Mark Elder interview

Very hurried post here - just on my way out to another committee meeting. But I've been meaning to post about this for days and haven't had time.

Graham E sent me an mp3 (7.4 MB) of a very interesting Mark Elder interview that was on the radio last week (Front Row, Radio 4, last Wednesday I think). Mainly about the change in the Hallé's fortunes since he took over, and how he did it, but he says some interesting things about singers at the end.

Simon from the Youth Choir wrote to tell me the same thing, and also helpfully pointed out a direct link to the whole programme online. Useful for those who can't download stuff. He adds "the interview begins approx. 6 1/2 mins into the programme & lasts for about 8 1/2 mins".

Thanks guys! (And it's good to know the HYC read this blog!)

Oh, btw, I found out about the Facial Urge Jamie thing. Will explain more tomorrow. But I should warn you, it's porn-related :p

"Ladies, not all of you are saying KAK!"

That's not a Jamieism, that's a Xeniaism, just for a change. What can I say? It amused me :-) (It applied to page 54, if you were wondering.)

I feel the need to record here the two basic rules of singing in Russian.

1. Go for the vowels.
2. That L isn't really there... except that it is...

So, you know I wasn't feeling well yesterday? This morning I had lost my voice completely. But I didn't realise this until I was just leaving the house for work, when I said goodbye to the cats - and discovered I couldn't speak. It was too late to call in sick, though, so I went in and tried not to speak too much. Amazingly I felt quite a bit better by home time (not sure how) and with the help of some Vocal Zones I felt able to go to the sectional. I was half an hour late, though - I closed my eyes briefly, while sitting in my armchair, and opened them rather later than I intended to. Oh well.

The rehearsal was mainly concentrated on the Russian, so as to make the most of Xenia. We just did the 3rd movement. Frustratingly there wasn't time to actually sing all of it, and the main bit that got missed out was, yet again, the section from p51-55, that we can't actually do because we've never done it properly. Not to worry, though, I'm sure Jamie will pick it up next week.

I was absolutely staggered when it emerged that some people - and it was a significant number, not just one - didn't have the "vi kli ka yet" word alterations written in. I mean, those words appear quite a few times, and we've done the 3rd movement more than any of the others. And it's not people who have missed the rehearsals, as far as I can see. I can only conclude that it's because they've been chatting and missed the instruction every time.

Oh, I met the last of the new 1st altos, Emma. She said she wasn't too alarmed after her first rehearsal. Brave lady :p

Jamie used the phrase "up the Swanee" at one point, and for some reason my brain popped up with the thought "Where is the Swanee river? Is it even a real river? I have no idea!" So I had to look it up when I got home. Be honest with yourself and see if you know the answer before you check by clicking here :p (While I was at it, I found out some interesting stuff about the Swanee whistle too!)

A few proper Jamieisms to finish:

"How many descending minor thirds in a row? Five! This is gonna be GREAT!" (p54)

p.42, after mocking our pronunciation of "tokaroche":

Jamie: Was that unfair?
Ladies: Yes! Very!
Jamie: ... But was it funny?
Ladies: NO!

And finally, on page 46, after some intensive swooping practice (you had to be there!):

Jamie: "Next week it'll be there, because you've practised the gaps... and you won't sound like a Turkish religious singer calling people to prayer..."
Ladies: ...

"The joy will come later..."

This is our fabulous Russian language coach, Xenia de Berner (yes, I asked her how to spell her name, so I can state that with confidence). Note to self: remember to turn on night vision option on phone so as to reduce the number of blurred photos :p

I don't think I was the only person who was full of a cold and starting a sore throat tonight. (Poor Alison sounded ill before the rehearsal, and sounded twice as bad at the end - doubt she'll make it tomorrow!) I wasn't helped by the fact that they put all the heaters on shortly after the start of the rehearsal - I was already too hot before that! I do realise that I'm usually in the minority when it comes to heat perception. But I really, really hate WHGS. (I've said that before, haven't I? Must stop going on about it!)

My ears are a bit blocked and sore at the moment too. It's possible that this is why so much of the singing sounded flat to me - much worse than usual. (Quite often it sounded as if people started a semitone flat - for example, when Maggie played a chord and then got us to sing it, after we sat down.) I don't know how ear infections affect pitch perception, or indeed whether or not they do at all. But I can't blame my ear problems for the fact that everyone seemed to be singing so far behind the beat, can I? (Jamie kept pointing this out too, so it obviously wasn't just me!) I hate it when I have flat and/or tardy people in earshot - I tend to end up singing louder than I ought to, in an effort to drag the pitch and/or tempo back on track. Sometimes this works. But it doesn't do my voice much good - or, indeed, the sound of the group! Argh. (I do try not to do this, but I find it really hard.)

Jamie was back tonight, anyway, as I said. Good to see him. Also we had a few welcome Jamieisms. The subject of this post was his comment from page 7 (that's the page with possibly the hardest text). We also got: "These people don't take the BUS!" (when Xenia suggested we practise our Russian on the bus) and "It promotes facial growth, doesn't it, gentlemen?" ('it' being the singing of Russian vowels).

Oh, and it turns out that "O kak svonka" means "How sonorous!"

Picked up a leaflet for the Carol Concerts. They appear to have more or less exactly the same programme as last year. Which is somewhat boring (although I'm sure the audience will love it). However, Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride is included, so that's OK. It just wasn't a proper Christmas the year they didn't play that. (The choir doesn't sing in that, although we do have a vital role to play. I'll explain nearer the time, for those who don't know about it!)

Couple of other things: Wendy gave me a copy of an interview with Mark Elder about our recent Elgar CD, from the Awards issue of Gramophone magazine. Unfortunately I can't find it on their website or I'd link to it, but it's worth looking out for.

Graham E sent me the link to the Sunday Times review of our CD. Plainly they don't know what they're talking about - making derogatory remarks about our diction! The cheek!

No news on the Prom DVDs, I'm afraid. Not had a chance to talk to my friend lately, and I could email him to ask, but I don't want to pester him. I'm sure he'll sort them eventually.

Finally... I missed out the best news. We have loads of new members! Well, 7, of whom 3 were present tonight. Two 1st altos (Liz and Lisa), who seem very nice, and a 1st tenor! The poor guy (whose name is Phil) looked quite shocked at the choir's reaction to this announcement... to say we were pleased is putting it mildly :p (Not that we're not equally pleased to meet Liz and Lisa, but 1st altos are one of the largest sections in the choir. 1st tenors... aren't.)

I happen to know that the other 4 new members are: 1st soprano, 2nd soprano, another 1st alto, and a 2nd tenor (yay!) The section that's most in need of a boost is actually the basses, though, not the tenors. In case you're wondering, current numbers (including the new people) are:

S1: 25
S2: 34
A1: 33
A2: 18
T1: 10
T2: 11
B1: 11
B2: 8

Or... S: 59, A: 51, T: 21, B: 19

Or... Ladies: 110, Men: 40

Erm... anyone know any men who can sing but aren't in the choir? Send them our way!

Great choral moments, part 3

Not done one of these for a while, so I figured I'd throw one in!

Before I do, a couple of other things:

I've just updated the online schedule. (Link deliberately not provided, email me if you have lost it.) (That's "lost the link", not "lost it" in general :p ) Lots of changes, so please take note. (Quite a few football clashes not mentioned on the printed schedule.)

Jackie H points out that The Bells "was featured on CD Review on Radio 3 this morning. You'll be able to hear it on Listen Again. There will be a complete performance tomorrow on The Cowan collection at around 11.20 am tomorrow."

Graham E alerts us to this concert in Mellor next Monday, featuring Mark Elder and Hallé players. He adds: "I fail to understand why these concerts are not mentioned at choir, or for that matter why the choir seem never to be invited to make a contribution!"

I was telling people a few weeks ago about a blog post I'd read that talked about "Bo Skovhus, the strapping Danish baritone with the cheekbones that could cut glass" and ends "Well, it can't be porn-star-lookin' Danes every night..." (The guy in question ended up not actually singing in the Prom in question - didn't catch the reason why, but I watched the whole thing, thinking "He's not good looking at all!", before they mentioned that he'd been replaced!) I mention it here only to provide the link, because I couldn't remember his name when I was telling Gill about him.

And finally, the Great Choral Moment. It's the Aida intro.

A few years ago, we sang a large chunk of Aida at the Proms, preceded by a performance in Manchester. But it was the Manchester gig that had the great moment. Let me explain why.

Just before the Grand March, there was a bit where half the choir had to sing offstage. In London this was impractical, so they did it from their seats. But in Manchester they sang from the choir assembly area, with the result that they had to come back onstage for the next bit. It was agreed that because the intro to the Grand March is so long, they could come back on while it was playing rather than having to stop the show to get them in place. And this was the great moment. You see, that intro is so fabulous anyway - it starts with the trumpets, and we had a load of offstage trumpets standing right behind us for added effect. Then it builds up and up in intensity, and this is heightened by the fact that you know that on the next page the choir enters on a wonderfully loud and full E flat major chord. I've sung this chorus many times, but this occasion was better than all of them combined... and the reason is that THIS time, the intense anticipation during the intro was multiplied due to the fact that half the choir was pouring back into the hall during it, so the feeling of "at the end of this intro, we're going to sing a huge impressive chord" became "at the end of this intro, TWICE AS MANY OF US are going to sing a huge impressive chord!"

Maybe it's just me, but the memory of how I felt during that page, that night, still sends shivers down my spine :-)

Tokaroche. Tokaroche. Tokaroche. Vi kli ka yet. Vi kli ka yet.

... Yes, I still have that bit on the brain!

I'm full of awe for the work Fanny's put in on the Russian, in order to teach it to us. She must have spent hours and hours reciting it to herself. She did get a few whoops and rounds of applause last night for her performance, mind you :-)

We did the second half of the 3rd movement in detail, plus singthroughs of the first and last movements. So we've now done the whole of The Bells pretty thoroughly (well, apart from a few pages in the middle of the 3rd movement that got overlooked). It's mostly vaguely familiar by now - even some of the words!

Sectionals next week, and we also get to see Xenia the extremely Russian lady - whee! I bought a Teach Yourself Russian book yesterday - been meaning to do so for ages. No idea when I'll actually get to teach it to myself though... I'm rather unimpressed that the ladies' sectionals are at WHGS, btw. I really, really, really, really hate going there. Grrr.

A few random things:

The Sudoku I was doing last night was the hardest one I've ever done, and I made a mess of it and had to start it again. But I finished it tonight in the bath \o/ If you want to try it, it's this one.

Latest weird search that led someone to this blog: "listen to the choir singing double double by macbeth". I presume this is a reference to the Harry Potter film that featured a choir doing just that.

Graham E sent me an mp3 (thanks Graham) of a Jon Christos interview from Classic FM. If you want to have a listen, it's here.

And finally... the George Bush joke that Fanny was referring to is this one :-)

Facial urge Jamie!

I have a thingy set up that tells me how many people visit this blog. It also tells me what page they came from to get here. Most people come from the choir website (which I really must update properly sometime!) but occasionally they come from a different Blogger site (presumably via the random "next blog" thing) or from a search engine. I'm always fascinated to see what search terms led people to me. But my favourite so far is a recent one - someone actually found the choir blog by doing a search on the words "facial urge Jamie", because all three of those words appear on it in various places. The mind boggles to think what they were actually looking for....

I also noticed that someone had come here from Dancerjen's blog, and this turns out to be Jeni Entwistle, who was a member of the alto section for a while before moving to Finland. (Her most recent blogging appears to be here. Jeni, if you ever read this, great to hear how you're doing!) She has some interesting comments about the choir: here, here and here. The last one is about the Brahms Song of Destiny concert, which I'm alarmed to find that although it was less than a year ago and I know I sang in the concert, I can't remember a single note of!

Anyway. More Bells last night. We did the second movement and quite a lot of the third. It's starting to sink in, although I had the damn Casualty theme stuck in my head all night as a result of the bit that quotes it. Fanny knows the Russian really well - it's obvious that she's spent a lot of time working on it. Although I'm not sure what prompted the Fannyism I scribbled on page 38: "It's like the party game you play when you're all really drunk, and someone leaves the room and you have to guess who it was." :-)

I have to admit that several of the 2nd altos (me included) were doing Sudoku puzzles while not singing. But we were still keeping up the "loud and wrong" tradition... Fanny kept asking the altos to do their part first, when she stopped to note-bash. I was getting paranoid about this and thinking it meant that she thought we were doing it wrong, when it seemed to me that we were actually getting it right more often than the rest of the choir. But someone pointed out that that's possibly why she asked us to go first :-)

O kak zvonka (rhymes with "Wonka")

Sorry for delay. I've been really busy.

I have no idea what "o kak zvonka" means, but it is by far my favourite line of The Bells at the moment.

We did most of the piece (well, except the 2nd movement, but that's really easy) with Fanny last week. (Jamie is off in Argentina with his chamber choir.) Flicking through, I don't seem to have written much new stuff down, apart from on page 35: "Don't worry about that SHSH, that's just to differentiate it from SH..."

The alarm bell bit is now somewhat less alarming, and some of the words in the piece as a whole are starting to seem familiar. No doubt this will change :p

I've bought a recording of it now, and can't decide whether I like it or not. But in case anyone wants to have a listen, I've put the mp3s online. (For study purposes only, of course, and I'll remove them after the concert.) The files are quite large - be warned.

1st movement (7.8 MB)

2nd movement (15.1 MB)

3rd movement (10.1 MB)

4th movement (14.5 MB)

Finally, a heads-up from Sheena. "The CD that some of the choir recorded with Jon Christos is due to be released on 3rd October; it's called Northern Light. Also, there'll be a documentary about Jon Christos on ITV, currently scheduled for 6th October."

"Thou art weighed in the balance... and found wanting..."

This is the point (just before "SLAIN!") at which we started Belshazzar yesterday, and I must admit I thought it was possibly an ominous place! But as it turned out it wasn't too bad at all, and there were places that were incredibly thrilling by the time we came to the performance. This line was one of them, actually, as was the very beginning. The men just sounded FANTASTIC. True, there may have been a few wrong notes on "howl ye", but on the whole the harmony was pretty close to what it should have been, and the sound was wonderful.

EDIT: Because there seem to be loads of people searching for the title phrase and ending up here, I should clarify that it's a quote from the Bible, from the book of Daniel (chapter 5). Belshazzar, king of Babylon, has a feast during which all sorts of false gods are worshipped. During this, a hand appears, writing on the wall words that Daniel explains means "thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting". And that night Belshazzar is killed. ("Slain!") There is a famous musical version of this called "Belshazzar's Feast" by William Walton, and that's the Belshazzar that this post refers to.

The end of the "trumpeters and pipers" bit did go extremely flat in performance, justifying Jamie's decision to tell the lower strings not to play their chord that points this out. But in the rehearsal it wasn't all that far out - less than a semitone the last time, I think. And even in the performance there were several other places where the orchestra came in after an a cappella bit and we'd stayed bang in tune. Quite impressive, when you think about it!

I suppose I ought to backtrack a bit. There were noticeably less people in the hall this year. I guess this was maybe because it was Belshazzar and not Fauré's Requiem - people who didn't know Belshazzar possibly didn't come because they weren't brave enough to sing something they didn't know, and people who did know Belshazzar possibly didn't come because they know how hard it is! But I think it was a good decision to choose it, because most of the people there will never get another chance to perform it - it's not exactly a work that amateur choral societies do very often - and even though many of them were terrified, they all seemed to be having a whale of a time. (The Parry and the Mendelssohn did reassure them, though. It was great to hear "I Was Glad" with that many voices, and the cellos in the Mendelssohn did indeed sound as lovely as Jamie had promised!)

I spent much of the time (when I wasn't singing) running around on Jamie's behalf. (You will be amused to hear that he arrived for the day in a chauffeur-driven car with darkened windows. I suggested that maybe being on BBC Radio Lancs had gone to his head!) Also I got to meet the very lovely baritone soloist, Roland Wood. Sadly I didn't get to use any gaffer tape, but I had some with me just in case...

Anyway, I'm sure there are other things I could say about the day, but I'll let the pictures tell the story. Thanks to Liz and Graham for taking them. They're all now online.

SLAIN!

Well, that's how my feet feel, at least. My feet are more sore than my voice, so I guess I must have finally learned how to sing for a prolonged amount of time without overdoing it. Although those sitting near me may disagree :p

Am very, very tired after today, so a Sing With The Hallé report will have to wait till tomorrow. But I do finally have the promised cute baby pictures. Meet Riley :-) [EDIT: Photos now removed, sorry.]

"Some time I haven't even HEARD of"

is when Jamie said he was due to be on BBC Radio Lancashire this morning, to talk about Sunday. Graham E (who can always be relied upon to remember stuff like this) sent me the mp3 of the show. (There is a bit more after Jerusalem, so don't give up...) Download it here (6.6 MB).

You knew I meant "I Was Glad", right?

... when I said Zadok? For some reason those two works always merge together in my head. Tonight I arrived at the rehearsal, mentioned to someone that I was looking forward to doing Zadok, wasn't in the least fazed when this person had no recollection that we were doing it, and then didn't bat an eyelid when Naomi handed me a copy of I Was Glad. I even sat with the copy on my knee and talked about it being Zadok.... I worry about my mind sometimes :p

So we sang I Was Glad. Which was great. Not Zadok, but just as good. Bit more of The Bells - did the funeral bells bit (which wasn't quite as hard as the alarm bells) and then revisited the alarm bells. ("It's amazing how this has stuck!" commented Jamie after tonight's first attempt at it... he claimed he could hear correct stuff! We'd just done our "Loud and Wrong" thing again - don't know if any of the other sections were more successful, since we couldn't hear them most of the time :p )

We had the lovely Jonathan accompanying us tonight, by the way. We'd love to know whether or not he was sight reading The Bells. If he was, it was extremely impressive!

And then the first half of Belshazzar, in the second half. So we've now sung all of it (well, except the "Slain!" page). Should be exciting on Sunday... Oh, and someone mentioned my list of Gerontius scribblings, so I thought I might post the (much shorter) list of random stuff I've got scribbled in my Belshazzar score.

p1: bar 5, Isaiah - I don't think I've ever heard this chord convincingly correct. The outer parts always seem to end up an octave apart.

p7: bars 1 and 5 - it's not just the men; a large number of the altos always sing the bottom note of these octave leaps wrong (they end up on the same note as the sops).

p17: bar 3, 1st altos - most people sang a Bb instead of a C here, last time.

p19: bar 5, 1st altos again (sorry, this is the last one) - this always makes me cringe because the two alto parts are supposed to be an octave apart, yet the 1sts always sound really flat to me at this point. So do several of the other parts, to be fair - I have arrows pointing upwards all over the page - I just notice the 1sts more because of the octave.

p40: figure 28, I have written (and I think this is a Kent Nagano instruction - it's definitely a single instruction rather than a composite from several performances, anyway): "Bright, enthusiastic, well-accented, short, lots of text, interesting... silvery."

p42: anvil on beat 2 of 1st bar; one of the offstage brass bands plays for the first time at the end of bar 2.

p43: whip on bottom line

p45: bottom line, R band in first 2 bars, followed by L band in next 2 bars

p47: For some reason I find it impossible to come in at the bottom of the page if I listen to what the orchestra is playing. The only way I can do it is if I tap the beat with my finger and ignore all else. Weird, I don't usually have to do that.

p73: Oddly enough, on this page I have written "DON'T follow trumpets!"

p85-97: Really hard to feel the time signature here, unless you write in the "big bars" and number the smaller bars as 4 beats. (If you don't know what I mean, ask me to show you my score. Or, look at the top of page 86, where it starts the numbering for you. The "big barlines" go after each 4th bar.)

p95: penultimate bar, choir 1 has a different rhythm to choir 2, but I don't think I've ever heard it sung as written.

p96: Top line = Grandstand bit!

p100: Alto part (start of bottom line) = Muppets Swedish chef bit :p

p111 (fig 74) - p116: Another "big bars" bit like before (they start the numbering for you)

p120: (last line of piece) I have no idea what quasi senza rit. means, despite knowing the meaning of the individual words...

Oh, Alarm Bell!!!

Whee! Choir reconvened tonight, after the summer break. I got the impression everyone was as pleased as I was to be back :-) Lots to do though. Maggie got everyone in the mood by starting the warmup with the Macarena. Yes, really :p

Started with the Mendelssohn thingy we'll be starting with on Sunday (for the Sing with the Hallé day). It's pretty easy - just what's needed to get everyone singing. And it prompted some early Jamieisms.... "I've been thinking about Sunday (not without fear!) ... What you could really help with, folks, is singing a little closer to the beat!" (Hmm. That one seemed funnier at the time!) Oh, and also "I heard a lot of lovely mistakes. It was a real joy!"

We had a very quick look at three of the four movements of The Bells. Not performing this till November, but it's pretty hard so it's just as well we started early. I think it'd be quite hard even if it wasn't in Russian... mind you, at least we get to work with the wonderful Xenia again (must find out what the correct spelling is). She's the "XdB" mentioned on the schedule, in case anyone had wondered. In the meantime we get stuff like "The little squiggle above that note is a tiny non-existent Y".... Isn't Russian great? :p

The Bells in question are sleigh bells, wedding bells, alarm bells and funeral bells. We didn't have time to run through the funeral bell movement, but we did all the rest. The alarm bell movement was by far the hardest, but I very much enjoyed Jamie's extremely dramatic reading of the lyrics to prepare us for it! I feel that the 2nd altos (of course) won when it came to singing as many of the notes as possible. Many of these were totally incorrect, of course (at least from me) but we like to be enthusiastic :-) (When I was at school the Director of Music's motto for choral singing was always "LOUD AND WRONG!" and I have tried to follow his advice ever since.)

Right at the end we read through the second half of Belshazzar. I'm absolutely delighted that we'll be doing this seated in two choirs, as we haven't the last few times we've done it, and it's just not the same. We had the 2nd sopranos behind us tonight, which was a pleasant change (and an added bonus in the fact that they didn't talk incessantly... although the few 1st altos who usually make it really hard to hear anything did actually shut up a bit in the second half, presumably as a result of Jamie pointing out that they make rehearsals unnecessarily unpleasant for those near them - so yay!)

More tomorrow, when there'll presumably be the first half of Belshazzar, the last bit of The Bells, and maybe even a bit of Zadok....

New baby!

Just got a call from Laurie (Rachel's partner). She's had a baby boy, 6 lb 11 oz, at 4.30 pm yesterday (Sunday) (which I think was the actual due date). This was after 48 hours labour followed by a Caesarian, but mother and baby are both doing fine. They'll be in hospital for a few days yet, but any comments left here will be passed on by Laurie, I should imagine. (And he promises to send me some photos soon!) They are 90% sure of the name, but I won't tell you what it is just yet, in case they change their mind.

This is going to make me late for work, but...

Graham E just emailed to point out that our Music Makers CD is released today! Remember that the Hallé gets more money from it if you buy it from their website...

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 :-)