater Hall on Saturday afternoon to find that the coaches couldn't get near the hall because of a passing Caribbean carnival!

SASHGATE!

Well, the gig tonight was FANTASTIC. But it almost wasn't, because it looked for a while as if there was going to be a bit of a rebellion, which wouldn't have had people in the right mood at all. Luckily Jamie sorted out the problem by speaking to Mark on our behalf, and a possible crisis was averted.

That was probably all a bit cryptic, wasn't it? At least to those who weren't there... Here's what happened. The gig (and Sunday's Proms gig) featured 3 choirs: us, the Hallé Youth Choir, and the London Philharmonic Choir. The ladies of the LPC wear long black outfits of their own choice. The ladies of the Hallé Choir wear standard long black outfits with turquoise sashes. The girls of the Youth Choir wear red short-sleeved shirts (with black skirts). Well, at the rehearsal this morning, Naomi announced that we wouldn't be wearing our sashes in either concert, so that we would look the same as the LPC. The amount of instant bad feeling this created was immense. People were using words such as "angry", "furious", "livid", "militant"... one person even said "I'm so upset about this that I can't sing". Within a few minutes, all the altos around me had agreed that we needed an urgent alto section meeting at the break so that people could voice their displeasure. This took place, and Judith and I (as alto reps on the committee) agreed to approach Jamie and/or Naomi to convey people's views. We met Meg and Cathy before we did this, who were about to do the same on behalf of the sops.

We spoke to Jamie and Naomi together and learned that it was Mark who had made the decision. Jamie thought that people would probably be OK with the decision when Mark explained the reason for it (i.e. that he thought it would look better on TV). We disagreed and reiterated how strongly people felt about it. (People have a real sense of pride about being visibly a member of the *Hallé* Choir, as opposed to just a generic "main chorus" as contrasted with the Youth Choir, and to have the only outward symbol of this removed - just when we will be at our most visible - is what everyone was upset about.) Jamie agreed to speak to Mark.

We never did get an official announcement, but at the end of the rehearsal Jamie could be seen talking animatedly to Mark for several minutes; Mark appeared to just listen without commenting. But it was not long after that that the word was spread that we could wear the sashes \o/

I was actually quite worried about what might have happened if Jamie hadn't persuaded Mark. A lot of people were saying "I don't care what they say, I'm wearing it, there's not much they can do if we all do it, is there?" Another representative comment was "I don't often get militant, but I'm feeling militant about this!" So thank goodness he stood up for us :-)

There's not much to say about the concert itself, because it was just GREAT. No disasters. Not even anything that "went a bit wrong" (or at least, not as far as I can remember). Soloists were fabulous (and Alice Coote looked truly angelic in a lovely white dress). Orchestra (91 of them on stage, I counted!) were fabulous. Mark was fabulous. All three choirs were fabulous (though I say so myself!) I was very impressed with the LPC. We've had choirs singing with us in the past who know the music well enough but totally ignore stage instructions (such as, keep your folder open at the end till you sit down). The LPC behaved impeccably, so I'm glad we're doing other stuff with them soon, not just Sunday! (Pity we're not doing more stuff with them - have you seen the stuff they're doing this year and next? I'm jealous!)

Oh, there was one of them I wasn't too impressed with, though. While I was standing talking to Judith during the interval, one of their guys (who was standing right next to us) suddenly shouted out EXTREMELY loudly. It was so loud that I was literally deafened, but Judith managed to catch what he said when we glared at him - "I'm practising being one of your tenors!" Cheeky thing! Our tenors sounded FANTASTIC. I reckon he was just jealous :p

So, we're off to London tomorrow, and home very late Sunday night. We've not had a proper choir trip for ages, so this should be fun!

ROTH!

Orchestral rehearsal for Gerontius tonight. Went pretty well. The London Philharmonic Choir got a huge round of applause for managing to get here from London today, and they sounded good. (I believe there will be more of them in the Albert Hall, not all of them could get time off work to come up to Manchester.) The soloists are all FABULOUS: Alice Coote as the Angel, Paul Groves as Gerontius, and Matthew Best as the Priest and the Angel of the Agony. The Hallé Youth Choir sounded great. The orchestra sounded great. (Although, to be fair, they always do!)

Not really much else to say about tonight. Oh, except that I spotted a Markism from last night that I forgot to mention - he was trying to get us to sound more mocking during the Demons' Chorus, and suggested thinking during the "What's a saint?" line on page 84: "Those dreadful sandals!"

Tonight's main funny moment surrounded the pronunciation (by the Youth Choir) of the word "wrath" on page 36. There was a bit of confusion among them and Mark couldn't understand the word. So he got each section of the main choir to say it. Everyone agreed it was "ROTH!" but the Youth Choir were going more along the lines of "RATH!" except with a dark A... Jamie seemed pretty pleased when they all agreed on their pronunciation, particularly since it was different to everyone else's. But Mark preferred the usual sound, so they had to give in :p

Unrelated PS: You know, ever since I first heard Gerontius I've meant to write a song which includes the Earth chord sequence (i.e. the one that comes for the first time when the Priest comes in on page 39). Maybe this summer I'll actually get round to it! (For anyone who wants to play it, the chords are: Bb, Gm6, Dm/A, F/A; Ab, Fm6, Cm/G, Eb/G; Gb, Ebm6, E dim, A7/E, A7; D. Ooooh :-)

Supertonics!

Well, just to reassure those people who asked, I am OF COURSE going to quote what Mark said about the end of Praise to the Holiest (page 147): "I don't beat, I just sort of waggle till I've had enough..."

But the Supertonics thing was more amusing, IMHO. This was when Jamie said to the men, on page 168, that he wanted high supertonics. What was funny was the way Mark kept saying it afterwards, each time accompanied by a knowing look :-) (And I'm sure most of you know, but in case there's one person that doesn't and was wondering, the supertonic is the second note of the scale. So, since the music is in E major at that point, he was referring to the F sharp.)

Piano rehearsal with Mark Elder tonight for Gerontius (she belatedly explains for those who weren't there). Great fun as usual. It'll be a good gig. (I'm so disappointed that the London show sold out before any of my friends and relatives who said they might go had got round to investigating tickets. And as usual I can't persuade ANYONE to come and see the Manchester one. It's never quite the same when there's no-one you know in the audience, is it?) We had the Hallé Youth Choir with us tonight for the first time (well, in several months) and they sounded great. They'll make lots of people very proud at the Prom, I suspect. We also had the lovely Jonathan at the piano, standing in for David.

Jamie did a very thorough warmup. Only bits to note were that he berated us at one point to say "Santa Claus is a figure of FUN!" (you had to be there...) and also he told us about a pub in Cornwall, the Lamorna Wink. I think this was while we were stretching our facial muscles by winking in an exaggerated manner...

I've already mentioned two of Mark's best bits. But there was also "You've got to be... unattractive!" (in the Demons' chorus); also the fact that the highpoint of his year is, he says, that the Hallé concert in Tatton Park has outsold Will Young, who's there the next day! My favourite, though, was the Valkyrie thing. On page 100, he told the sopranos that they ought to "be like Valkyries" in the "to serve as champion in the field" bit (yes, Graham, I know that's your favourite bit!) Jamie went over and whispered in Mark's ear that the sopranos of the Youth Choir might not know what Valkyries are. So Mark explained. Something along the lines of "they swoop down and rescue the bodies of dead heroes from the battlefield, and take them back to Valhalla. And then they, erm, give them one hell of a good time..."

Orchestral rehearsal tomorrow night. Whee!

Go, in the name of angels and archangels...

... and fill in the choir members' questionnaire if you haven't done it yet. Apparently the results are already very interesting (no, I don't know any of them) but only a small proportion of the choir have filled it in so far.

Also, if, like me, you are trying to memorize Gerontius and are irritated with the long intros on CD tracks before the choir comes in (yes, the non-choir bits are of course wonderful, but if you're trying to practise stuff in a hurry they're a bit of a pain) you might find these mp3s of use. I've edited them so they just have the choir cue. They range in size from 1.3MB to 5.9MB. As usual, for private study only, they'll be removed after the gig.

p10-14 (Holy Mary)
p16-23 (Be merciful)
p34-38 (Rescue him)
p40-54 (Go in the name)
p70-91 (Demons)
p94-109 (Angelicals)
p110-147 (Praise)
p155-157 (Lord be merciful)
p163-165 (Lord thou hast been)
p166-177 (end)

"I worry that, when it says ppp, you lose your choral mojo."

I have to say that I worry about that too. I was quite frustrated tonight. We did Gerontius - almost all of it - for the first time in a while due to the operatic interruption - and unfortunately there are a lot of people in the choir who seem to feel that because they have sung Gerontius many times and know how it goes, they don't actually need to watch the conductor, pay too much attention to the dynamics, or in fact make an awful lot of effort at all. Jamie was very conscious of this, I think, and kept accusing people of "singing along" (with good reason!). But the two main problems are (IMHO): every time the music gets quieter, the choir gets slower and flatter (but not actually very much quieter); and every time the music speeds up a bit, the choir, in general, doesn't.

My frustration wasn't helped by a few of the 1st altos who talked almost the whole way through the rehearsal. There are a couple of them who always do this, but I can't usually hear what they're saying, just the general sound of chat (not that that's not irritating when I'm trying to concentrate!) But tonight all the 2nd altos had been seated in front of the 1sts, presumably because we are so much fewer in number, but it meant that the chatterers were just too loud to ignore, although I wasn't quite close enough to turn round and speak to them unobtrusively.

I'll be in a better mood next week, I'm on holiday!

We did have a new 2nd alto tonight, actually, called Lisa. So maybe our quest for world domination is getting back on track :p

Some more Jamieisms from tonight:

"At the moment there are too many fights breaking out, chorally." (this followed a train of thought about thinking rather than running on adrenaline in the fugue, and a comment that if you don't do that, you may as well be on a rugby team, and a realisation that good rugby teams do actually think, and it's the ones who don't who end up fighting...)

"I hope you didn't miss the opportunity to practise it!" (to the sops, about their last "ha! ha!" on page 85 - it wasn't so much what Jamie said here that amused me, as the looks on the sops' faces when he told them that he'd deliberately rehearsed that bar twice without them, to save their voices and enable them to sing along mentally - it looked rather as if most of them had been daydreaming through those few minutes!)

"Say "holiest" suggestively." (Page 108. No comment.)

Oh, and someone asked to be pointed back to my annotated Gerontius post. There you are :-)

"I took my wife to a few bullfights for our silver wedding anniversary recently, as you do."

(I think the audience thought Mark was joking when he said this, but he said exactly the same to us a couple of nights earlier and went on to describe what he'd seen, so I presume he was telling the truth. We were walking offstage when he started to tell the audience about bullfighting, though, so I don't know whether or not he went into quite as graphic detail as he did with us. I hope not - some of the choir got quite upset!)

Opera gig went really well. Morning rehearsal was a little chaotic - we warmed up for a very long time, yet when we were directed to go onto the platform, the orchestra were still on their break, so we sat there for a while doing nothing. Yet with only five minutes to go, we were still offstage rehearsing Carmen, and Brindisi hadn't been touched. Amazingly we managed to get back onstage and run through Brindisi without Tom the orchestra manager having to call a halt to proceedings!

Long gap between rehearsal and concert. Some of the choir complain about these, and I must admit it is frustrating occasionally when I've got tons of work to do at home. But on the whole I really enjoy the enforced relaxing afternoon - Alison and I live too far away for it to be worth going home and coming back, so we usually make the most of the time in town. Today there was a very long (but productive, hopefully) committee meeting after the rehearsal, but even after I'd sat through that, we still had time to go for a lovely cooling swim in the Commonwealth Games pool, followed by a leisurely meal - with a cocktail! - and we still had almost an hour to sit on a sofa in Starbucks and read. A lovely day :-)

The concert was good too. Of course it was much too hot, but never mind. The house was nearly full, and the audience seemed to have a great time. The soloists (Nuccia Focile and Paul Charles Clarke) were great - particularly in the comic duet from "L'elisir d'amore" - and Mark was in fine form. He introduced Paul Charles Clarke as "the great Welsh tenor". After he'd sung his first item, Mark said "As Paul has just reminded me, he is actually from Liverpool."

(This was much funnier at the time...)

All our bits went well. Oh, and in Brindisi, the soloists brought on glasses of champagne as usual, and brought an extra one for Mark, which they handed to him towards the end of the first verse. Very impressively, he conducted the whole of the second verse with this very full glass in one hand, and didn't spill a drop. In the third verse he started to drink it, sipping at first then chugging it down. He beat slower the more he drank, but as soon as he'd finished it he got faster and faster towards the end. A clever effect which was very entertaining :-)

"God, you sound good!"

Piano rehearsal for the opera gig tonight. So many classic quotes from Mark that I had a difficult time deciding which one to use for my title. But I decided that his delighted reaction to hearing the Fire Chorus had to be the winner. (It was great - he conducted it with a gradually broadening grin on his face, and by the end he was positively beaming!)

The rehearsal went pretty well. Not much scope for Jamieisms, as he only did the warmup, but there was "Lively tongues!" (said while rolling his tongue round the inside of his mouth... you had to be there...) and of course "Have you considered your eyelashes yet?"

Then Mark took over. He was on good form. Started with Carmen, and took it so fast that the first bit was over in seconds. Several of the slower members of the choir still hadn't found the page by the time the rest of us stopped singing. "Carmen!" said Mark to one of them. "You all right, darling? Have you got it?" Then he proceeded to sicken everyone by telling us about his recent visit to Spain, during which he attended some bullfights ("for research") which he described in graphic detail. And, about the soloists we've got for the gig: "They're a husband and wife team, you know. Don't know how often they've done this murder scene together..."

Carmen was followed by Brindisi. Not much to note here other than that "ah!" in this case is apparently translated not as a mere "ah!" but as "by God, yes, another bottle!"

Then there was a bit of confusion in the Scottish Refugees chorus because Mark decided he wanted it sung in a diametrically opposite style to the one he usually demands. No consonants, no bright vowels. Took a while to get used to that.

And finally, the Fire Chorus. This, again, was much faster than we'd rehearsed it, but went really well. (Jane and Gill both laughed out loud at me when I predicted it would work first time. Ha!) I was interested to learn that apparently the librettist invented quite a few words just because of the sound they make. Unfortunately Mark couldn't remember which words these are, but he assured us it's true. (He also did an impression of Verdi as an old man: "Leave me alone to do my vegetables!")

I seem to have scribbled down "Fire doesn't have barlines!" at one point... I'm pretty sure that's a Mark quote but I forget exactly what he meant by it :p But I was amused when, after a brief bit of polishing, Mark said: "The whole thing, David. And may the Force be with you."

I'm easily amused, mind you :p Anyway, because I'm obsessive by nature, I feel the need to post an mp3 of Brindisi, just for completeness. I'll be removing all four in a few days' time, so if you want them, grab them quick.

Brindisi (3.6 MB)

"Engage the enemy more closely"

... was actually Nelson's last signal to the fleet at Trafalgar (after "England expects that every man will do his duty"). Not a lot of people know that :-) I mention it because I was lucky enough to be at the International Fleet Review yesterday, which was great, but caused me to feel like death warmed up throughout tonight's rehearsal, because I got home at 5.45 am and had to be at work at 8.45 :-(

Not much to say due to this. Also there was no Jamie - don't know why (they never tell us!) Apparently we'd been due to have Fanny (although the schedule didn't mention that) but she couldn't come, so David stepped in at the last minute, bringing with him a replacement pianist. I've forgotten her name but she did really well, particularly in the opera stuff. Gerontius threw her a bit, but it isn't easy!

We did all the opera stuff (well, except Brindisi, but we know that pretty well) and the end of the Demons' Chorus from Gerontius. Another amusing warmup with Maggie prior to all this; my highlight was when she got to the usual "relax your jaw" bit of the facial stretches and pointed out that the men couldn't talk with their faces like that (they'd been giving her a hard time by chattering incessantly when she was trying to give instructions), so of course they all promptly tried to prove that they could. They may have had second thoughts if they could have seen themselves in a mirror! Also amusing was when she got us to practise the demonic "ha! ha!" bits - turned out the men can easily sound demonic, but the ladies just sound like cackling witches... Mind you, it's possible that that's what Elgar wanted, I suppose :p

Fire Chorus is sounding better all the time. The basses did ask if they could go over their notes at the bottom of page 38. I must admit I hadn't noticed it was wrong, and neither had David; he said "I think it would be counterproductive for you to hear what you're supposed to be doing!" And I'm still not convinced that they're singing their last entry on page 90 of gerontius in unison, although it does sound closer to it than it ever has in the past...

A couple of people have said to me that the mp3s of the opera choruses were useful, which is good news. So I've completed the set by putting up the Scottish Refugees chorus as well. Not that I expect anyone needs to practise it as much as the others - it's mainly for Jane, who really likes it :-)

Chorus of the Scottish Refugees (7.2 MB)

"Sopranos, you switch on like lights in a city - gradually, over half an hour."

Ladies' sectional tonight, at the BBC. The studio was FABULOUSLY cool - wish we could rehearse there all the time! I was made still cooler by the fact that just after I arrived, Margery handed me a bottle of water and asked me if I could open it for her. Needless to say, it turned out to be sparkling water that had been shaken, and it went EVERYWHERE! Thanks, Margery :p

There are those who may be thinking that Jamie needed to be drenched with water tonight... He was in one of those moods in which he appeared to be enjoying himself to an almost alarming extent! Several times I heard different people comment "I want some of what he's on!" I think my favourite moment was during the Fire Chorus. He decided it would be useful for us to sing page 42 to "ha ha ha", while singing all offbeat quavers as loudly as possible and all onbeat quavers very quietly. He demonstrated this - so impressively that we gaped with open mouths ("I've been practising all day!" he said afterwards) - but the bit that amused me was that Meg walked in while this performance was going on, and didn't bat an eyelid!

The Fire Chorus sounds pretty good now. We spent a bit of time getting the Italian words right (at speed). After a few minutes of us rattling off some of the lines, Jamie commented how bizarre this might appear to outsiders. "Imagine an alien walking in!" he said. "Imagine an Italian!" retorted someone.

There was also something about how Cheshire and North Wales are quite different but wouldn't appear so to a Brazilian. Wish I could remember what on earth this had to do with Verdi!

We also did the Carmen finale (which prompted the comment in the title) and a few Gerontius bits (p95-102; p169-end; p126-147). Three final Jamieisms:

"I love the way you count with your tummies!"

"Descending semitone MISERY, ladies!"

"Sopranos, if Manchester is where we want to be, let's just say that note was only at about Macclesfield." [They try again.] "We're nearly at Stockport! It's amazing!" [And again.] "We're RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY FLAT! ... Which is in the centre of Manchester. You realised that, right?"

"She's dumping Paul Scholes for David Beckham..."

... and if I've understood things correctly, Paul Scholes kills her because of this...

NOTE: This is Jamie's explanation of the story of Carmen (Don Jose = Paul Scholes, Escamillo the champion bullfighter = David Beckham). We are in no way suggesting that anyone has actually dumped Paul Scholes, least of all for David Beckham, and we are DEFINITELY not suggesting that Paul Scholes has killed anyone!

Opera choruses tonight - all of them, including the Carmen finale (as you might have gathered), which is a relief because we hadn't tried that one before tonight! Before I forget, Gill asked me if I could provide practice tapes (or something similar) for Fuoco di Gioia and Carmen. Choir members are welcome to download mp3s of these which I have put online (I will be removing them after the gig - they are for study only):

Carmen finale (page 372-384) (8.5 MB)
Carmen finale (page 384-end) (4.3 MB)
Fuoco di Gioia (3.2 MB)

Hopefully the mp3s will solve any problems. If need be, though, I can make helpful amendments!

An amusing moment during the warmup, when the basses kept chatting and Maggie had to shush them several times. Finally, exasperatedly, she said to Cliff "I'll put you over my knee!" He didn't look too displeased by the prospect :p

Started with the Fire Chorus ("Fuoco di Gioia"). Could tell the men had had a sectional last night - actual pitches were discernible on the infamous bit on page 41, and page 43 sounded extremely confident! Scottish Refugees came next - I told Jane this was boring. She liked it. But that's probably because she's only sung it once...

Then a bit of time on Brindisi, which is always a laugh. Lots of practice at breathing in on a high-positioned "ah" vowel. Jamie's "in/out face" while demonstrating it was amusing :p Also a bit of work was done on making the low notes audible. Jamie reckons Mark will never have heard them before (they're usually inaudible). Apparently Mark commented after Tannhaüser that he'd never heard our bit in tune before - in opera houses, says Jamie, it's usually sung with a "healthy vibrato" (air quotes, pained look) which isn't conducive to singing in tune!

Finished with the Carmen finale, which wasn't too hard once we got used to it, but was a bit of a shock at first because it was extremely fast AND in French (I find singing in French harder than any other language, and I know I'm not alone in this). (Apologies for the pronunciation of the French on the mp3s, btw - it's not great!) During the course of learning this, Jamie decided to make a badge for each of the sopranos saying: "I'm not going to reach for the top notes!" This was followed by a diversion in which he quoted from Shrek 2... "Are we there yet?"

And unbelievably we finished 5 minutes early! I think the clock must have been wrong...

Jamie: "OK, let's sing it." [basses groan] Jamie: "It's ONE NOTE!"

(apologies for taking so long to finish this post - I seem to be exhausted all the time at the moment)

Well, I ended up with 3 American guests in the end, and they were lovely. They gave me a model of a lighthouse that's near where they live - apparently there are hundreds of (working) lighthouses all along the shore of Lake Michigan!

My guests, along with several other members of the Battle Creek group, watched the second half of our rehearsal tonight, when Jamie picked out the most showy-off bits of Gerontius for us to do. (Well, it might have been a coincidence that he picked those bits when we had an audience, but we don't think so!) Just as well they weren't there for the first half, when we had another attempt to make the Fire Chorus sound like Verdi...

The title of this post comes from rehearsing the comedy bass line "l'ultimo guizzo lampeggia e muor" - this comes at the end of a page in which the other parts all have very short easy phrases. It seemed to be the words that were the problem (the notes are all bottom Bs) so Jamie made us all say it repeatedly. I don't think the basses were really alarmed at the prospect of singing it after that, it's just a knee-jerk choral singer's reaction :p

There was lots of singing each other's parts tonight, in order to consolidate some of the notes. I was particularly amused at the tenor and bass "movono intorno mutando stuol" - turns out that this line, which has been dire every time, sounds great if the men are instructed to ignore the pitches - and the words - and the dynamics...

Other bits I liked:

The fact that I now have "Haka Dalek bit" written in my score (on the "fuga la notte col suo splendor" scale up)

Jamie: Do you feel your tummy going "What are you DOING?!?"

Jamie: Did you just SWOOP?!? (it was the accompanying eyebrows here!) But David almost outdid this with his eyebrows when he heard Jamie give the instruction "Tune into David FM" (i.e. listen to the accompaniment so you don't speed up).

After break (with an audience, as already mentioned): Gerontius: p41-54 (end of part 1); Demons p70-91; Praise p125-147. Less to note here, but let's see: there was the "Haka Who" on the bottom of p78; Jamie's F face on "feet", p81 (you had to see it...); the fact that the basses are (as I have pointed out!) wrongly singing in harmony on p90 for the last "ha! ha!"; and the experimentation on how to sing "hosts" on p79 - Noel Coward? Russian? I'm not sure what the final verdict was!

Great choral moments, part 2

Further discussion of the English surtitling thing here.

I have to clean the house very urgently, before two members of the Battle Creek choir arrive tomorrow. So as usual when I have cleaning to do, I have been finding all sorts of more urgent things to do first :-) I really am about to get the hoover out, but first I thought I'd post another choral moment that I was reminded of recently.

This one is from 17th July 1999: singing the Berlioz Grande Messe des Morts in York Minster, with 2 extra choirs, 4 brass bands (in the 4 corners of the Minster) and the biggest orchestra EVER, including (I think) FIFTEEN timps. I was singing tenor on that occasion (there is no alto part in that piece, so Keith asked for volunteers who were finding the sop part painful). This turned out to have been a great decision on my part, because it meant that I got to sit at the front, right behind the timps (there were about a MILLION ladies, so they put them all at the back!), and next to the lovely Bruce, who I think had only joined the choir relatively recently (certainly I hadn't talked to him much before that day). There were several wonderful moments when all the brass and percussion played very loudly at once, but the best was the Neapolitan 6th chord in the Lacrymosa. Bruce and I both shouted "WOW!!!!" at the tops of our voices, involuntarily, IN THE ACTUAL CONCERT. It was fine - no-one could hear us :-)

"If you rush, you're dead. (Not literally.)"

At the RNCM tonight, which was great in that it wasn't WHGS, but bad in that the concert hall was very airless and very hot. Oh well. Did two things - first half of rehearsal on the Fire Chorus, and second half on a chunk of Gerontius (from the Angelicals bit to the Praise to the Holiest bit). Fire Chorus is now just about recognisable as Verdi rather than, say, Stockhausen, although there's still quite a way to go.

Jamie mentioned at one point about the ENO plan to use surtitles on English operas (which is of course all they sing, but still). His comment? "I was there [at ENO] last night, and... well, let's just say that we ought to work harder at our diction..."

Oh, and do point friends towards the Sing With The Hallé day website, which has just gone live.

I'm falling asleep, I'm afraid, so I'm just going to list tonight's Jamieisms (which were many!). These are in the order in which they're scribbled in my score as opposed to the order in which they occurred...

Fire Chorus:

(to the basses on page 2) "It sounds a bit too much like you're from Gerrards Cross."
(to everyone) "Get your tongue involved, folks - in fact that's probably good advice for life in general."
(on trying to get us to put the rolled r of the last word before the next beat - first he tried getting us to tap our feet on the next beat) "It's like a bad Charleston. Forget the foot, click your fingers."
(after witnessing the result of this) "Gentlemen, watch the cheese!"

Gerontius pages 95-147:

He made the tenors sing a top Eb (a minor tenth above middle C) in order to improve the Eb below, on page 106. The basses' faces were a picture, especially when Jamie turned to them and said "You must warm up in falsetto too!" Then: "Write it in, tenors: we did this bar well once..."

Page 108 prompted the idea that we should get a sign printed to stick on the door, and/or a T shirt for Jamie to wear, with a picture of an ice cream cone and the text "NO SCOOPING!"

Page 108 also sparked off the surreal few minutes which started with him asking the altos to think 2 octaves higher for our last note, and somehow caused him to start to tell us about Eddie Izzard and Engelbert Humperdinck and then say he'd tell us another time, leaving us all baffled... This may shed some light on the subject. But then, it may not :-)

Great choral moments, part 1

As promised!

This isn't the first one I thought of when I said I'd start this series of posts, but I was just reminded of it so thought I'd post it while it was in my mind. Plus, I already wrote about it elsewhere at the time, so I can put it here with a quick copy & paste :p

Last November (the date is significant, as you'll see later if you consider it) we had a really good Hallé gig - Beethoven 7, Beethoven "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" (no, I'd never heard of the Beethoven version either) and some Mahler songs (from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn"). Since the choir was only in the second item, we got to sit and listen for most of the time, and the symphony was fantastic. But even that wasn't the great moment.

It was in the warm up. We warm up very intensively, for at least 20 minutes before we sing, and Jamie (the choral director) likes to vary his approach (although it always involves stretching the body and face, followed by breathing exercises, followed by pitchless vocal exercises, followed by pitched vocal exercises). One that he uses quite often is the "sing a chord" one, because most of the choir find this extremely difficult (which always surprises me). So no-one batted an eyelid when on Saturday he suddenly interrupted our "sliding V" exercise to say "Sing a G major chord." Followed by "C major. G. D. G. C. G. D. G." (A few people were looking relieved that he was sticking to such an easy chord progression for a change.)

I'm still annoyed I didn't catch on before this, but: Jamie then said "Now add the tune!" and suddenly the whole choir of 150, crammed into our backstage warmup area, were singing a harmonised-on-the-fly a cappella version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". With only a few shouted instructions from Jamie, we modulated a couple of times, ending in a key which allowed the 1st sopranos to show off on the last note. And with that the warm up ended, and we went on stage to perform.

It's always a fantastic feeling singing in the middle of a really good choir - but this was extra special. Everyone was just buzzing - the whole choir went on stage with huge grins on their faces. (The concert was almost an anti-climax!) It's really hard to convey what this felt like to someone who's not experienced anything similar. But it was good :-)

Wagnerian pigtails

Several of us felt the urge to put our hair in pigtails for tonight's gig. (Sadly the audience never got to see this, because we were offstage throughout. But I feel it must've added to the vibe :p ) However, someone asked why pigtails are associated with Wagner women, and I found that I didn't know! Rachel has since emailed me this interesting link about the Valkyries, but I feel more investigation is still needed. And while we're on the subject, I'm sure I've read somewhere that Brunnhilde is the origin of the saying "the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings", as in one of the Ring Cycle operas she doesn't appear at all until the very end. However, last time I tried to find some evidence for this, I didn't get very far. Anyone know more than me?

The gig went fine (review here - thanks Graham), although there was a lot of discontent at the start of the rehearsal because we'd been called for 6.30 (which was a real struggle for a lot of people) yet the warm-up didn't actually start till 6.45. I went to mention this to Jamie (in my role as alto rep) and discovered that he'd thought we'd been called for 6.45, which is why he hadn't apologised. He was mortified! Unfortunately he didn't really have a chance to address everyone after that, but I'm sure he'll say something at the next rehearsal.

(Oh, and I hope, for Jamie's sake, that the phonecam video filmed by Dicky of him doing his facial exercises at the start of the warm-up doesn't make it online :p )

No rehearsal next week, so we won't meet again till 8th June (and I'm delighted that it's at the RNCM; I really, really, REALLY hate going to WHGS, so much so that whenever we're there - which is most of the time - it generally takes me at least half an hour before the enjoyment of the rehearsal wipes out my grumpiness at having to go there). I've been meaning to do a series of posts on "most memorable choir gigs EVER", though, so maybe I'll get round to that in the next week.

"You, ladies, as you would expect, are the voices of sexual allure...."

So, we were at the Bridgewater Hall tonight. Split rehearsal - the ladies were there for 6.15 for the orchestral rehearsal for Tannhäuser with Jamie (conducting the offstage performers, including us) and Mark (conducting overall); the men arrived later and did some work with Maggie until we all got together for the last hour. Usually when we sing offstage there are at most a couple of orchestral players there too, but for this there are 12 players, I think. I was standing right behind the 1st and 2nd horns (Julian and Dicky) and was most amused by their Lou and Andy impression (Little Britain, for those who don't know what I'm talking about). It went something like this...

Jamie: Horns, do you play for the first time at 29?
Julian/Dicky: Yes.
Dicky (as Lou): Now, last time you played before 29, didn't you?
Julian (as Andy): Yeah, I know.
etc. *giggle*

I asked Julian about something that's been bugging me all week, namely the title of the fanfare that the Hallé team played before taking part in the Manchester Run on Sunday. I'd seen it on TV and recognised it, but couldn't remember what it was. Turns out it was "Fanfare for an Occasion" by Bliss. Now all I need to do is work out why it's so familiar to me...

Mark appeared a few times during the rehearsal, to tell us what our role was (see title) and what we sounded like from the stage (quite good, apparently). Other Mark quotes:

"It's about the tussle between religion and, I'm afraid, sex."

"What goes on in her grotto doesn't bear thinking about!"

"Could it have more........ sex?"

After we'd sung the thing through several times, Julian figured we must be done and foolishly put his horn away. Sylvia and I were pretty sure this cursed everyone's chances of an early finish, and so it proved - Mark decided to run it one more time, and everyone around Julian was most amused when he had to get his horn out again :p

We did finish slightly early, though, which meant half an hour's relaxation before the whole choir got together. We spent the last hour doing the two new Verdi opera choruses. We'd done a bit of work on the Scottish refugees chorus a few weeks ago, so this was mainly polishing. In the middle of this Jamie had an idea that it might be fun for choirs of the future to somehow have totally interactive rehearsals, in which the chorus master could get instant feedback from every individual choir member on his every thought. I suspect this may be some way in the future...

And we finished with the Fire Chorus, which is much harder (and more fun) and which we haven't tried before. Not easy! We didn't do much in-depth work on it, as there wasn't time - just sight-read through it several times and did a bit extra on a few bits. It has a very cheesy end :p

Anyway, it's the Tannhäuser gig tomorrow, so we'll be back at the hall - more then!

Jamie to the 2nd altos: "I'm sure you'll quiver underneath us!"

(That was in Tannhäuser. I'll leave you to work out what he meant :p )

I must first apologise for taking 2 days to post this. Wednesday was a horrible, horrible day - major hassles at work caused me to be late for the rehearsal, which I hate - and I ran out of energy when I got home. Feeling a bit guilty now I've noticed how many people looked at this blog since then (35!) - sorry guys!

A few more Jamieisms to list:
"Sing 'him' with the 'hum' tummy."
"Definitely on the southern side of the note. It's not flat, but..." (that was to the basses)
"It's not a big kind of calamity in the mouth." (re: the consonant cluster in the middle of 'virgins pray')

And two favourite moments of the evening:
1. Jamie and David thumping out "I was glad" as a piano duet during the break. Embarrassingly, those of us who were sitting in the hall at the time didn't recognise it without the words. We knew we knew it, but we just couldn't remember what it was!
2. The basses singing "Amen" on page 37 (after the Noe/Job/Moses/David bit). It sounded wonderful and sent shivers down my spine.

All in all it was a good rehearsal, despite the fact it included Wagner (which always gives me a sore throat for some reason). I started in a totally black mood and was quite cheerful by the end. Yay for choir :-) We did the first half of Gerontius in some detail, and then the men went home and we learned our 23 bars of Tannhauser pretty thoroughly. Turns out we will definitely be offstage for the gig and therefore don't have to wear our frocks or stay after we've sung. Not that we don't enjoy listening to the orchestra play, but I (for one) have been totally exhausted lately and will welcome the extra free time!

Oh, and before I forget, thanks to Graham (again!) for pointing out that the Hallé have won an award.

Now, to make up for my delay in posting, I think I will treat you to my list of "interesting things I've got scribbled in my Gerontius score". (Yes, I know you've been awaiting this with bated breath!) If you don't want to hear it, stop reading now...

... still here? OK, here we go:

(many of you will already know lots of this stuff, but I'm writing it down for those who might not)

page 0: A.M.D.G. stands for "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam"... "To the greater glory of God". Elgar used this dedication on several of his other sacred works too, as did J. S. Bach.

PART 1

page 1: bars 1-4 is the Judgement theme (see also e.g. page 64, figure 20; page 66, 2 bars before figure 26, where it appears in the middle of the accompaniment; page 93, figure 58; also on page 158 at figure 118 just before the "blinding flash"); at figure 2 is the Fear theme (see also e.g. page 65 at figure 24)

page 2: figure 4 is the Prayer theme (see also e.g. page 10, figure 28; page 30, 3rd line last bar; page 34, figure 61)

page 3: (don't worry, there isn't a note for every page!) 3rd bar of figure 10 there is a good bit featuring string arpeggios

page 6: figure 19 is the Sleep theme (see also e.g. page 39, top line, just as Gerontius dies)

page 7: figure 21 is the Pain theme (see also e.g. page 8, figure 24; page 14, last 2 bars; page 31, figure 58)

page 9: bar 2 has a lovely effect in which all the strings (muted) are divisi in 3 parts and the harps have repeated triplets. AND bar 3 has all this with a Neapolitan 6th! (that's my favourite chord, btw, and there are loads in Gerontius). Bar 6 sees the strings dividing even further (into 4 parts) and bar 10 has them playing unison but sul ponticello (a weird sound caused by playing nearer the bridge than usual)

page 15: bar 2 has the first sound of the Demons; bar 6 has the "Sanctus Fortis" tune that comes properly on page 23)

page 27: the 3rd line has a good bit involving the trombones; figure 49 is just a good note :-)

page 29: figure 53 has another sul ponticello bit

page 30: figure 56 has fff brass triplets - wow!

page 31: figure 57 is what I think of as the "West Side Story" bit (if you know the WSS music you'll know what I mean); 4 bars later has another pppp divisi string bit with a Neapolitan

page 32: figure 59 has another hint of the Demons to come; 2 bars later the timps are hit with the wrong end of the sticks (weird effect!)

page 34: figure 61 has sextuplet semiquavers on the timp on the first beat

page 36: figure 64 has the organ playing; the semi-chorus is listing those to whose aid God has come in the past

page 38: Gerontius is on his last legs here, and he dies at the end of the top line of page 39

page 39: after top line, mood changes completely as Gerontius has died and the priest sings for the first time

page 40: the music here is referenced on page 149 when Gerontius hears it from wherever he is

page 46: I have written here, from a previous performance, "Stay under Willard!" which is a nice thought :p I also have written "levitation section", which is either a Mark or a Jamie idea and refers to the feeling rather than anything in the text or music, as far as I recall. Oh, and there is a dominant pedal here (i.e. the long held A in the bass of the orchestra); a dominant pedal is a kind of aural clue that we're reaching the end of the movement (once you know what they sound like you'll be amazed how many pieces have one)

page 54: I love the 2nd bass note here!

PART 2

page 56: at the risk of stating the obvious, Gerontius is referred to as the "soul" now, because he is dead

page 57: bottom line has a violin solo followed by a cello solo

page 59: 3rd line has the Alleluia theme, a hint of the Angel's music from the next page

page 60: the Angel appears here for the first time (Elgar directs that she not appear on the platform until part 2); 3rd line (2nd bar) has the aforementioned Alleluia theme, followed by a horn motif that I really like

page 62: bar 2 has the Alleluia theme for the 3rd and best time

page 68: last bar has a total change of mood as we get to the demons; there are bassoons, contrabassoon, double basses, timps with sticks

page 69: 2nd line has the strings playing col legno (i.e. with the wood of the bow rather than the hair - a weird effect); this page also has previews of some of the demon chorus themes

page 74: I don't know about anyone else, but if I'm listening to football commentary (which I frequently do) and they use the word "dispossessed", I have this tune on the brain for hours!

page 76: figure 37 has a great bit with a gong crash on beat 2

page 79: bar 2 has the timps with sticks thing again

page 83: when I first did Gerontius I found this page really difficult. But it's easy when you've got the sound of it in your head after singing it loads of times. Be reassured, newbies :-)

page 85: figure 47 has an ff muted horn chord which sounds GREAT

page 87: figure 49 has a big descending woodwind scale; ditto ascending 3 bars later

page 89: bassoon scale up and down on top line

page 90: bar 6 has the famous bass "quack quack"; last but one bar has the basses singing in unison in theory, yet I have NEVER heard this bar anywhere NEAR unison. (Yes, basses, that's a challenge!) The last bar, and the first bar of the next page, has the bassoons doing a final "ha! ha!" at a third of the speed.

page 91: contrabassoon joins in for last 4 bars

page 92: first 3 bars are reminiscent of start of part 2 (page 55)

page 93: top line has a good bit with 3 separate violin and cello soli; on the bottom line the mortal she refers to is St Francis

page 95: the Angelicals are the souls of those who have already been redeemed

page 100: in the first bar of the bottom line I have written "Let the blood run free!" I know this refers to a long-forgotten weird Australian black comedy set in a hospital, but I have no idea what I thought its connection with this bar was!

page 102: 2 bars before 68 is the "grumbling bit" and has a timp roll with horn/bass clarinet chords

page 105: first chord of bar 4 was Keith Orrell's favourite chord in the whole piece

page 111: bar 2 has bassoon/clarinet arpeggios; figure 74 (when they cross the threshold into (I assume) Heaven itself) is one of those bars which I find practically impossible to sing because I'm so overcome by the build-up to it and the fantastic noise that surrounds me on the chord itself. I'm invariably all choked up and can only join in properly a few bars later. If anyone has a suggestion that will enable me to sing the whole line, I'd love to hear it!

page 113: I have "keep up!!" written in the last bar, because the sops ALWAYS sound as if they're half an hour behind the rest of us here. This may of course just be caused by the distance they are from me, but it bugs me EVERY time!

page 116: similarly, I have "eugh!" written by the first bar of the bottom line, because the sops, in the past, have always made a pig's ear of the first note. However, I'm delighted to report that this year it's sounded great every time. We're improving :-)

page 129: I have "MARIA!!" written by the 2nd alto entry on this page. This is because for years I kept being unable to pitch the G#. Then I realised it was "Maria" and have been able to do it ever since :-)

page 133: figure 93 starts a chain of hemiolas which I hadn't noticed the first dozen or so times I sang this. (A hemiola is a rhythmic device used in triple time (e.g. 3/4 like here) in which 2 bars of 3 beats are effectively replaced by 3 lots of 2 beats (i.e. the accents are placed differently). It's used more in Baroque music than later, particularly dance movements such as minuets, and has the effect of making the music seem to hurry along a bit quicker.)

page 135: dominant pedal starts here (i.e. long bass G) (see note for page 46)

page 144: 1st basses have an incredibly high note :p

page 147: I have written "as loud as possible, then louder!" I also have "ooh, echo!!" This is from the St Paul's performance in 2002 - the echo was inconvenient in many places, but at this point it was FABULOUS.

page 148: top line is very similar to the Fear theme (see note for page 1); last 2 bars have low flute triplets

page 149: figure 103 has the "Earth chords" (see page 39 figure 68, and subsequently); in this section the soul of Gerontius is referring to the music on page 40. (The 'Subvenite' is a Latin prayer (Subvenite Sancti Dei) which could very loosely be translated using the words on pages 41-54.)

page 150: the very last crotchet of the page is a Tristan chord

page 151: the Angel of the Agony (usually sung by the same soloist as the Priest) appears, and a long chain of unprepared Neapolitan 6th chords starts here - see e.g. bar 2 and bar 6

page 155: on the top line the orchestra gradually drops out, leaving only the organ on the word 'Judge'

page 156: (one of the very best pages in the whole thing) in bar 2 the harps play the 2 tenor parts as harmonics

page 157: the Alleluia theme returns on the bottom line

page 158: Alleluia again (a really good one) on the 2nd line; however, this one is different in that the timps and organ pedal join in, and the horn motif is absent, replaced by a unison crescendo into the Judgement theme (see notes for page 1)

page 159: note pause over barline at end of top line. This is where the soul of Gerontius gets his "momentary vision of God". The full score says "N.B. At 120 'for one moment' must every instrument exert its fullest force. If any extra Timpani players are available, they must play the 3 bars at 120." The dynamic is great, isn't it? fffzp :-)

page 163: the 2nd line is the last one that Gerontius sings in the piece; the bottom line always reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer... ("In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.") (What?!? I know I'm sad :p ) There is a dominant pedal in the last 4 bars (i.e. the long A in the bass; see notes on pages 46 and 135)

page 170: I love the fact that the 2nd basses only join in after the words "bring us not, Lord, very low" :p

page 175: 1st bar always feels like a 2nd alto solo, even though it isn't (the soloist is singing too); another dominant pedal starts here; last bar of page is one where the semi-chorus sops used to invariably sing the wrong rhythm, but it's been right for a few years now :-)

page 177: the harps are the only things playing on the barlines during the last chord

---

Here endeth my Gerontius analysis. If you read this far, hope you found some of it of interest!

"The altos seem more... concerned..."

(... than the tenors, when it came to singing "Be merciful")

Fanny took tonight's rehearsal (no idea where Jamie was again, but Fanny had been scheduled for ages so it was obviously a long-standing commitment). It was nice to see her - it's been a while! In fact, it occurred to me the last time she took a rehearsal was (I think) the one back in January that inspired me to start this blog (here is the historic first post, in case you missed it) so I suggested to her, on my way out, that she might like to take a look :p

Geoffrey Owen (Hallé Head of Artistic Planning) came to speak to us at the start of the rehearsal to forewarn us about what we'll be doing next season. Lots of exciting stuff, but since I don't think it's been officially announced to the public yet, I'd better not mention it here until it has.

We rehearsed several large chunks of Gerontius (mainly the "Praise to the Holiest" section) and finished with a blast through Brindisi by way of contrast.

I'm afraid I'm falling asleep so any more entertaining remarks will have to wait till tomorrow! Sorry!

"Ever a bell tolls... for DEATH!"

Firstly, two links I've been meaning to post: another Cav review (found by Graham) and the Badger Badger website. The latter is the one featured on the T shirt I wore a week or two ago, which several people asked me about. (WARNING: If you are supposed to be working, you may want to mute your sound before clicking on the badger link...)

Not much to say tonight because I am snowed under with work. [EDIT: I seem to have rabbitted on for ages regardless! Oh well.] Jamie was back, and he started with the Chorus of the Scottish Refugees. Not the most exciting chorus ever - Jamie's translation of one of our repeated lines was more entertaining that any of the actual lines! (That's the line in the title, btw.) We altos did rather hope we might get to go home early since we apparently didn't have a part to sing - we pretended we hadn't seen the "3rd soprano" part that went down to bottom A :p

We also sight read the Venusberg thingy while the men had an early tea break. We were delighted to learn that we will be offstage, so it should be a short night. I'd be worried if I were Jamie and Naomi though, because there were quite a few people I heard say that they certainly weren't going to waste an evening to sing 23 bars. I hope we actually have a choir!

Talking of people muttering, there was a lot of that at the break, when one of the sopranos - don't know her name, I think she's fairly new - sat down at the piano and proceeded to accompany herself in some aria or other. I guess there's no reason why she shouldn't, strictly, but the fact remains that people generally don't do that, so there was lots of muttering, along the lines of "Well, it's just not really appropriate, is it?" and "Who does she think she is?" (It wasn't that she was singing badly - it was just very unexpected!)

Anyway. Jamie told us that he'd spoken to Mark today, who'd been listening to our Elgar recording and was delighted to report that it's all perfectly in tune. "It's much better if choirs sing in tune!" is his advice. This was kind of a theme of the night - Jamie later said, after we'd sung a bit of the Gerontius demons' chorus, "to get the effect, it should kind of be in tune, shouldn't it?" (Oh, and could someone please explain to me why it irritates me quite so intensely when I hear people calling it Jerontius? As was pointed out to me once, it doesn't actually matter, because the word is never actually sung anywhere in the piece... but every time I hear someone pronounce it with a soft G, I have to restrain myself from yelling "Gerontius!" at them!)

Not many Jamieisms tonight, but I think my favourite was "if you're in any doubt over how far to go, it's a semitone higher" (re: the sopranos' first high "ha! ha!" on page 85, which apparently no choir ever gets right. But our sops did, tonight!) Most amusing moment of the night, though, was the looks on the guys' faces when they were trying to pronounce the "th" of "earth" (on page 70) to Jamie's satisfaction. Some of the 2nd tenors looked as if they were blowing raspberries. And knowing them, they probably were :-)

But wait - I nearly forgot! That wasn't the funniest thing. The funniest thing was when the rhythm in the Scottish chorus wasn't accurate enough. Jamie said that the long notes were fine, it was the occasional semiquavers that were all over the place. So he made us sing it several times, singing nothing BUT the semiquavers. You probably had to be there to appreciate how funny this was!

Germmtits!

(I discovered tonight that trying to text "Gerontius" using predictive text produces the above...)

No Jamie tonight (he was supposed to be there but couldn't make it; we didn't find out why) so David took the rehearsal and his place as accompanist was taken by the lovely Jonathan. We like it when he's with us because he usually appears to be enjoying himself. Plus, he's very cute :p

We sang through just about the whole of Gerontius. This was interesting as it was (I think) the first thing we ever did with Jamie, in St Paul's Cathedral in 2002, and (to me at least) it really showed how much progress we've made since he took over. There are parts that I remember always sounding less than great, but they were pretty good first time tonight. (I hasten to add that none of these bits were in the alto parts!) But it also made me realise that I've personally improved in some ways; in particular, I found that I could sing through most of the phrases without running out of breath. I've done this piece several times and never managed that before. It's encouraging :-)

David was absolutely correct, though, to point out that while the loud singing is fantastic, the quiet bits need work before they can sound as exciting. I've noticed this before; a lot of choir members seems unable to sing quietly when the music calls for it, at least until it's been pointed out to them several times that they're singing too loudly. (I have been accused of singing too loudly myself in the past, probably with good reason, but that's been in loud bits... I like to think that if it says "ppp" then you can hardly hear me.)

Sometime I will share my list of "good bits to watch out for in Gerontius". I know you all want to see that :p (you won't be surprised to hear that I have many such moments marked in my score!) Highlights from tonight, though: "I know this piece is about death, but...!" (David to the basses, after hearing them sing a line alone) ... and of course the "Dispossessed" contest, which the altos won hands down (there were impressed whooping sounds coming from the tenors after we did it the first time!)

Other stuff: It was great to see Rachel back tonight, amongst others who've been missing for a while. She's not been to choir since before Christmas. Oh, and we were given music for the opera stuff coming up, although we didn't try any of it. 4 things: Brindisi is familiar enough; Tannhäuser has us singing for a total of 23 bars (looks as if it might be offstage, which would be useful as then we wouldn't have to sit through the rest of it!); the Scottish Refugee chorus from Macbeth has, typically, no alto part at all, although the soprano part divides into 3 and goes down to bottom A... go figure!; and the Fire Chorus from Otello has the tenors split into 3 parts while the sops and alts hardly split at all. This isn't the first time this has happened, by any means - I often wonder whether choirs a century ago were drastically different (in terms of balance of parts) than choirs today!

Oh, and two final Gerontius points: firstly, some information about the story and musical details is online here, and a discussion of how to pronounce Gerontius is here. Summary: It's almost certainly a HARD g (i.e. not Jerontius)... I'm pretty sure this is how both Mark and Jamie pronounce it, too.

And it's back to Elgar....

Seems like a really, really long time since we had choir! A couple of things to point out:

1. If you own your own copy of The Dream of Gerontius, you should bring it to tomorrow's rehearsal.

2. The BBC Proms site went live today, and online booking is now open, although the bookings won't be processed immediately. Tickets for our prom are from £6 to £25.

3. It looks as if we're not going to be involved with the Proms in the Park this year, as the Manchester one features the BBC Phil rather than the Hallé.

See you tomorrow!

"The Hallé Choir ... soared through the Easter Hymn to memorable effect"

Briefly: Times review of the Cav gig here and Manchester Evening News review here, in case anyone hasn't seen them. Four stars from each. I haven't seen anything in any other papers - if anyone else has, could they let me know please?"

"Teeth in!"

... said the irrepressible Bruce to the front row sopranos, as he held open the door for them to go onstage. Cheeky thing! However, we will forgive him as it his birthday today :-)

Great gig. Everyone really enjoyed it - particularly the audience! They particularly liked the Easter Hymn; they burst into tumultuous applause after it, even though the music hadn't actually stopped. (I love it when that happens - it really irritates me when, in some other halls, spontaneous applause is frowned upon because it's "not in the right place". If the audience want to approve, let them, I say!) Mark had to wait quite a while before continuing. Don't think he was too upset though! (unlike at the start of the concert, when he stood on the podium and stared at two latecomers until they got to their seats... the couple in question got a round of applause, but I don't think Mark was too impressed)

The soloists were great, particularly Santuzza (Dolora Zajick). They all wore black apart from Lola, who (being the "scarlet woman" of the piece) wore a bright red dress. (I am very slow at noticing things sometimes, so I must admit that the significance of the colours didn't dawn on me until Lindsey pointed it out.) The only disappointment was that Turiddu (Ian Storey) sang with a score, whereas the other soloists all did it from memory. He had a fantastic voice, but the communication just wasn't there. For example, he sang a long aria to his mother (Mamma Lucia, played by Frances McCafferty), during which she gazed worriedly at him throughout, perfectly in character, yet he didn't look at her once!

I took a few photos in the interval - some better than others, as ever - which are up on the choir website. (Yael asked me tonight if I could possibly put thumbnails on (linking to full images) instead of the images themselves, which would really help non-broadband people. I felt a bit guilty as I've been meaning to do that for ages, but the way I currently do it takes approximately 5 minutes (literally) to get the photos from camera to web, and I have had no time to sort it out an alternative method (which would probably be just as quick once in place). Sorry! I'll get to it sometime, I promise.)

Not many Jamieisms tonight, sorry, although you will be pleased to learn that we did do "the Spider-Man warmup" (a good way of stretching when there are a large number of people in a small space), and the ladies were asked to sing the opening chorus "as if twirling a long, handlebar-type Edwardian moustache" :-)

No choir next week, but I'll be seeing quite a few choir people on Saturday night for Sue's party, at which my band is performing. Can't wait!

"Don't go away, darling. It was just lovely. The scream was great."

(Mark Elder to "una donna solo, assai lontano, gridando" (a.k.a. "the woman who runs up behind the choir at the end and screams a lot")

Orchestral rehearsal for Cav. We were hopeful at the start when Mark said he'd do our bits first and then do the middle section after we'd gone home - "wahay, early night!" we thought... but in fact we left at 9.00, only half an hour before scheduled. Oh well.

Rehearsal wasn't too bad, although it took a bit longer to get things just right than we expected. The biggest surprise, announced by Mark at the start, is that all the soloists who are supposed to be in the concert have actually turned up! (Mark has some sort of curse on soloists - invariably one or more of them is taken ill at the last moment, in any concert he conducts. So to have all the ones we're supposed to have is very rare. Of course, he's probably now guaranteed that one will develop some lurgy or other before the gig on Thursday...)

We arrived to find the aforementioned Ian Storey (tenor soloist) standing at the back of the choir seats singing an aria accompanied by two harps. It was lovely! Turns out that this is his offstage aria, and they were trying to find a good position from which to do it (this is always a time-consuming aspect of offstage stuff, as ladies who've sung The Planets will testify!) Later on they were trying it again from the side of the stage to see if that was any better. It'll be interesting to see where they end up (I suspect it won't be on the choir balcony - Ian was plainly unimpressed by that, complaining that it was "like singing in a bathtub").

Our own tenors surprised me slightly by not sounding quite as inebriated and enthusiastic as usual in their drinking song, which has been a highlight of every rehearsal so far (particularly the slide halfway through the tune!) I'm sure they'll be back to normal by tomorrow though.

All the soloists were great. Santuzza in particular (Dolora Zajick, an American mezzo) was very lively, and had the choir giggling at her impression of the Screaming Lady! As for the Screaming Lady bit, which culminates in the last note the choir sings (a very loud C major chord) it took AGES to sort out. This was partly because it involved an offstage action (see above) but also because no-one had decided when the choir should stand to sing this chord, and Mark wanted it to be a surprise, which it wouldn't be if we stood up too early. So Jamie had the idea that we should leap to our feet at the SAME MOMENT as we burst out with this unexpected chord. Seems straightforward enough, but some of the sops in the front row couldn't cope with this :p Still, they got it in the end. There were quite a few people I could hear singing wrong notes, despite a C being played on basses and timps for quite a while before the chord... I don't think these could be heard, though, with the number of people blasting out the top C! (Not sure how many, but it's not just Santuzza, it's all the sops in the Hallé Choir and Hallé Youth Choir who "have it in them". Quite a sound!)

"Make an Italian face... no, actually, Sicilian"

was my favourite instruction of tonight :-)

Piano rehearsal with Mark Elder for Cavalleria Rusticana. Much fun, as usual. The Hallé Youth Choir were there to run through the Easter Hymn with us (they're singing the church choir part in that) and there was a great sound a lot of the time. Other things weren't quite as good at first - we were finding it hard to sing rhythmically and in time, particularly - but it was fine by the end. (Although, infuriatingly, there were some people behind me who talked almost all the way through. I suppose this explains why they seemed so confused when we altos switched, within the space of a few bars, between the alto, soprano and tenor lines. I assume they were also talking during the rehearsal when we all wrote down which line we were singing :-)

Mark did like quite a lot of what we were doing, though, even before we got all of it correct - at one point he told us that "Covent Garden don't do it as well as that!" And he is in a position to know, so that was nice. He told us a few interesting things, as usual, one of which was that the tenor soloist (Ian Storey) is rare in that he's an Englishman who sings in Italy regularly. Mark says that he (Ian Storey) is very good-looking - can't say I'm convinced, from the photos on his website (example below), but I will reserve my opinion till I've seen him in the flesh :p





Talking of good-looking, Mark also informed us that Mascagni (pictured above), in his day, was considered to be very good-looking (in a different way from Puccini, who apparently had "bedroom eyes"). And that until recently, you could go into a barber's in Milan and ask for a Mascagni haircut - "no, I couldn't!" retorted one of the more follicly-challenged basses!

New choir schedule issued tonight (as usual, it's online) and letters about the London trip in July. And in case anyone hasn't been able to get a Cav recording and wants to practise, I've put mp3s of the chorus bits online. I haven't labelled them, but they're in the correct order in the score and all the choir bits are there. (Obviously, these are only for private study - I'll remove them after the concert.)

"Your tongue should be almost bursting with excitement!"

"Well, Jamie's on form tonight, isn't he?" said someone in the tea queue tonight. And he was. I forget what the title quote was about, but it was one of the double-consonant Italian words (I suspect "neggiamo"). There was also the reverse um-cha thing, which produced a sentence that was something like "you expect to come in on an um but you actually come in on a cha - but it FEELS like an um. You know, like speaking French with a Spanish accent". Seemed perfectly clear to me, but since it was the sops who actually needed to follow this instruction, more help was needed, so Jamie got the whole choir to chant "1, 2, 1, 2" till they managed to come in correctly :p

There was also the demonstration of how to sing a D so that lots of high harmonics are audible. This was very impressive, although we were a little disappointed that he stopped after the A and the high F sharp! (If you didn't hear this, it's much too hard to explain what he was actually doing. But trust me, it was very clever.)

Oh, and there was something about how to make a pirate's "arr" noise, but people were talking behind me (I *hate* it when they do that - it was particularly bad throughout the choir tonight, presumably because people hadn't seen each other for almost 2 weeks) so I didn't quite catch whether you do it by pushing your larynx or *not* pushing your larynx. The former, I think, whereas the latter is what's usually required for singing. I think.

BTW, I would very much like to get a photo of the look on Jamie's face when he demonstrated how he wanted us to sing "beviam, beviam, beviam" - "Look dangerous!" he said, and he did. Although I'm not sure why, when the words mean "we drink, we drink, we drink!"

Two slightly unrelated things he mentioned - firstly that he'd heard from the recording engineer for the Elgar, who told him that he was so moved while listening to one of the choir bits that he'd burst into tears! Should be worth listening to... And also, Jamie says he is taking part in tomorrow night's Brand New Flashmob Opera... but he didn't say in what capacity (I presume singing). Apparently at the climax the chorus have to sing the Hallelujah Chorus in order to save the heroine from going to hell. In the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield. The mind boggles!

There were three new members who joined the choir tonight, and I had one of them (Jane) next to me, which was nice, particularly as her brother is an old friend of mine. But I felt really sorry for her - she joins the choir as a 2nd alto, and the very first thing she has to sing is the bit of Cav where we're singing the soprano part, which goes up to a top A flat! Oh well, it will only get easier :-)

Daniel Barenboim and I...

... were both at the Bridgewater Hall tonight :-)

I was there for a choir committee meeting. When I arrived I was surprised to find my way to the Artists' Entrance blocked not by the usual Hallé truck but by three HUGE orchestra-type trucks. I figured there must be some huge rock band playing - I couldn't think who else would need that much equipment - but when I went to sign in, I found that the sheet next to the committee one was for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and DB's name was at the top! I was quite excited by this, particularly as I'd totally forgotten they were playing here this week. During the early part of the committee meeting (which Jamie only attended part of, as he had a much-sought-after ticket for the concert) we could hear CSO players warming up. Gave the place a real buzz!

2 other vaguely-choir-related things. Firstly, I'm currently reading Michael Kennedy's "Portrait of Elgar" and was amused by this quote, in which Elgar explains why he disliked meeting choirs when rehearsing a new work: "I can face any orchestra under the sun, the players always enjoy new effects, but a chorus looks so disgusted if they haven't a shouting four-pt yell from beginning to end". (That is SO not true of us!)

Secondly, those choir members who took part in the Henry V tour of a year or two back will be amused to note that Prince Charles plans to open his wedding with music from this: "Touch Her Soft Lips And Part" :p