Still rehearsing The Kingdom, which I think I must be enjoying more than I expected, given that I've had bits of it on the brain all week! It's still not my favourite piece, but it does have quite a few bits I really like. Actually, I think its bittiness is possibly the main thing I don't like about it.
There was a bit of seating chaos this week - if anyone had looked at the area of the choir in which I was sitting at the end of the rehearsal, they would have wondered how on earth we ended up in the formation we did. It was a real mess! The first cause was that we started the rehearsal with the ladies in the main hall and the men in the tea room, and it was only tutti after the break, so everyone had to move seats. This always causes problems! But I think more of the problem was caused by the fact that sometimes we sit with choir 1 at the front and choir 2 at the back, and sometimes we sit in wedges so that both parts have people on the front row. Last week the seating plan told us to sit in wedges, but this week there was no indication as to how we should sit, so the 1st altos defaulted to all sitting at the front (which has been more common in the past) while the 2nd altos attempted to follow last week's instruction and sit in a wedge... and also people hadn't moved across far enough to let the basses sit in their places... so there was a huge crush in our corner, and a whole row of empty seats at the back of the 1st altos, and we were trying to get some 1sts to move there but they didn't realise, and then the rehearsal started so we all just kind of sat in a huddle. And to make matters worse, we had to stand up a few times, and lots of us 2nds are quite short, and we can't see the conductor AT ALL when we're standing up, unless we're at a venue with tiered seating.
I can't believe I wrote so much about that. It wasn't actually a huge deal!
Anyway, a few links for you. But first, please can I repeat my request from last week? Do any of you know of a swing band or big band in Manchester or Salford or Cheshire, which is accepting new members? The person who asked me is a Grade 8+ tenor sax player who is keen to find a band to play with, and I have been unable to come up with any suggestions.
The BBC Music Magazine rounded up the Proms season and said that our Mendelssohn 2 was their best new discovery.
Here's a lovely post about performing the American national anthem. I really like this.
A very interesting and detailed review - by someone who describes himself as an audiophile - of the recently-released remastered Beatles albums.
If you didn't sign up to Spotify any of the first few times I told you about it, you've missed your chance for the moment (unless you sign up for the non-free premium version). Due to hugely increased demand, they've reinstated their invite-only system, which means that for the time being you can't sign up unless you have an invite from someone who's already signed up. And before you ask, I can't give anyone an invite, presumably because I only have the free version myself. Those of you who DID sign up when I advised you to can now feel smug :-)
There are going to be ghost hunters at Chet's! I never saw a ghost when I was there, but every so often someone would insist they'd seen the Grey Lady.
There's a plan to make St Peter's Square traffic-free - hope they fix Metrolink before they do that!
The Guardian is outraged about the sacking of the guy who reads the shipping forecast - and so am I, now I've read what they say.
There are only allowed to be three days of heavy snow this winter - Calderdale Council says so.
While running my Silver Surfers courses, I've usually started by explaining to each new group how the internet works, and they're always amazed to hear about the broadband cables that run under the sea to connect continents etc. together. I've found that it's not just my silver surfer students who don't know that these exist, so you may be interested in this picture of where the cables are. (Note: when you load the page it shows you the 1999 cables - drag the slider at the bottom to show where they are in 2009.)
I like the simplicity of this: howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com.
And finally, a café in Westhoughton has been famous right across the internet this week, because of its £10 breakfast.
EDIT: Almost forgot! This weekend is the 24-hour race on the Marine Lake at Southport - 12 noon on Saturday to 12 noon on Sunday. Go and watch a bit of it if you're in the area. But, more importantly, don't forget that Saturday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Arrrrrgh!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Seek first the Kingdom
First choir rehearsal of the new season last night, and it felt really weird. Several old friends returned, but several OTHER old friends have left. I know things have to move forward but it'll be a while before we're used to this change, I think!
In a way it's a pity it's The Kingdom that we're starting with this year, because I have to admit it's not one of my favourite pieces, although it does have some good bits. (Quick summary for those who don't know it - it's about what the apostles do after the Ascension. Longer summary here.) Lots of us bought our own copies of the score last time we did it, and I know I wasn't the only one who kept finding quotes I'd written in the margins. Here are a few of them (note: these may not mean much to you if you don't know who's being quoted - and I can't say who it is - but those who DO know who it is will smile!):
"Have you thought about that part of your body today? Why not?"
"We don't do diction here - we do words."
"Altos, this is where your chests come into their own."
"Sing the end loud, but piano."
"Gonzo chicken bit." (I have NO IDEA!)
"It shouldn't really sound like Flanders and Swann, but it does."
"In cricket they have a thing called the TFC award. It means 'thanks for coming'. Tenors, you just won it."
"Sing as if you've got a rhino horn." (a soprano suggests he means a unicorn horn) "No, I'm talking about the TYPE of horn, not the position."
"I've always wondered why 'monosyllable' has so many of them."
"Hulme Bridge bit!"
"Eddie Izzard, 2nd clarinet sketch."
("Where are we breathing?") "You know what, I was actually hoping 'never'."
"When you've got two notes together which are the same pitch, the first of which is correct and the second of which is not... I'm not sure I can help you."
"What I think you need to do is be a little more ambitious, pitch-wise."
Tonight, by way of a change, I had another rehearsal, this time for a wedding at which I'm singing (along with some other Pleiades) on Saturday. I have a bit of a curse on Pleiades rehearsals - someone is almost ALWAYS ill or unavailable at the last minute. Tonight no-one was ill, but there was an accident on the M60 which meant that the whole motorway was closed after junction 17, which is where we had to come off to pick Lindsey up. I've never seen anything like it - it took us 45 minutes to get from the start of the J17 sliproad to the far side of the J17 roundabout. The police were trying to clear the bit of motorway UNDER the roundabout by bringing traffic up the other sliproad the wrong way. This traffic was being added to an already gridlocked roundabout. Unsurprisingly a few people tried to get away by driving across the grass verges. Total chaos.
(EDIT: Turns out a minibus had overturned.)
Anyway, we were already stupidly late by the time we got to Lindsey's in Whitefield, so plan A, which was to go to Claire's in Chorlton, had to be abandoned, because there was no way to do it without crossing the motorway, and there was gridlock as far as the eye could see in every direction. So we rehearsed at Lindsey's without Claire. It'll all be fine on the day though - it's not as if Claire doesn't know the songs. Maybe one day I'll organise a rehearsal that's not cursed!
(I'm praying my curse doesn't extend to the mini-choir I'm organising for Dr Liz's wedding - the rehearsal is organised, although it took SEVEN WEEKS between the first time I asked the singers about their availability to the final confirmation! Very much looking forward to that rehearsal though - some fun arrangements to try!)
I'm still enjoying The Choir, although I would have liked to see more of how he taught them to sing in harmony and less of the ANNOYING INTERVIEWS. And I'm a bit suspicious of the fact that when he decided he didn't have enough men, and the ones he had were a bit woolly, he miraculously managed to find a load more really good ones. But while I'm mentioning the programme, I should remind you about the BBC's Sing page, which includes both The Choir and the Sing Hallelujah project. They also have a new Performing Arts Fund which may be of interest to those of you who run your own choirs. (I found out about this via A Cappella News.)
EDIT: I just looked at the Radio Times and discovered that next week Gareth wants his choir to try something classical, so they will be singing the BARBER AGNUS DEI. *boggle* Because that's an obvious, easy first piece to try.... right? I suspect they won't show much of how he actually does it!
The MEN tells us that this year's Manchester International Festival was a big hit. And also that the Opera House North thingy will be split between the Palace and the Lowry.
Talking of things moving north, the London Evening Standard points out that because most of the BBC's sports staff are moving up here, they'll have a £3 million bill getting them all back to London for the Olympics. Good planning, eh?
Here's a nice feature about the fact that it's 40 years ago this month that Chet's became a music school.
There is an interesting looking free festival in Piccadilly Gardens next weekend - Platform 4 Piccadilly. (Note: despite the name, it's not at the station.)
In other wacky Manchester news, Urbis is to be recreated as an ice sculpture. (A friend of mine works in an office that was involved in the decision as to whether or not this would happen, and he had me in tears of laughter describing their discussion about where one might obtain a jelly mould of Urbis. I can't remember now why it was so funny - I suspect you had to be there!)
Has anyone had a go at Beatles Rock Band yet? It came out on Wednesday. I don't own a Wii etc. so I'll have to wait to try it at a friend's house, but the plans to do so are already in place. Should be fun! Oh, and here's an interesting article about whether or not Guitar Hero is discouraging people from playing ACTUAL guitars.
A thought-provoking list of 50 things that are being killed by the internet.
Members of my choir may be interested to know that on 23rd September both United AND City are playing at home, and both games kick off at 8pm. Oh, and United are also at home on 30th September. (I've given up maintaining my own online schedule because I don't think anyone's looked at it in ages - if I'm wrong about that, please tell me, because it would be easy to reinstate it! - so I'll just mention football fixtures here.)
Oh, and a final question, which I was asked last week but didn't know the answer to: do any of you know of a swing band or big band in Manchester or Salford or Cheshire, which is accepting new members? The person who asked me is a Grade 8+ tenor sax player who is keen to find a band to play with.
Yet again I seem to be months behind with my email, which is a bit ridiculous considering I've also been unemployed for months and therefore at home most of the time! I do intend to try to clear the backlog soon, though, so if I owe you an email, sorry for the delay and I hope to get to you soon.
In a way it's a pity it's The Kingdom that we're starting with this year, because I have to admit it's not one of my favourite pieces, although it does have some good bits. (Quick summary for those who don't know it - it's about what the apostles do after the Ascension. Longer summary here.) Lots of us bought our own copies of the score last time we did it, and I know I wasn't the only one who kept finding quotes I'd written in the margins. Here are a few of them (note: these may not mean much to you if you don't know who's being quoted - and I can't say who it is - but those who DO know who it is will smile!):
"Have you thought about that part of your body today? Why not?"
"We don't do diction here - we do words."
"Altos, this is where your chests come into their own."
"Sing the end loud, but piano."
"Gonzo chicken bit." (I have NO IDEA!)
"It shouldn't really sound like Flanders and Swann, but it does."
"In cricket they have a thing called the TFC award. It means 'thanks for coming'. Tenors, you just won it."
"Sing as if you've got a rhino horn." (a soprano suggests he means a unicorn horn) "No, I'm talking about the TYPE of horn, not the position."
"I've always wondered why 'monosyllable' has so many of them."
"Hulme Bridge bit!"
"Eddie Izzard, 2nd clarinet sketch."
("Where are we breathing?") "You know what, I was actually hoping 'never'."
"When you've got two notes together which are the same pitch, the first of which is correct and the second of which is not... I'm not sure I can help you."
"What I think you need to do is be a little more ambitious, pitch-wise."
Tonight, by way of a change, I had another rehearsal, this time for a wedding at which I'm singing (along with some other Pleiades) on Saturday. I have a bit of a curse on Pleiades rehearsals - someone is almost ALWAYS ill or unavailable at the last minute. Tonight no-one was ill, but there was an accident on the M60 which meant that the whole motorway was closed after junction 17, which is where we had to come off to pick Lindsey up. I've never seen anything like it - it took us 45 minutes to get from the start of the J17 sliproad to the far side of the J17 roundabout. The police were trying to clear the bit of motorway UNDER the roundabout by bringing traffic up the other sliproad the wrong way. This traffic was being added to an already gridlocked roundabout. Unsurprisingly a few people tried to get away by driving across the grass verges. Total chaos.
(EDIT: Turns out a minibus had overturned.)
Anyway, we were already stupidly late by the time we got to Lindsey's in Whitefield, so plan A, which was to go to Claire's in Chorlton, had to be abandoned, because there was no way to do it without crossing the motorway, and there was gridlock as far as the eye could see in every direction. So we rehearsed at Lindsey's without Claire. It'll all be fine on the day though - it's not as if Claire doesn't know the songs. Maybe one day I'll organise a rehearsal that's not cursed!
(I'm praying my curse doesn't extend to the mini-choir I'm organising for Dr Liz's wedding - the rehearsal is organised, although it took SEVEN WEEKS between the first time I asked the singers about their availability to the final confirmation! Very much looking forward to that rehearsal though - some fun arrangements to try!)
I'm still enjoying The Choir, although I would have liked to see more of how he taught them to sing in harmony and less of the ANNOYING INTERVIEWS. And I'm a bit suspicious of the fact that when he decided he didn't have enough men, and the ones he had were a bit woolly, he miraculously managed to find a load more really good ones. But while I'm mentioning the programme, I should remind you about the BBC's Sing page, which includes both The Choir and the Sing Hallelujah project. They also have a new Performing Arts Fund which may be of interest to those of you who run your own choirs. (I found out about this via A Cappella News.)
EDIT: I just looked at the Radio Times and discovered that next week Gareth wants his choir to try something classical, so they will be singing the BARBER AGNUS DEI. *boggle* Because that's an obvious, easy first piece to try.... right? I suspect they won't show much of how he actually does it!
The MEN tells us that this year's Manchester International Festival was a big hit. And also that the Opera House North thingy will be split between the Palace and the Lowry.
Talking of things moving north, the London Evening Standard points out that because most of the BBC's sports staff are moving up here, they'll have a £3 million bill getting them all back to London for the Olympics. Good planning, eh?
Here's a nice feature about the fact that it's 40 years ago this month that Chet's became a music school.
There is an interesting looking free festival in Piccadilly Gardens next weekend - Platform 4 Piccadilly. (Note: despite the name, it's not at the station.)
In other wacky Manchester news, Urbis is to be recreated as an ice sculpture. (A friend of mine works in an office that was involved in the decision as to whether or not this would happen, and he had me in tears of laughter describing their discussion about where one might obtain a jelly mould of Urbis. I can't remember now why it was so funny - I suspect you had to be there!)
Has anyone had a go at Beatles Rock Band yet? It came out on Wednesday. I don't own a Wii etc. so I'll have to wait to try it at a friend's house, but the plans to do so are already in place. Should be fun! Oh, and here's an interesting article about whether or not Guitar Hero is discouraging people from playing ACTUAL guitars.
A thought-provoking list of 50 things that are being killed by the internet.
Members of my choir may be interested to know that on 23rd September both United AND City are playing at home, and both games kick off at 8pm. Oh, and United are also at home on 30th September. (I've given up maintaining my own online schedule because I don't think anyone's looked at it in ages - if I'm wrong about that, please tell me, because it would be easy to reinstate it! - so I'll just mention football fixtures here.)
Oh, and a final question, which I was asked last week but didn't know the answer to: do any of you know of a swing band or big band in Manchester or Salford or Cheshire, which is accepting new members? The person who asked me is a Grade 8+ tenor sax player who is keen to find a band to play with.
Yet again I seem to be months behind with my email, which is a bit ridiculous considering I've also been unemployed for months and therefore at home most of the time! I do intend to try to clear the backlog soon, though, so if I owe you an email, sorry for the delay and I hope to get to you soon.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Big name signing for Hull!
You may remember my fascination with Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink (note: that's an old post and some of the links no longer work). Well, I was upset recently to discover he'd been released by Celtic... but all is now well, because Hull City have just bought him. So we'll see him on Match of the Day!
(Talking of links not working, I've had a few problems with my online mp3s... the server on which I've always stored them belongs to a friend, who's let me use it for free as a favour. He's had some technical issues, which have meant that that server has been offline for a few months now. I'm trying to find a solution, but for the moment all my mp3s are offline, sorry. I hope to be able to get things sorted in time to give you mp3s of The Kingdom, but in the meantime you can find it on Spotify. (In theory, if you have Spotify installed, this direct link to my playlist should work. If you don't have Spotify installed, what are you waiting for?!?))
I've been very bad about updating here in the past year or two, I know. I just lost my inspiration. But I've resolved to try to improve, and the first step is to share all the links I've saved in the past month.
First and best: Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the pentatonic scale. This is the best thing EVER. It was being talked about all over the web a month ago, but although I saved the link, for some reason I didn't actually WATCH it till today. (If you're wondering where you've heard the name before, he's most famous for this song.)
Most of you are probably watching The Choir: Unsung Town. What do you think? I always get vaguely annoyed with things like this - it's all the little mini-interviews they insist on putting in, I think (e.g. when Gareth confesses that everything is a nightmare) - but I have ended up really enjoying the other Gareth Malone things despite this, so I'll stick with it.
A great post from the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir blog, about confidence in singing. It occurs to me that I'm usually pretty confident when actually singing (in a group, at least - far less so if I'm singing alone) - when I have a crisis of confidence (and I've had some big ones this year) it's always when I'm THINKING about singing.
I'm amused by this review of Die Walküre, which includes the line "The singers needed all the help they could get, but received none."
An interesting article which compares Handel to, well, all other composers.
This had been bugging me for ages - I kept hearing a particular bit of music all over the place, and had no idea what it was. I finally remembered to use Shazam while it was actually playing, and found that it is Escape by Craig Armstrong, and is from the soundtrack of the film Plunkett & Macleane. No idea how it ended up being used for so many other things.
The Royal Opera House is putting on a Twitter opera. I think this is silly. Much as I'm a fan of Twitter, I'm NOT a fan of desperate-seeming attempts to jump on bandwagons.
Did you know that there is now a Manchester Show Choir? I didn't, until yesterday. I'm intrigued by their plans for a world record attempt: "Manchester Show Choir will be attempting the Guinness World Record for the longest singing relay. We have to beat the current record of 202 singers lined up, who each sing one word of our chosen song. The song has to be performed in time and in tune! Wish us luck!" I found out about them because they are advertising for singers, by the way.
Don't know whether any of you will be interested in this, but there is an online thingy for arranging rehearsals.
I'm very much enjoying the Proms, although not that many have stood out. I have three favourites so far. Berlioz Te Deum has always been one of my favourite pieces - I did it a couple of times at school, and I think I've done it ONCE with an adult choir, but it was so long ago that I can't remember which choir or when. I would LOVE to do it again, but in the meantime I always love listening to it.
Also by Berlioz, the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale is another one I did at school, this time as an oboist, and I don't think I've ever heard it since, till this Prom. The sound was incredible - I'd love to have been in the hall for this.
My very favourite Prom, though, was definitely the Ukulele Prom. Such a pity this wasn't on TV! They gave the audience the option of bringing their own ukuleles, and a THOUSAND of them actually did! That was only a small part of it though. This prom made me laugh out loud several times - which is rare for a concert - but there were beautiful bits too. The eight players sang as well as playing ukuleles, and although it wasn't always the greatest singing ever, it didn't matter. In particular, they did several items which involved three different songs going on at the same time - very clever. Sadly it's no longer on the iPlayer, but I have it downloaded, and can put it on a CD for any choir members who are interested. (I'll put it online too when I have server access restored.)
Via ChoralNet, a useful post about vocal health.
This sounds great, although I haven't explored it yet: the sound archive of the British Library is now available online for free.
I'm sure you heard about the opera singer who fell into the orchestra pit but I couldn't resist mentioning it anyway!
And now some non-musical links:
There are plans for an interesting new building in Bangkok.
A useful site that I use quite often, but it occurred to me you might not know about it: Down for everyone or just me? The idea is that if you go to a website and it doesn't seem to be working, you can enter it onto this page to find out whether the website is REALLY not working or the problem is actually at your end.
An addictive online word game: Must Pop Words. Don't blame me if you get nothing done for the next hour, though!
I will be printing this out and framing it as soon as I have any ink: Tech Support Cheat Sheet.
Manchester Confidential has a walking trail of the city centre which visits lots of places significant to the lesbian and gay heritage of Manchester: part 1 and part 2.
Apparently the Manchester accent confuses devices using voice recognition technology.
My latest favourite Big Picture photo set: Californian wildfires.
I seem to have talked about Neil Gaiman a lot recently to various people, most of whom had never heard of him - but even if you know nothing about him, you'll be impressed by the library in his house.
And finally, Radio 4 repeated I Was a Child Prodigy last week, and the programmes are currently still on iPlayer, although not for long. I think anyone who was interested has probably heard them, but if you haven't, episode 2 is entirely about me and episode 5 has a few minutes about me too. (I do have mp3s of both episodes and will put them back online when I regain server access.)
Four days till the dawn of a new age for the choir! It'll be strange but exciting. I'll write again then.
(Talking of links not working, I've had a few problems with my online mp3s... the server on which I've always stored them belongs to a friend, who's let me use it for free as a favour. He's had some technical issues, which have meant that that server has been offline for a few months now. I'm trying to find a solution, but for the moment all my mp3s are offline, sorry. I hope to be able to get things sorted in time to give you mp3s of The Kingdom, but in the meantime you can find it on Spotify. (In theory, if you have Spotify installed, this direct link to my playlist should work. If you don't have Spotify installed, what are you waiting for?!?))
I've been very bad about updating here in the past year or two, I know. I just lost my inspiration. But I've resolved to try to improve, and the first step is to share all the links I've saved in the past month.
First and best: Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the pentatonic scale. This is the best thing EVER. It was being talked about all over the web a month ago, but although I saved the link, for some reason I didn't actually WATCH it till today. (If you're wondering where you've heard the name before, he's most famous for this song.)
Most of you are probably watching The Choir: Unsung Town. What do you think? I always get vaguely annoyed with things like this - it's all the little mini-interviews they insist on putting in, I think (e.g. when Gareth confesses that everything is a nightmare) - but I have ended up really enjoying the other Gareth Malone things despite this, so I'll stick with it.
A great post from the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir blog, about confidence in singing. It occurs to me that I'm usually pretty confident when actually singing (in a group, at least - far less so if I'm singing alone) - when I have a crisis of confidence (and I've had some big ones this year) it's always when I'm THINKING about singing.
I'm amused by this review of Die Walküre, which includes the line "The singers needed all the help they could get, but received none."
An interesting article which compares Handel to, well, all other composers.
This had been bugging me for ages - I kept hearing a particular bit of music all over the place, and had no idea what it was. I finally remembered to use Shazam while it was actually playing, and found that it is Escape by Craig Armstrong, and is from the soundtrack of the film Plunkett & Macleane. No idea how it ended up being used for so many other things.
The Royal Opera House is putting on a Twitter opera. I think this is silly. Much as I'm a fan of Twitter, I'm NOT a fan of desperate-seeming attempts to jump on bandwagons.
Did you know that there is now a Manchester Show Choir? I didn't, until yesterday. I'm intrigued by their plans for a world record attempt: "Manchester Show Choir will be attempting the Guinness World Record for the longest singing relay. We have to beat the current record of 202 singers lined up, who each sing one word of our chosen song. The song has to be performed in time and in tune! Wish us luck!" I found out about them because they are advertising for singers, by the way.
Don't know whether any of you will be interested in this, but there is an online thingy for arranging rehearsals.
I'm very much enjoying the Proms, although not that many have stood out. I have three favourites so far. Berlioz Te Deum has always been one of my favourite pieces - I did it a couple of times at school, and I think I've done it ONCE with an adult choir, but it was so long ago that I can't remember which choir or when. I would LOVE to do it again, but in the meantime I always love listening to it.
Also by Berlioz, the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale is another one I did at school, this time as an oboist, and I don't think I've ever heard it since, till this Prom. The sound was incredible - I'd love to have been in the hall for this.
My very favourite Prom, though, was definitely the Ukulele Prom. Such a pity this wasn't on TV! They gave the audience the option of bringing their own ukuleles, and a THOUSAND of them actually did! That was only a small part of it though. This prom made me laugh out loud several times - which is rare for a concert - but there were beautiful bits too. The eight players sang as well as playing ukuleles, and although it wasn't always the greatest singing ever, it didn't matter. In particular, they did several items which involved three different songs going on at the same time - very clever. Sadly it's no longer on the iPlayer, but I have it downloaded, and can put it on a CD for any choir members who are interested. (I'll put it online too when I have server access restored.)
Via ChoralNet, a useful post about vocal health.
This sounds great, although I haven't explored it yet: the sound archive of the British Library is now available online for free.
I'm sure you heard about the opera singer who fell into the orchestra pit but I couldn't resist mentioning it anyway!
And now some non-musical links:
There are plans for an interesting new building in Bangkok.
A useful site that I use quite often, but it occurred to me you might not know about it: Down for everyone or just me? The idea is that if you go to a website and it doesn't seem to be working, you can enter it onto this page to find out whether the website is REALLY not working or the problem is actually at your end.
An addictive online word game: Must Pop Words. Don't blame me if you get nothing done for the next hour, though!
I will be printing this out and framing it as soon as I have any ink: Tech Support Cheat Sheet.
Manchester Confidential has a walking trail of the city centre which visits lots of places significant to the lesbian and gay heritage of Manchester: part 1 and part 2.
Apparently the Manchester accent confuses devices using voice recognition technology.
My latest favourite Big Picture photo set: Californian wildfires.
I seem to have talked about Neil Gaiman a lot recently to various people, most of whom had never heard of him - but even if you know nothing about him, you'll be impressed by the library in his house.
And finally, Radio 4 repeated I Was a Child Prodigy last week, and the programmes are currently still on iPlayer, although not for long. I think anyone who was interested has probably heard them, but if you haven't, episode 2 is entirely about me and episode 5 has a few minutes about me too. (I do have mp3s of both episodes and will put them back online when I regain server access.)
Four days till the dawn of a new age for the choir! It'll be strange but exciting. I'll write again then.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Prom reviews
I'll edit this as more appear. So far there's just the Independent, who don't mention the choir AT ALL (typical!) but they did say they liked the Mendelssohn the best.
EDIT: Really nice one from BBC Music Magazine.
EDIT 2: And the Guardian liked us too!
EDIT 3: The Times liked us better than the soloists, I think :-)
EDIT 4: (via Graham) Music Web International didn't like it that much, but did like the choir! But Classical Iconoclast seemed to quite like it.
EDIT: Really nice one from BBC Music Magazine.
EDIT 2: And the Guardian liked us too!
EDIT 3: The Times liked us better than the soloists, I think :-)
EDIT 4: (via Graham) Music Web International didn't like it that much, but did like the choir! But Classical Iconoclast seemed to quite like it.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Singing under the mushrooms
Well, our choral season is over (we start the new one in a month or so) and our choral director is now our ex-choral director. The sheet of notes he gave us after Tuesday's rehearsal is very characteristic of him, and I heard a few people rightly bemoaning the fact that we'll probably never have notes quite like that again. I'll certainly be keeping my sheet.
The concert went very well indeed, and we got a great reception, although I personally made more mistakes that I have in all the other concerts this year combined. I was trying to hardly look at the score at all, and as a result I got a few words wrong and (much worse) came in a bar early at one point. But that was in a bit where the 2nd altos were singing the tenor part, so hopefully if anyone noticed they'll think it was a tenor :p
I'll post reviews as they appear, but to be going on with, here's a few reviews from the BBC website.
A few other links:
On the way back from Tuesday's orchestral rehearsal (which was surprisingly short and included a very moving speech about Sir Edward Downes) Alison and I listened to a bit of that night's Prom. Just before the interval, Stephen Hough played, as an encore, a piece that not only did we not recognise, the Radio 3 announcer didn't know either! A few minutes later, he'd been told the answer, but although we caught the title, we couldn't make out the composer's name. I looked it up when I got home, and here is Stephen playing it (at a different concert): Young Girls in the Garden by Federico Mompou.
The FT has some theories about why Glyndebourne is so successful.
The Spectator has some responses to earlier articles, including another Wagner opinion, and news of a piece which uses the acoustics of St Paul's to advantage.
BBC Music Magazine has a poll to find out which is the most popular of Holst's Planets. I'm quite surprised that Mars is (at the time of writing) only 3rd, and Venus and Mercury joint last! I'd have Saturn last, but any of the rest could be first, although I actually voted for Uranus.
Do you know what a vuvuzela is? You will next summer. There have been a few articles about this recently: four different ones from the Guardian/Observer (one, two, three, four) and one from a brass band website called 4 bars rest. The latter amused me the most :-)
Via ChoralBlog, a collection of choral humour. I've seen lots of it before, but some of it is new to me so maybe it will be to you too.
I've mentioned how much I've enjoyed recent articles by Alex James (the Blur bass player). Here's another one: this time he takes his kids to Oxford.
The Big Picture's latest wonderfulness is a collection of lightning photos. Plus, the Beetham Tower was struck by lightning this very morning!
The concert went very well indeed, and we got a great reception, although I personally made more mistakes that I have in all the other concerts this year combined. I was trying to hardly look at the score at all, and as a result I got a few words wrong and (much worse) came in a bar early at one point. But that was in a bit where the 2nd altos were singing the tenor part, so hopefully if anyone noticed they'll think it was a tenor :p
I'll post reviews as they appear, but to be going on with, here's a few reviews from the BBC website.
A few other links:
On the way back from Tuesday's orchestral rehearsal (which was surprisingly short and included a very moving speech about Sir Edward Downes) Alison and I listened to a bit of that night's Prom. Just before the interval, Stephen Hough played, as an encore, a piece that not only did we not recognise, the Radio 3 announcer didn't know either! A few minutes later, he'd been told the answer, but although we caught the title, we couldn't make out the composer's name. I looked it up when I got home, and here is Stephen playing it (at a different concert): Young Girls in the Garden by Federico Mompou.
The FT has some theories about why Glyndebourne is so successful.
The Spectator has some responses to earlier articles, including another Wagner opinion, and news of a piece which uses the acoustics of St Paul's to advantage.
BBC Music Magazine has a poll to find out which is the most popular of Holst's Planets. I'm quite surprised that Mars is (at the time of writing) only 3rd, and Venus and Mercury joint last! I'd have Saturn last, but any of the rest could be first, although I actually voted for Uranus.
Do you know what a vuvuzela is? You will next summer. There have been a few articles about this recently: four different ones from the Guardian/Observer (one, two, three, four) and one from a brass band website called 4 bars rest. The latter amused me the most :-)
Via ChoralBlog, a collection of choral humour. I've seen lots of it before, but some of it is new to me so maybe it will be to you too.
I've mentioned how much I've enjoyed recent articles by Alex James (the Blur bass player). Here's another one: this time he takes his kids to Oxford.
The Big Picture's latest wonderfulness is a collection of lightning photos. Plus, the Beetham Tower was struck by lightning this very morning!
Monday, July 27, 2009
You know when to unleash the beast
I did mean to post a bit sooner after my last post than this, but I was waiting for reviews of our 4th July gig to appear, and they never did! Such a pity - the critics don't know what they missed. Well, apart from the one from the Oldham Evening Chronicle. Oh well.
We've only sung once since then, so my main reason for posting now is to share about a million links with you. First, though, I just wanted to remind anyone reading this who's NOT a member of the choir that our Proms visit this year is this Thursday, and we're live on both BBC4 and Radio 3, and no doubt available on the iPlayer for a while afterwards. It'll be the third time we've performed the Mendelssohn this year, and I hope it'll be the best - although it would have to be AMAZING to outdo the Valencia gig. I think we can do it though!
We're rehearsing tomorrow night (well, I guess tonight really, since it's now 1 a.m.) and Tuesday night, then I'm off to London on Wednesday. It's very bad timing that my mobile phone has recently been cut off because I couldn't pay the bill - not a big problem when I'm at home, but I feel twitchy without it when I'm out of the house. Which is silly, because for the vast majority of my life I didn't own one!
Last week was a little sad - we had our last ever "normal" rehearsal with our current choral director, who leaves us at the end of this season (i.e. this week). We didn't do any Mendelssohn, but instead spent the rehearsal sight-reading various a cappella things, including Palestrina's Sicut Cervus, Victoria's O quam gloriosum, Bruckner's Christus Factus Est, Elgar's My love dwelt in a Northern land, Pearsall's Lay a Garland, and finishing with Rheinberger's Abendlied. (I say "including", but I think that's everything we did - can anyone spot anything I'm missed?) This was very good fun, and (as a bonus) proved how much better at sight-reading the choir is than it used to be. Although, we did get the comment "I think the opening section sounds better with C sharps, but I admire your spirit of experimentation..." He will be sorely missed.
So, a load of links for you! In no particular order....
I'm sure lots of you will have seen Blur's triumphant headline set at Glastonbury a few weeks ago (if you didn't, I should probably point out that they split up years ago and have been doing various successful solo things since, for example Damon Albarn's Monkey opera and Alex James taking part in Maestro, but they reformed for a few gigs this summer, of which Glastonbury was the pinnacle). I really love this article by Alex James (the bass player) in which he explains not only the feeling created by having done a really great gig, but also how upsetting it is for a musician to be asked if they "still do music". There's also another article by him in which he explains what it feels like to perform.
Here's why the critics didn't come to our 4th July gig - they went to Piccadilly Station that night to watch the RNCM thing there. Robert Beale reviews it for the MEN, and (more entertainingly) Mark Garner for Manchester Confidential.
A few days later were the two Elbow gigs, the thought of which which has been upsetting me for months (because I would have given just about ANYTHING to have been chosen to sing in the choir with them, but I was not one of those invited), but I'm a bit calmer now they've happened. Anyway, the reviews were great (and numerous!): Guardian, Observer, Independent, MEN/City Life, Telegraph, Manchester Confidential, BBC, and some great pictures (my favourite of which is above).
The thing that was theoretically the festival's main event, Rufus Wainwright's Prima Donna opera, wasn't quite such a huge success, but it wasn't a disaster either. Can't say I had the urge to see it (unlike the Monkey opera, which I remember raving about at the time) but that's probably because I've never really liked Rufus Wainwright. But several of my friends (who have otherwise excellent taste) love him, so what do I know?! Anyway, here are reviews from the Guardian, Manchester Confidential, and FT.
Two updates in the ongoing saga of a Northern base for the Royal Opera House - a negative one from the BBC and a positive one from the MEN.
From Intermezzo, a theory that Wagner is kinder to sopranos than Mozart. Which seems unlikely, but there you go!
Talking of Wagner, here's a Spectator article about how someone became a fan.
Tom Service in the Guardian is unimpressed with a website called musoc.org. He's also unimpressed with the idea of live musicals without a live band.
The newest article on musoc.org discusses people who clap in the "wrong" places, and here's a BBC article that discusses this topic (which is a big issue for us after what happened on 4th July). (Thanks to Barbara for pointing this out.)
Here is an absolutely wonderful story about someone who won a prize and decided to give it away to a music teacher.
Did you hear the one about the mezzo who fell over during an opera performance, broke her leg in the fall, but continued to sing for another three hours? Clearly an alto really!
Here's a fabulous video showing an a cappella performance of Toto's Africa. The way they do the rain effect is amazing.
Apparently people are upset about Judas Maccabeus being used to open the Edinburgh Festival. I was quite startled to read their reason - I had no idea!
I'm sure you'll have heard the sad news about Sir Edward Downes. On an Overgrown Path had a nice post about him, as did the Guardian. I don't think I was ever conducted by him, but I have a very vague memory of a concert, many years ago, that he was SUPPOSED to conduct for us, but he was ill and someone else stepped in. Have I imagined that? The concert I'm thinking of was in London, possibly the Festival Hall, and possibly Delius.
Interesting piece from Peter Phillips about music composed for specific performance spaces.
Great interview with Wynton Marsalis. I particularly like the last line!
There's a new TV series starting in the USA this autumn called Glee, and it's about a high school choir. The pilot episode was floating around the web for a while, and I saw it - it's very High School Musical ish (unsurprisingly) but interested me enough that I will probably watch the first few episodes at least. It starts on 16th September, and no doubt those who are interested will be able to find ways to see it online - and if not, it's bound to turn up in the UK eventually.
Some very surprising news about 582 drummers: They beat out the same rhythm for five minutes to set a new world record. I love the quote from the Slade drummer though: "'It isn't as difficult getting to everyone playing at the same speed for this as people might think, it's getting them to stop that's the problem." Hee!
Here's a Spectator thing about moving pianos, and another about Proms programming.
The Guardian has advice for teenagers wanting to try classical music. (The Muse song they mention, in case you're wondering, can be heard here. It's a bit... surprising.)
BBC Music Magazine explains why the only way to see the Proms is to be a Prommer. And the Observer reviews a couple of last week's Proms.
I know I often rave about the Big Picture (if you don't have it bookmarked, do so immediately), but they've outdone themselves recently. I particularly love their pictures from Glastonbury, but there's also Apollo 11, the solar eclipse, and mud!
Did you know that London tube drivers are to quote Gandhi in their announcements? I'm fascinated by this. Has anyone heard any of these announcements yet?
Sadly, I didn't see the recent flower festival in Manchester Cathedral, but Manchester Confidential has pretty pictures.
I also didn't see the Manchester Zombie Walk, despite looking forward to it for ages, but the MEN has a report with a couple of pictures. It seems they didn't break the record, but that's OK because it means they'll have to try again!
The MEN and BBC update us on the current Metrolink city centre misery. And remember that the whole of the Altrincham and Eccles lines will be closed in August as well!
And finally, I'm quite fascinated by the idea of the people on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, but not quite fascinated enough to watch them. But if you want to see them, you can do so online here.
We've only sung once since then, so my main reason for posting now is to share about a million links with you. First, though, I just wanted to remind anyone reading this who's NOT a member of the choir that our Proms visit this year is this Thursday, and we're live on both BBC4 and Radio 3, and no doubt available on the iPlayer for a while afterwards. It'll be the third time we've performed the Mendelssohn this year, and I hope it'll be the best - although it would have to be AMAZING to outdo the Valencia gig. I think we can do it though!
We're rehearsing tomorrow night (well, I guess tonight really, since it's now 1 a.m.) and Tuesday night, then I'm off to London on Wednesday. It's very bad timing that my mobile phone has recently been cut off because I couldn't pay the bill - not a big problem when I'm at home, but I feel twitchy without it when I'm out of the house. Which is silly, because for the vast majority of my life I didn't own one!
Last week was a little sad - we had our last ever "normal" rehearsal with our current choral director, who leaves us at the end of this season (i.e. this week). We didn't do any Mendelssohn, but instead spent the rehearsal sight-reading various a cappella things, including Palestrina's Sicut Cervus, Victoria's O quam gloriosum, Bruckner's Christus Factus Est, Elgar's My love dwelt in a Northern land, Pearsall's Lay a Garland, and finishing with Rheinberger's Abendlied. (I say "including", but I think that's everything we did - can anyone spot anything I'm missed?) This was very good fun, and (as a bonus) proved how much better at sight-reading the choir is than it used to be. Although, we did get the comment "I think the opening section sounds better with C sharps, but I admire your spirit of experimentation..." He will be sorely missed.
So, a load of links for you! In no particular order....
I'm sure lots of you will have seen Blur's triumphant headline set at Glastonbury a few weeks ago (if you didn't, I should probably point out that they split up years ago and have been doing various successful solo things since, for example Damon Albarn's Monkey opera and Alex James taking part in Maestro, but they reformed for a few gigs this summer, of which Glastonbury was the pinnacle). I really love this article by Alex James (the bass player) in which he explains not only the feeling created by having done a really great gig, but also how upsetting it is for a musician to be asked if they "still do music". There's also another article by him in which he explains what it feels like to perform.
Here's why the critics didn't come to our 4th July gig - they went to Piccadilly Station that night to watch the RNCM thing there. Robert Beale reviews it for the MEN, and (more entertainingly) Mark Garner for Manchester Confidential.
A few days later were the two Elbow gigs, the thought of which which has been upsetting me for months (because I would have given just about ANYTHING to have been chosen to sing in the choir with them, but I was not one of those invited), but I'm a bit calmer now they've happened. Anyway, the reviews were great (and numerous!): Guardian, Observer, Independent, MEN/City Life, Telegraph, Manchester Confidential, BBC, and some great pictures (my favourite of which is above).
The thing that was theoretically the festival's main event, Rufus Wainwright's Prima Donna opera, wasn't quite such a huge success, but it wasn't a disaster either. Can't say I had the urge to see it (unlike the Monkey opera, which I remember raving about at the time) but that's probably because I've never really liked Rufus Wainwright. But several of my friends (who have otherwise excellent taste) love him, so what do I know?! Anyway, here are reviews from the Guardian, Manchester Confidential, and FT.
Two updates in the ongoing saga of a Northern base for the Royal Opera House - a negative one from the BBC and a positive one from the MEN.
From Intermezzo, a theory that Wagner is kinder to sopranos than Mozart. Which seems unlikely, but there you go!
Talking of Wagner, here's a Spectator article about how someone became a fan.
Tom Service in the Guardian is unimpressed with a website called musoc.org. He's also unimpressed with the idea of live musicals without a live band.
The newest article on musoc.org discusses people who clap in the "wrong" places, and here's a BBC article that discusses this topic (which is a big issue for us after what happened on 4th July). (Thanks to Barbara for pointing this out.)
Here is an absolutely wonderful story about someone who won a prize and decided to give it away to a music teacher.
Did you hear the one about the mezzo who fell over during an opera performance, broke her leg in the fall, but continued to sing for another three hours? Clearly an alto really!
Here's a fabulous video showing an a cappella performance of Toto's Africa. The way they do the rain effect is amazing.
Apparently people are upset about Judas Maccabeus being used to open the Edinburgh Festival. I was quite startled to read their reason - I had no idea!
I'm sure you'll have heard the sad news about Sir Edward Downes. On an Overgrown Path had a nice post about him, as did the Guardian. I don't think I was ever conducted by him, but I have a very vague memory of a concert, many years ago, that he was SUPPOSED to conduct for us, but he was ill and someone else stepped in. Have I imagined that? The concert I'm thinking of was in London, possibly the Festival Hall, and possibly Delius.
Interesting piece from Peter Phillips about music composed for specific performance spaces.
Great interview with Wynton Marsalis. I particularly like the last line!
There's a new TV series starting in the USA this autumn called Glee, and it's about a high school choir. The pilot episode was floating around the web for a while, and I saw it - it's very High School Musical ish (unsurprisingly) but interested me enough that I will probably watch the first few episodes at least. It starts on 16th September, and no doubt those who are interested will be able to find ways to see it online - and if not, it's bound to turn up in the UK eventually.
Some very surprising news about 582 drummers: They beat out the same rhythm for five minutes to set a new world record. I love the quote from the Slade drummer though: "'It isn't as difficult getting to everyone playing at the same speed for this as people might think, it's getting them to stop that's the problem." Hee!
Here's a Spectator thing about moving pianos, and another about Proms programming.
The Guardian has advice for teenagers wanting to try classical music. (The Muse song they mention, in case you're wondering, can be heard here. It's a bit... surprising.)
BBC Music Magazine explains why the only way to see the Proms is to be a Prommer. And the Observer reviews a couple of last week's Proms.
I know I often rave about the Big Picture (if you don't have it bookmarked, do so immediately), but they've outdone themselves recently. I particularly love their pictures from Glastonbury, but there's also Apollo 11, the solar eclipse, and mud!
Did you know that London tube drivers are to quote Gandhi in their announcements? I'm fascinated by this. Has anyone heard any of these announcements yet?
Sadly, I didn't see the recent flower festival in Manchester Cathedral, but Manchester Confidential has pretty pictures.
I also didn't see the Manchester Zombie Walk, despite looking forward to it for ages, but the MEN has a report with a couple of pictures. It seems they didn't break the record, but that's OK because it means they'll have to try again!
The MEN and BBC update us on the current Metrolink city centre misery. And remember that the whole of the Altrincham and Eccles lines will be closed in August as well!
And finally, I'm quite fascinated by the idea of the people on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, but not quite fascinated enough to watch them. But if you want to see them, you can do so online here.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
He ain't got long to stay here
People who've sung with me many times may be aware that many of my scores have the letters "GB" written on them at various points. (Sometimes it's "GGB".) "GB" stands for "good bit", and although of course there are lots of good bits in most of the pieces we sing, only a few of them get the written warning. It is a warning, and it's to warn me that that particular bit is likely to give me a lump in my throat and/or a tear in my eye, so I need to try to concentrate really hard to sing properly. (I'm usually OK in rehearsals - it's in the performance that it gets to me.)
Concentration doesn't always work in these circumstances, so there have been quite a few concerts in which I've had to stop singing briefly because my voice was wobbling so much. It's REALLY annoying when this happens, because it means that in many of my very favourite bits, which I've been looking forward to performing, I end up not singing! Dr Liz told me on the way offstage tonight that she never gets tearful when she's singing, just when she's listening. I think I'm the other way round. There aren't many pieces that make me tearful when I hear them (a notable exception is A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, in which the entry of the brass at the end reduces me to a quivering wreck every time), but there are loads that make me tearful when I sing them.
I mention all this because I don't remember ever being in a concert that made me tearful as much as tonight's did. I'd been looking forward to it more than I can remember looking forward to any concert in years in any case, and I wasn't disappointed - it was fabulous. True, a few things didn't go according to plan - the sopranos didn't come in at all at the start of We Shall Walk, which was baffling, but the rest of us waited another beat for them, and they DID come in, and the crisis was averted and probably none of the audience noticed. And there were some REALLY stupid people in the audience. I thought my least favourite audience ever was the one we had four times at Christmas, when they would NOT stop coughing, but tonight's annoyed me more. To be fair, it was only a few of them - it was an almost-full house, and the vast majority were perfectly well-behaved. But those few thoughtless idiots totally ruined TWO pieces.
How? They were so desperate to be the first ones to applaud that they not only started the instant the music stopped - before the conductor's arms were lowered, so we never got that wonderful silence before the applause starts. But in two cases they assumed that the piece had ended when it hadn't. The first time was at the end of the Largo from the New World Symphony. The conductor, in his introduction, had really only mentioned two things - that there was a famous cor anglais solo, and that although that was wonderful, his favourite bit was right at the very end, where the double basses end the movement with a 4-part chord. (I never knew this before today, which is a bit of a shock to me because I thought I knew the New World Symphony very well indeed.) Did we hear the 4-part chord? We did not, because the I-want-to-clap-first idiots decided the music had ended in the previous bar, and applauded over the double bass chord. I mean, come ON, people - he TOLD YOU HOW IT ENDED and you still got it wrong!
But it was even worse in the second half, because we started with the Barber Agnus Dei. If you know the piece at all (or the Adagio for Strings, of which it is an adaptation) you can probably guess which is the worst possible moment for people to applaud, and of course that's where they did it - there's a huge climax about 7 minutes into the piece, and after a few moments' silence the music continues with an extremely quiet echo of the same two chords. Of COURSE the idiots applauded in that silence, thinking the climax was the end of the piece, and the quiet echo - the best bit of the piece, on which we'd worked the longest - was totally lost. (If you don't know the piece that well and want to know exactly which bit I mean, listen to this recording - the climax in question is at 6:50.)
After the Barber, there were no other applause-related disasters, so I like to think that the offenders were quietly removed and executed. I was particularly pleased that they didn't spoil my favourite piece in any way. (That was A City Called Heaven, in case you're wondering. But I'll come back to that.) So, having written for longer than I intended about what went WRONG, I suppose I'd better rectify that by talking about what went right, because it really was a FABULOUS concert, and there were many, many things I loved about it.
Fanfare for the Common Man was the first item, and it was awesome, in both senses of the word. I don't think I've ever heard it performed live before, and the sound was just incredible. After that, Lincoln Portrait, which I didn't know at all, was always going to be less impressive in comparison, but it was pleasant enough, and I was very taken with the speaking voice that the bass soloist used - very Darth Vader! I would have loved it if he'd added an extra line to the Gettysburg Address that said "No, Luke. I am your father."
The children's choir then sang At The River. When I saw that on the programme, I hoped it was the Groove Armada song, although I realised that was unlikely.... It turned out to be a hymn, and as usual Wikipedia has a lot of interesting information about it. Anyway, they sang it very well (they're REALLY good!) and I know a few members of the choir did get tearful listening to them, but it didn't move me quite that much, lovely though it was.
Then it was time for Go Down Moses (a.k.a. "the one where the 2nd altos have all the best bits"). The bit that got to me in this one was "let my people go" - every time it came, actually, but particularly the one with no crescendo. Spinetingling. The next piece was "We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace" (Moses Hogan arrangement), which I had never heard before a few weeks ago. I really love this piece, and a had a tear in my eye at several places, but mostly the very loud bit near the end where the 1st sops finally had a top G. Someone near me said she found this piece boring, and I suppose I can see what she meant, but I thought it was just wonderful.
I've already mentioned the New World Symphony, but apart from the idiot clappers it was great. It's always been one of my very favourite pieces, and hearing the Largo tonight reminded me how long it's been since I listened to the whole thing, so I'll be doing that very soon. But in the meantime, the last thing in the first half was Songs of Freedom. I love this piece too, but I've been frustrated while we've been rehearsing it because the men never seemed enthusiastic about it. Today, though, they finally sounded as if they were enjoying themselves, and the piece was transformed. And the kids were great too - they'd been practising their hurrahs and were very effective, and of course there was the cute little blond boy (I think he was called Nicholas) who sang a line on his own. He was perfect in rehearsals, but I wondered whether nerves would get to him in the performance - but he was fine. And then, straight after, was Shenandoah.
When we first heard the kids sing this on Wednesday, we all melted (at least, the back row of the altos did). But I still managed (just) to sing our backing vocal part. Tonight I could hardly sing at all - it took me several bars before I could produce even a wobble. Luckily I'd managed to calm down by the time we got to our "Glory Glory Hallelujah" countermelody, although I wasn't helped by the men sounding so amazing in the middle verse!
The train bit was the next part of the medley, i.e. We Are Coming, Father Abraham (I don't think our version included the slightly gruesome last verse!) This has an exciting accelerando as the train picks up speed, but the men never managed to do this convincingly in rehearsals - well, apart from the memorable evening when our choral director conducted them by doing train impressions.... But today they nailed it, and it was great, and then we were into When Johnny Comes Marching Home, in which the kids were again fabulous, and at the very end when they all shouted "HURRAH!" and punched the air in unison, that was when I actually cried briefly, for the first time of the evening. I'm not sure why - my best explanation is that I just LOVED that moment. (I've got a lump in my throat right now just thinking about it!) Just as well it was right before the interval.
After the break was Barber's Agnus Dei, which was sadly ruined by the idiot clappers. Other than that, it went very well, although my breathing seems to go worse each time I do it. At one point on Wednesday I was thrilled that I managed the first line in one breath for the first time ever. But I haven't managed it since, and I never managed it with any of the other lines! Oh well. (And before someone points out that we weren't EXPECTED to sing most of the lines in one breath - I know that, but trust me, we weren't supposed to be breathing as often as I was!)
Then the orchestra played Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer. Never heard either played by an orchestra before, although I know the piano originals very well, so that was fun. This was followed by Showboat (Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man (in which the tenors FINALLY did their interjections convincingly) and Ol' Man River. (I haven't mentioned the soloists - Sarah Fox and Robert Winslade Anderson - but they were both great.)
And finally we were up to A City Called Heaven. I mentioned this at the end of my last post - the piece was only written two weeks ago, and it was definitely my favourite thing in the concert. Just gorgeous. I was delighted, too, that the conductor told the audience the story of why he wrote it, as I'd hoped he would (it was in the programme notes too, for good measure). (I looked up Anne Brown's obituary, in case you're interested.) I really wish I had a recording of... well, the whole concert actually, but mainly this. Although I struggled to sing the first page because our choral director called us "his beloved choir" just before we started, and I can't remember the last time I was called "beloved", so I had another lump in my throat!
Next came a bit of (appropriately enough) Porgy and Bess: "Summertime" and "Bess, You is My Woman" - both of which brought the house down - and then the conductor got his own back on the audience by starting the last piece - Battle Hymn of the Republic (Wilhousky arrangement) - while they were still applauding the previous one. It seems this arrangement is very popular in America, but I'd never heard it before we started rehearsing it, and we didn't hear it with the orchestra till Friday. As soon as I did, I knew my mum was going to LOVE it. Not that she wouldn't like the rest of the concert, but we both love march-type things with trumpets and military drums, and this was an extreme example. Such an exciting start, and the end was spectacular - and in the middle the men did another 4-part illustration of how incredible they can sound when they put their minds to it. It was all appropriately glorious.
Applause, applause, applause... and then, the encore. We only found out we were doing this on Wednesday: Steal Away. We've done it before, and know it very well, so the lack of rehearsal wasn't a problem - it sounded great the first time we tried it, so it was just a case of polishing. I was all ready to sing it really well tonight - and then, just before we sang it, he quoted the words: "steal away... I ain't got long to stay here". And I felt like such an idiot for not having made the connection between those words and him leaving, but I hadn't. And once the connection was made, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I had tears running down my face through the whole song, and couldn't sing any of it without my voice wobbling. I don't think I'll ever hear it again without thinking of tonight.
Anyway, I have a few links to share with you, but I think I'll save them for a day or two in the hope that a few reviews appear, and I'll link everything together,
Concentration doesn't always work in these circumstances, so there have been quite a few concerts in which I've had to stop singing briefly because my voice was wobbling so much. It's REALLY annoying when this happens, because it means that in many of my very favourite bits, which I've been looking forward to performing, I end up not singing! Dr Liz told me on the way offstage tonight that she never gets tearful when she's singing, just when she's listening. I think I'm the other way round. There aren't many pieces that make me tearful when I hear them (a notable exception is A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, in which the entry of the brass at the end reduces me to a quivering wreck every time), but there are loads that make me tearful when I sing them.
I mention all this because I don't remember ever being in a concert that made me tearful as much as tonight's did. I'd been looking forward to it more than I can remember looking forward to any concert in years in any case, and I wasn't disappointed - it was fabulous. True, a few things didn't go according to plan - the sopranos didn't come in at all at the start of We Shall Walk, which was baffling, but the rest of us waited another beat for them, and they DID come in, and the crisis was averted and probably none of the audience noticed. And there were some REALLY stupid people in the audience. I thought my least favourite audience ever was the one we had four times at Christmas, when they would NOT stop coughing, but tonight's annoyed me more. To be fair, it was only a few of them - it was an almost-full house, and the vast majority were perfectly well-behaved. But those few thoughtless idiots totally ruined TWO pieces.
How? They were so desperate to be the first ones to applaud that they not only started the instant the music stopped - before the conductor's arms were lowered, so we never got that wonderful silence before the applause starts. But in two cases they assumed that the piece had ended when it hadn't. The first time was at the end of the Largo from the New World Symphony. The conductor, in his introduction, had really only mentioned two things - that there was a famous cor anglais solo, and that although that was wonderful, his favourite bit was right at the very end, where the double basses end the movement with a 4-part chord. (I never knew this before today, which is a bit of a shock to me because I thought I knew the New World Symphony very well indeed.) Did we hear the 4-part chord? We did not, because the I-want-to-clap-first idiots decided the music had ended in the previous bar, and applauded over the double bass chord. I mean, come ON, people - he TOLD YOU HOW IT ENDED and you still got it wrong!
But it was even worse in the second half, because we started with the Barber Agnus Dei. If you know the piece at all (or the Adagio for Strings, of which it is an adaptation) you can probably guess which is the worst possible moment for people to applaud, and of course that's where they did it - there's a huge climax about 7 minutes into the piece, and after a few moments' silence the music continues with an extremely quiet echo of the same two chords. Of COURSE the idiots applauded in that silence, thinking the climax was the end of the piece, and the quiet echo - the best bit of the piece, on which we'd worked the longest - was totally lost. (If you don't know the piece that well and want to know exactly which bit I mean, listen to this recording - the climax in question is at 6:50.)
After the Barber, there were no other applause-related disasters, so I like to think that the offenders were quietly removed and executed. I was particularly pleased that they didn't spoil my favourite piece in any way. (That was A City Called Heaven, in case you're wondering. But I'll come back to that.) So, having written for longer than I intended about what went WRONG, I suppose I'd better rectify that by talking about what went right, because it really was a FABULOUS concert, and there were many, many things I loved about it.
Fanfare for the Common Man was the first item, and it was awesome, in both senses of the word. I don't think I've ever heard it performed live before, and the sound was just incredible. After that, Lincoln Portrait, which I didn't know at all, was always going to be less impressive in comparison, but it was pleasant enough, and I was very taken with the speaking voice that the bass soloist used - very Darth Vader! I would have loved it if he'd added an extra line to the Gettysburg Address that said "No, Luke. I am your father."
The children's choir then sang At The River. When I saw that on the programme, I hoped it was the Groove Armada song, although I realised that was unlikely.... It turned out to be a hymn, and as usual Wikipedia has a lot of interesting information about it. Anyway, they sang it very well (they're REALLY good!) and I know a few members of the choir did get tearful listening to them, but it didn't move me quite that much, lovely though it was.
Then it was time for Go Down Moses (a.k.a. "the one where the 2nd altos have all the best bits"). The bit that got to me in this one was "let my people go" - every time it came, actually, but particularly the one with no crescendo. Spinetingling. The next piece was "We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace" (Moses Hogan arrangement), which I had never heard before a few weeks ago. I really love this piece, and a had a tear in my eye at several places, but mostly the very loud bit near the end where the 1st sops finally had a top G. Someone near me said she found this piece boring, and I suppose I can see what she meant, but I thought it was just wonderful.
I've already mentioned the New World Symphony, but apart from the idiot clappers it was great. It's always been one of my very favourite pieces, and hearing the Largo tonight reminded me how long it's been since I listened to the whole thing, so I'll be doing that very soon. But in the meantime, the last thing in the first half was Songs of Freedom. I love this piece too, but I've been frustrated while we've been rehearsing it because the men never seemed enthusiastic about it. Today, though, they finally sounded as if they were enjoying themselves, and the piece was transformed. And the kids were great too - they'd been practising their hurrahs and were very effective, and of course there was the cute little blond boy (I think he was called Nicholas) who sang a line on his own. He was perfect in rehearsals, but I wondered whether nerves would get to him in the performance - but he was fine. And then, straight after, was Shenandoah.
When we first heard the kids sing this on Wednesday, we all melted (at least, the back row of the altos did). But I still managed (just) to sing our backing vocal part. Tonight I could hardly sing at all - it took me several bars before I could produce even a wobble. Luckily I'd managed to calm down by the time we got to our "Glory Glory Hallelujah" countermelody, although I wasn't helped by the men sounding so amazing in the middle verse!
The train bit was the next part of the medley, i.e. We Are Coming, Father Abraham (I don't think our version included the slightly gruesome last verse!) This has an exciting accelerando as the train picks up speed, but the men never managed to do this convincingly in rehearsals - well, apart from the memorable evening when our choral director conducted them by doing train impressions.... But today they nailed it, and it was great, and then we were into When Johnny Comes Marching Home, in which the kids were again fabulous, and at the very end when they all shouted "HURRAH!" and punched the air in unison, that was when I actually cried briefly, for the first time of the evening. I'm not sure why - my best explanation is that I just LOVED that moment. (I've got a lump in my throat right now just thinking about it!) Just as well it was right before the interval.
After the break was Barber's Agnus Dei, which was sadly ruined by the idiot clappers. Other than that, it went very well, although my breathing seems to go worse each time I do it. At one point on Wednesday I was thrilled that I managed the first line in one breath for the first time ever. But I haven't managed it since, and I never managed it with any of the other lines! Oh well. (And before someone points out that we weren't EXPECTED to sing most of the lines in one breath - I know that, but trust me, we weren't supposed to be breathing as often as I was!)
Then the orchestra played Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer. Never heard either played by an orchestra before, although I know the piano originals very well, so that was fun. This was followed by Showboat (Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man (in which the tenors FINALLY did their interjections convincingly) and Ol' Man River. (I haven't mentioned the soloists - Sarah Fox and Robert Winslade Anderson - but they were both great.)
And finally we were up to A City Called Heaven. I mentioned this at the end of my last post - the piece was only written two weeks ago, and it was definitely my favourite thing in the concert. Just gorgeous. I was delighted, too, that the conductor told the audience the story of why he wrote it, as I'd hoped he would (it was in the programme notes too, for good measure). (I looked up Anne Brown's obituary, in case you're interested.) I really wish I had a recording of... well, the whole concert actually, but mainly this. Although I struggled to sing the first page because our choral director called us "his beloved choir" just before we started, and I can't remember the last time I was called "beloved", so I had another lump in my throat!
Next came a bit of (appropriately enough) Porgy and Bess: "Summertime" and "Bess, You is My Woman" - both of which brought the house down - and then the conductor got his own back on the audience by starting the last piece - Battle Hymn of the Republic (Wilhousky arrangement) - while they were still applauding the previous one. It seems this arrangement is very popular in America, but I'd never heard it before we started rehearsing it, and we didn't hear it with the orchestra till Friday. As soon as I did, I knew my mum was going to LOVE it. Not that she wouldn't like the rest of the concert, but we both love march-type things with trumpets and military drums, and this was an extreme example. Such an exciting start, and the end was spectacular - and in the middle the men did another 4-part illustration of how incredible they can sound when they put their minds to it. It was all appropriately glorious.
Applause, applause, applause... and then, the encore. We only found out we were doing this on Wednesday: Steal Away. We've done it before, and know it very well, so the lack of rehearsal wasn't a problem - it sounded great the first time we tried it, so it was just a case of polishing. I was all ready to sing it really well tonight - and then, just before we sang it, he quoted the words: "steal away... I ain't got long to stay here". And I felt like such an idiot for not having made the connection between those words and him leaving, but I hadn't. And once the connection was made, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I had tears running down my face through the whole song, and couldn't sing any of it without my voice wobbling. I don't think I'll ever hear it again without thinking of tonight.
Anyway, I have a few links to share with you, but I think I'll save them for a day or two in the hope that a few reviews appear, and I'll link everything together,
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Some people think I'm bonkers, but I just think I'm free
So, the picture above was taken four weeks ago today. It feels SO much longer ago than that. I'm not entirely sure where the time's gone, though, since I've been at home most of the time. But I realised that if I don't write this blog post soon, I'll have forgotten everything about Spain, and my list of links to share will be so long no-one will ever read to the end of it....
Actually it's probably a good thing that I've left it a few weeks before writing, because hopefully it'll help me be more concise. And, most of what I have to say is about the journey rather than the time in Valencia - I spent most of the time there in my room reading. But let's see.
(Note: this will be long anyway, I suspect. If you're not interested in the overland trip to Valencia and back, scroll down to the links!)
We set off as planned on Tuesday 26th May. Nothing much to report between home and London. We walked from Euston to St Pancras and did the obligatory pose with John Betjeman. We considered having champagne until we saw how much it cost. Plan B involved getting wine and nibbles from M&S to eat on Eurostar. Eurostar was very exciting and RIDICULOUSLY fast. I was following our progress on the map on my iPhone, and couldn't believe how fast we whizzed across Kent (or how little of London we saw on the way out - a lot more of the journey was underground than we'd expected). When we emerged in France there wasn't much to see other than fields. Sue eventually became convinced that she could see the Eiffel Tower, but none of the rest of us could. In fact, we didn't see it at any stage (on OR off the train), and we're now convinced it's actually been removed.
We emerged from Eurostar at Gare du Nord. After a lot of faffing about caused by the fact that no-one had any euro coins and the ticket machines didn't take notes, so we had to queue for ages to get Metro tickets, we eventually got on a Metro headed for Gare d'Austerlitz... and it didn't move. Turned out there was a strike on. There were lots of announcements which we couldn't quite hear, and each time, some people got off the train, but most of them stayed on. A helpful local woman advised us to stay on because the train would move eventually, and luckily she was correct.
Plan A, on arrival at Gare d'Austerlitz, where we had several hours to kill before getting the sleeper train to Barcelona, was to put the bags in left luggage and wander up to Notre Dame. However, it turned out this would cost a fortune, so we lugged them with us. It wasn't too bad, at least at first - Alison and Sue and I had large rucksacks, which meant that we ended up with sore shoulders quite soon but could otherwise walk easily, whereas Judy had a wheeled case AND a (small) rucksack, so her shoulders were fine but she was hampered by having to manoeuvre her case. Anyway, we wandered along the river in the vague direction of Notre Dame. On the map it looked as if it was quite close, but the map was deceiving, and we walked for quite a while before we could see it. Sadly we didn't have time to go inside, but it was nice to see the place anyway.
When we got back to Gare d'Austerlitz, we had a quick drink in the station bar before wandering over to look for our train. We were all a bit startled at first to see how very small the compartment was. I'd seen photos on the website, and they were quite accurate, but it felt a lot smaller with four of us in it! It was fine though, and actually it felt roomier when the beds were pulled out, even though it wasn't. There was lots of entertainment due to the fact that the corridors were so narrow you had to squeeze past anyone you met coming the other way. (The train was set up in the old-fashioned way with a narrow corridor running along the carriage and separate compartments opening off it. You know, like the Hogwarts Express.)
We'd planned to have our evening meal on the train, but when we went to investigate, it turned out that there wasn't a table available till 11pm. (The train left at 8.30pm.) This was a bit of a disappointment, because we were quite hungry by then, but there was nothing we could do, so we sat and read for a while until we could eat. When we finally did get into the restaurant, the meal was nice, but VERY overpriced for what it was, and there was very little choice. I must admit that if I'd known how much it was before I'd agreed to eat there, I wouldn't have agreed. However, the setting was amazing, so I'm glad I had one meal in there, even though it used the entirety of the money my mum had given me for the week. (Yes, I know it's ridiculous that the only money I had was what my mum gave me!)
After we ate, it was definitely bedtime - it had been a long day and we were all exhausted. The beds were quite comfortable, but annoyingly I couldn't sleep a wink. I think it was because it was so ridiculously hot. Apparently the air conditioning did kick in at some point, but I was on a bottom bunk and couldn't feel any cool air. So I lay awake all night. I did have my eyes shut, though, so it was quite restful. And I was delighted to realise, at about 5 am, that we must have reached the Spanish border, because I felt them changing the wheels on the train (Spain has a different gauge to France).
We got to Barcelona just in time for breakfast. It was now Wednesday 27th May - the day of the Champions' League Final between Barcelona and Man Utd (in Rome) - so I had put on my United shirt specially :-) I was so pleased I did this, because that morning was great as a result! Wherever I went in the city, people commented on my shirt, and it was a really nice atmosphere. The others were a bit taken aback at how friendly the rivalry was - they'd expected that me wearing my shirt would cause trouble - but I hadn't been worried. Interestingly, the first guy who talked to me was someone who was standing at the entrance to the station when we emerged. I'd been told that when we got to Valencia all the locals hated Barcelona so they'd all support United for the day, but this guy told us that this wasn't the case - if it was Real Madrid against United, everyone in Spain (other than Real Madrid fans) would cheer on United, but Barcelona don't inspire such hatred, so the rest of Spain (other than Real Madrid fans!) would cheer on Barcelona. (And he was correct, at least as far as Valencia fans went.)
We asked this guy where he recommended for breakfast. Turned out there was a cafe/bar right over the road from the station, which he said was perfect, and it was. It had the two vital things I needed at that point: 1. great coffee, and 2. a plug socket so I could charge my phone! (I'd expected there'd be sockets on either Eurostar or the Trainhotel, but there weren't, and my phone had used lots of its charge following our progress on the map.) As a bonus, the TV in the bar was showing nonstop pictures of the buildup in Rome. I like a city that has its priorities right - there was NO more important news in Barcelona that day!
After a leisurely coffee or two, we went in search of the metro station, where a very helpful member of staff confirmed the cheapest way of doing what we wanted to do. I was very impressed with the Barcelona metro system - it was clean and efficient and air-conditioned, and the stations had arty things on the walls, and even the muzak was cool - at one point there was a jazzy version of Tea for Two which we were quite taken with. It took a couple of trains to get to Sagrada Familia (the main place we all wanted to see). Eventually we came up the steps, and... WOW! The initial view of the place is absolutely mindblowing, and it just gets better after that.
We all wanted to go round and look, but we still had the problem of the bags (the left luggage at the station was closed, and the nearest alternative was miles away, so we had to keep everything with us). But it all worked out fine, because Sue and I were quite keen to sit and have a rest before going round the cathedral, whereas Alison and Judy wanted to go immediately. So Sue and I sat with the bags while they went in, with the plan being that we'd go in when they came out. As it turned out, they were longer than we'd expected and we didn't have time, but it wasn't a problem, because we knew we had time to kill on our return journey. It did mean we didn't see much else in Barcelona, but we'd never expected to, so none of us minded.
While Sue and I were waiting, we took turns popping off for a quick wander round the square. I bought some postcards and attempted to buy some stamps. In Spain you get them from tobacconists (if they don't have any where they sell postcards) but the first few places I asked said they didn't have any. The next place I tried said they DID have stamps, but couldn't possibly sell them to me because of my shirt. I couldn't work out whether or not they were joking, but they didn't give me any stamps! I got some in the end though, from a lady who had just finished wrapping up a Barcelona football shirt for a customer. That resulted in another good conversation :-)
Sue and I had a great time examining the outside of Sagrada Familia. I think it's the most amazing building I've ever seen. Only St Peter's in Rome comes close. I could tell you all the things we saw, but there are probably millions of places online that will do it better. (If you're interested, you should probably start with the official site.) Most unexpected thing we saw in the architecture: probably the bassoon. Really.
Anyway, when Alison and Judy emerged we went for lunch nearby. It was at this point that I cursed things by saying - out loud, in front of witnesses - that it was the best day I could remember having in years. Note to self: if you ever have another day as good, do NOT say so. Because before our lunch had even arrived, Judy's rucksack had vanished. She retraced her steps just in case, but was adamant all along that she'd had it when we got to the café, so it must have been stolen while we were sitting there. She seemed amazingly unruffled by this, saying that it didn't really matter because most of her stuff was in her case and everything valuable was in her handbag, but even so I would have been much more upset than she was. (In fact I *was* quite upset, because I felt as if I'd cursed the day. Yes, I know that's irrational.)
Despite this setback, we had a lovely lunch. All morning there had been people in Barcelona shirts all over the place. They vanished, of course, at the precise moment that we decided it would be nice to get a photo of one of them with me in my United shirt. But a while later, one did appear, so I hurtled across the street and accosted him. He seemed quite amused, and didn't mind being dragged across to our table to be photographed. (That's the photo at the top of this post.) When the waiters saw this, they wanted to be photographed as well, but they weren't wearing Barcelona shirts so it seemed like a good idea to wrap my United scarf round them. (See photo below.)
Eventually we got back on the metro to head back to Estació de França, and the curse struck again. There was a minor incident on the train that I didn't really see clearly, but it looked as if Judy was being pushed by someone. I'd forgotten about it by the time we got off, until Judy realised that her purse had been taken out of her handbag. This upset her a lot more than the loss of the rucksack an hour or two earlier, because there was a lot of money in it.
We'd seen a place we thought might be a police station, so Judy went in there to ask what to do. Turned out it was a Foreign Office type place, and they couldn't do much, but they did call the police in Valencia to explain what had happened, so that it would be easier for Judy to report there the next day.
After that, we got to the station. We were in plenty of time for the train to Valencia, so we sat on a bench and waited for our train to appear on the board. There was a train listed at the correct time, but the departure board didn't go into much detail, and didn't mention where ANY of the trains stopped (other than their final destination) so we weren't sure whether that train was ours.
It goes without saying that when a day is cursed, it's cursed three times... because with (I think) twenty minutes to go before the train left, we found out that that train (the only one at the correct time) was NOT our train... because our train went from Barcelona Sants instead of Estació de França! I felt terrible. This was entirely my fault. I'd been the one who'd booked all the tickets and told the others the arrangements. I thought I'd double checked everything, but I hadn't been thorough enough. (Some trains to Valencia DO go from França, but not the one our tickets were for.) The thing is, because Alison had paid for all the tickets, I gave them all to her when they arrived, so I didn't have the actual ticket to look at, or I might have noticed the station name. I can't believe I didn't notice when I *got* the tickets, though - I suspect I must have assumed that "Sants" was some sort of abbreviation.
Anyway, the urgent thing was to try to get to Sants in time. We got a cab, and it was obvious that he thought it was unlikely we'd make it, when we told him what the problem was. He did drive pretty fast, but the traffic wasn't good (and at one point there was apparently a naked guy running along the pavement, although I didn't see him!) and we got to the barrier less than a minute after the train was due to leave. Needless to say it had left bang on time.
As Judy later pointed out, if there was ONE train we were going to miss, this was the best one, because there were plenty of trains on that route, and missing ours didn't mean we missed anything else. But the problem was that I knew it would cost us a fortune. The tickets we had were extra-cheap web special offer ones, valid only on that specific train. Judy tried to talk them into letting us use them on the next train, but I knew it would never work - the conditions were very clear - and it didn't. So we had to get new tickets, which cost more than three times as much as the useless ones. And by this point, of course, neither Judy nor I had any money at all. Sue came to the rescue, although there was a bit of a panic when they pointed out that her credit card had expired (luckily she had another one that worked).
The next train was an hour later, and it was possibly the nicest train we'd been on so far (even nicer than Eurostar, and that was quite posh). I was in a black mood by then, though - I just felt so guilty that a simple error of mine had cost everyone so much money, especially because I already had no idea when I'd be able to pay the others back for the REST of the journey. I managed to distract myself a bit with Harry Potter - I'd taken all seven books with me to reread, and I think I was up to book 4 by this point. Harry always cheers me up, so I was in a better mood by the time we arrived (again, bang on time, like all our trains so far). I was quite surprised that the others still trusted me to know which way to go to get to the hotel, but they did, and in this case their trust wasn't misplaced, because it was fairly easy to find. (I'd loaded lots of maps onto my phone - it would have been easier to use the GPS map, but that involves going online, which is only free in the UK.)
We finally got to the hotel at about 7.30 pm, I think. All I wanted to do was sit down, shower (preferably while sitting down), rest my feet, rest my SHOULDERS (the weight of our bags had become a big issue by then) and eat and drink. But most of these were not an option. Why not? CHAMPIONS' LEAGUE FINAL! Kickoff was at 8.45 pm. I'd arranged to meet Claire and her husband, who'd agreed to find somewhere good to watch the match from. She'd texted me to tell me where they were, but when I looked on the map my heart sank, because it was even further from the hotel than the station was, and I knew THAT took ages. So I had the fastest shower ever, got half changed (only half, because there was no way I wasn't putting that United shirt back on, however sweaty it was... if I'd thought ahead properly, I would have brought two! I've GOT two!) and went straight out again. It's fair to say I was hobbling a bit - I suspected I had some blisters, but hadn't had time to look properly.
I made it to the bar JUST in time - the match kicked off just after I walked through the door - but I missed the first few minutes while I wandered through the bar looking for Claire, with no success. I texted her to ask where she was, but shortly afterwards she appeared at the door and took me to another bar nearby - they'd decided it was less crowded. It was indeed less crowded - but only a couple of minutes after I got there, Barcelona scored. Things went downhill from there, as I'm sure you're aware. United had only played well in the first ten minutes, and they eventually lost 2-0, and we couldn't claim they didn't deserve to lose.
It was an experience watching the game in a bar full of Spanish fans, who were cheering for Barcelona whether or not they were actually Barcelona fans, but the atmosphere was friendly. Ro and I shouted sporadically, which amused them. (Les, Claire's husband, was too annoyed with the performance to get excited about it, and Claire herself wasn't watching.) (I actually tend to squeak rather than shout, when I'm watching football.)
By the time the game ended, I was REALLY hungry, having had nothing to eat since lunch, but I had no money till I could get my per diem thingy, so it couldn't be helped. I think it actually helped that there were no seats in the bar and another long walk back to the hotel, because by the time I got back my feet and legs were aching so much that I was more bothered about getting into bed and not having to move for eight hours than about getting any food. Also, I hadn't slept a wink the previous night on the train, and I'd only slept for an hour or so the night BEFORE that, so it was definitely bedtime.
Next morning: concert day! It seemed a bit surreal that after all that travelling and non-musical activity, it was so soon. But more important things came first, name ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BREAKFAST and HANDING OUT OF MONEY. Hurrah! Food at last!
I think I went back to my room to read, after breakfast. My legs and shoulders were still aching, and I had definite blisters on my feet. And in any case I'd planned to stay in a lot - it's the best way of not spending any money. I'd decided that I could probably survive till I got home on the handout money, but this plan was based on eating as much as possible at breakfast and putting bread and fruit aside for lunch.
At lunchtime we all wandered over to the Palau de la Musica to rehearse. It's a lovely place - actually even lovelier than I thought, because I didn't walk all the way round it, and when I saw Alison's photos I wished I had. The rehearsal was fine - I was about to tell you about my favourite moment of the whole trip, but I think that was in the SECOND rehearsal (just before we went onstage) so I'll get to it shortly. The acoustic in the hall was a bit weird and it was very hard to keep to the beat until we got used to it.
I went back to read some more between rehearsal and concert, although we did go for a wander to the supermarket at some point to get snacks to keep us going till after the concert. By the time it was concert o'clock, I was already melting - I really, really hate the heat. But I forgot about it when I got inside the Palau de la Musica, because there was fabulous air conditioning, and then our choral director gave one of his inspiring speeches (I can't remember a thing he actually said now, but I know I was really inspired at the time!) and then, during the warmup/rehearsal, there was an absolutely magical moment which was my highlight of the whole trip, and which I've been trying to describe to people since.
This will sound a bit odd if you weren't there, but bear with me. It was the "ich harrete" bit, where the men sing the tune and the two soprano soloists sing backing vocals. The men knew the tune, and they were singing it in tune and with the correct pronunciation. There was nothing wrong with it at all - it sounded great - and I suspect that most other choral directors would have said "well done" and moved on. But not ours. He DID say "well done". But he wanted more. He wanted the men to sing the tune as if they were all soloists.
Now, just think about that for a moment. It's an absolutely tiny alteration that he was looking for. So tiny that it's difficult to put into words exactly what he meant (well, any words other than what I've already used). It's SUCH a tiny alteration that you'd be forgiven for not believing it would be possible for anyone to tell the difference, even if the men DID succeed in doing what was requested.
And yet.
Here's how he got what he wanted: He told them to all sing that passage together, but not TRYING to be together. They were to all sing as soloists, and as long as they all sang at roughly the right speed, it didn't matter (for the purpose of the exercise) that the rhythm was lost. He did not clarify exactly how it WAS going to work.
Well, it took a minute before they all worked out what he meant, but then they set off. He didn't conduct them at all, after starting them off. Of course, within a few seconds there was just a huge wash of sound, and no words or rhythm were audible, just mushed-up notes. The ladies looked at each other, amused, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one wondering how on earth this was going to help ANYTHING. It sounded totally ridiculous.
But then... the miracle. (Or, if you like, the proof of genius. I know which explanation I believe.) With no other input - from anyone other than the men themselves - the sound changed. Gradually we realised that it DIDN'T sound totally ridiculous; it was the best sound I've ever heard the men make. I had shivers down my spine, because they DID suddenly sound like a load of soloists. It was wonderful. By the end of it I had a big goofy grin on my face through the sheer joy of listening to that sound. We gave them a round of applause, and we were not just being polite.
In the concert, that bit didn't sound QUITE as magical as it did when they sang it without a beat... but it definitely sounded better. Which was the point, after all. I really hope that experience sticks with them until we sing at the Proms - I can't wait to hear that bit again!
The whole concert went really well, actually. We got a standing ovation at the end, which was lovely. (We often get a few people standing in Manchester, but it's extra special when it's an audience that doesn't know us, and presumably didn't include many family or friends.)
After the concert, Alison and I went out for food. We actually ended up in an Italian restaurant, which was not our intention, but it was very nice and we ate far too much. We decided to walk it off afterwards - Alison wanted to see the cathedral, and I knew where it was (because the bar where I'd met Claire was very near there) and we were at that side of town anyway, so we had a bit of a wander. The most impressive thing we saw wasn't actually the cathedral (which wasn't lit very well, so we couldn't see much of it) but an absolutely enormous tree in the middle of a square. We did find out later what sort of tree it was - it was mentioned in that guidebook that was in the hotel room - but I've forgotten now. (Here's what it looked like, though. That's me sitting on it.)
Friday was a free day, and in the morning we walked up to the City of Arts and Sciences, passing the opera house on the way. Both were spectacular. (I've only just found out that the opera house has had its problems. Seem amazing - it looks absolutely perfect now.) We did go inside the science museum bit of the City of Arts and Sciences, but I didn't find the inside as impressive as the outside, sadly (although they did have Spider-Man, which is always a good thing). Afterwards, we had some orxata (tigernut squash, a local delicacy) because a friend of Alison's had told her it was unmissable. Well, it was OK, but I don't think I'd rave about it.
We'd decided we had to find some authentic paella for lunch. This turned out to be UNBELIEVABLY difficult. I know there were paella places near the hotel, and out past the Palau de la Musica. But there were NONE near the City of Arts and Sciences - at least, if there were, they were well hidden. We looked all over the place. There were loads of restaurants, but none served paella! Eventually we decided to head back to the hotel from the place we'd got to (which was quite a way away), and if we didn't find any paella on the way, we'd give up. Well, we did find some in the end, but we were almost all the way back to the hotel before we did.
After all that walking, my blisters were playing up again, so I stayed in my room reading (and brilliantly not spending any money!) for the rest of the day and evening. (No doubt some of you will feel sorry for me, but I'm very used to my own company and was very happy to do this, so don't worry. I love to sit and read. If I sit and read at home, I'm always aware there's something else I really ought to be doing instead. I loved reading without the guilt!)
The next morning was the start of the long (but exciting) journey home. It was a lot less eventful than the outward journey, so it won't take as long to tell. Let's see... The lovely Graham agreed to squeeze the five books I'd finished into his suitcase so I didn't have to carry them. That fact made the journey home a million times easier - my shoulders hadn't really recovered from the outward journey! My only remaining concern was whether the last two Harry Potter books would last me until I got home. (I'm a very fast reader anyway, but even faster when it's a book I've read several times before.)
Sue and Judy didn't want to walk to the station, so they paid for a cab for all of us, which was nice. We were in plenty of time, and definitely at the right station! It's a gorgeous station, as well. Alison was very frustrated because she hadn't brought the charger for her camera, and it had died, so she couldn't take photos of the fantastic architecture. (That's why the last few photos are all mine, you see.) Sue and I sat on a bench, and our weight made the other end lift up, which amused the extremely cute guy who was sitting there, which in turn amused me enough to make me determined to get a photo of him - and I did (see below).
The train actually left about fifteen minutes late (the only one of all our trains that wasn't bang on time) but it had made up the time before Barcelona, so all was well. We arrived at Sants station and got the metro to Sagrada Familia, where Sue and I went inside - and were blown away by how amazing it was - while Judy and Alison stayed with the bags. We confused ourselves because we'd assumed that the bench we'd sat on on Wednesday was the same as the bench they sat on on Saturday, but it turned out it was in a whole different garden on the opposite side of the cathedral. However, it was while discussing this that it turned out Judy and Alison had missed one entire face of the cathedral as a result of similar confusion, so we won! Highlight of the day, though, was Sue looking at the architecture and suddenly shouting out "There's the cock!" It was probably funnier if you were there :-)
We had lunch nearby again - same road, different café - and then got the metro back to Estació de França and went to the Bar with the Plug Sockets (it probably had a different name but I forget what!) Sue and I sat and people-watched (and bag-watched) and had sangria, while Judy and Alison went to see Las Ramblas. I'd been told all sorts of other places that I should visit, but going anywhere else on the metro would have cost money I didn't have, and I didn't have the energy - or the unblistered feet - to walk far, so I volunteered to stay with the bags, and Sue liked the idea of just sitting and having a drink, so everyone was happy. Hopefully I'll go back to Barcelona one day. (I'll have to, I didn't even see Camp Nou!)
Alison and I had decided we weren't going to have another meal on the trainhotel, so we went to a nearby shop and bought supplies to sustain us till the next day. It was still ridiculously hot, so we got ice creams too. EXCELLENT plan, because when we got on the trainhotel it was soon as hot as last time. There was a bit of tension, too, because Sue had bought her ticket a day after the rest of us, and that meant she'd ended up in a different compartment on the return journey because someone else had already bought the fourth place in our compartment. Sue was hoping to persuade whoever it was to swap, but as it turned out we never even saw her. We saw her partner a few times, and I don't know what he'd sorted out, but the gist of it was that if we didn't mind keeping their suitcase in our compartment, Sue could stay with us, so it all worked out well.
Sue and Judy went for their meal (again, they couldn't get in before 11 pm), and while they were eating, at about midnight, we crossed the border into France, and the wheels were presumably changed again. I say "presumably" because Alison and I were trying hard to see exactly what was going on, but we couldn't be sure. We definitely stopped for ages, and they were doing SOMETHING, but we couldn't see what. When I witnessed whatever it was on the way south, I was sure the train tilted when they did it, but it didn't this time. Maybe it felt different because I was lying down? Anyway, this time it felt more as if they lifted the whole train up and then lowered it again, but I couldn't be sure.
Sue and Judy returned not long afterwards, and we all went to sleep. Well, we tried - Sue fell asleep with her light on, and I can't sleep with lights on. We were both in top bunks this time, so if I'd climbed over to wake her, I suspected I would have woken the others as well. So I had the brilliant idea of throwing things at her till she woke up, and the best things seemed to be screwed up (but unused) tissues. She did wake up eventually, and turned the light off at my request and went straight back to sleep. She was very amused when I explained to her (in the morning) why her bed was covered with screwed up tissues, because she didn't remember the incident at all!
We got to Paris in time for Sunday breakfast. The others wanted to go for a wander and have breakfast somewhere outside the station. I figured that inside the Gare d'Austerlitz was still in Paris, and it involved no walking, and my blisters were STILL sore, so I insisted on staying with the bags and had breakfast on my own on the station. (I had the last laugh, because the café they went to didn't have enough croissants for all of them!) I enjoyed people-watching - in particular, there was a large samba band that was obviously meeting up to go by train to a festival somewhere, and every time an extra one turned up, there were flamboyant greetings all round. I was also quite taken with the station announcement jingle, which had a sultry jazz-type female voice singing "da da da da" (to C G Ab Eb) before every bit of information.
When the others got back, we got the Metro to Gare du Nord, and had a coffee while waiting for our Eurostar to be announced. The trip back under the Channel was as incident-free as the trip the other way, and in no time at all we were back at St Pancras and it was time to split up. Alison was going off to Glyndebourne before she went home, and I was booked on a different train home to Sue and Judy. I'd hoped to meet up with friends, because I had several hours to kill before my train (it was cheaper to go later), but they had other plans in the end, so I did a bit more reading. That meant that I'd slightly miscalculated the number of books I needed, because I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Euston Station an hour before my train left. But all was well, because I have free internet access on my phone, so I read some books online. I finally got home just before 11 pm on Sunday 31st May, very keen to see my cats. Slightly less keen to find that my mum (who'd been catsitting) had accidentally unplugged the fridge and freezer at some point, but there was hardly any food in either anyway, and she'd cleaned the house for me, so I came out of it all pretty well!
You can see all my photos - and even more of Alison's (which are much better, because she had a proper camera and a steadier hand!) online here. But, in case you can't be bothered to look, my favourites (other than the one at the top of this post) are below. The first is us having lunch near Sagrada Familia. (That's where the top picture was taken, too.) The second is the two waiters with me and Alison, wearing my scarf (they were very amused by that). The last picture was taken on Valencia station on the morning we left. It may appear to be a photo of Sue, but I was actually trying to get the very cute guy who was sitting on the bench with us :-)
Anyway, the aforementioned million links, in no particular order:
Here's the Times review of our Valencia gig.
It turns out there's a great blog about life in Valencia - Hola Valencia. Sadly I only found out they existed while we were actually there, because they contacted me via Twitter. If I'd known earlier I would have got them to come to our concert! But do look through the blog - there are some great pictures.
Oh, and coincidentally Valencia is coming to Manchester in August! Do go to the game if you can. Valencia CF is a very good team (they finished 6th in La Liga) but they have huge financial problems at the moment, and presumably this friendly is part of their plan to make some money.
Sting talks about songwriting and school music lessons.
Via ChoralNet, a very powerful welcome address given to new music students in Boston by Karl Paulnack. He talks about the power of music, particularly after September 11th.
There are pianos being left in public places all over London at the moment. Someone from the Guardian went to play one.
The BBC Music Magazine compares the musical heritage of Barcelona and Manchester.
The new version of Sibelius (version 6) allows you to input music (to produce a printed score) by singing directly into the computer. Can't wait to try this, but it'll be a while before I can. In the meantime, version 5 does everything I really need it to, so I can be patient.
On 14th June there was a World Busk Day. They even had the first ever buskers in Antarctica. Yet somehow none of this was in the mainstream news, unless I missed it. Bizarre.
If you've ever played Rock Band, you'll be looking forward to the forthcoming Beatles Version. Most exciting part? If you watch the trailer all the way through, you'll realise that it has not just one vocal line but THREE DIFFERENT ONES. So people who can sing harmony parts - and stick to them - will have a decided advantage!
A brief Guardian editorial about office choirs.
The Spectator talks more about Spotify, which I mentioned a while ago. If you haven't signed up yet, I recommend you do!
Also in the Spectator, a piece about songs that you don't like as much as you used to.
Via Finite Attention Span, a fabulous audio story about postal workers in Ghana.
You may remember that I have written about Whit Friday in the past. This year's was on 5th June, and it was the wettest one I can remember. It was still great, though. If you know a band which was involved, look them up on the Saddleworth results and the Tameside results. And put Whit Friday 2010 in your diary - it's on 28th May.
BBC Sport lists their favourite football chants of the season.
Did you all watch the Cardiff Singer of the World? I enjoyed it, but that's probably because I didn't attempt to watch it live - I recorded it all so that I could fast forward through the interview and chat bits, which I really hate (in general, not just on this programme). As usual I was disappointed that there were no altos and hardly any mezzos, and I was annoyed that there was a counter-tenor in the final (I don't like counter-tenors at all), although he was quite good. I was also annoyed that so many of the arias were repeated so often - the baritones were the worst for this. I got very sick of Largo al factotum and that thing from Don Carlo. I think the right person won, though.
I listened to Götterdämmerung on the radio and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. The men sounded fabulous. My favourite bit, though, was the orchestral bit right near the end, and it was a bit I'd heard before but hadn't even realised was Wagner, let alone Götterdämmerung. I worked out that where I'd heard it before was on the soundtrack to Excalibur, at (I think) the bit when Arthur's died and Excalibur has been thrown into the lake, and then the Lady of the Lake holds it up in the air. It's years since I've seen this film, so I might have remembered it wrong. But I'm pretty sure the music I'm talking about accompanies a scene that's something like that. The IMDB soundtrack listing suggests it might be Siegfried's Funeral March; can anyone confirm this? Anyway, the Classical Source has a review that I don't think I'd seen when I listed other reviews.
The Choir of London took Puccini to Palestine.
The Guardian has been running an alphabetical series called School of Rock, which analyses aspects of songs. My favourite so far has been the feature on optimistic songs.
My favourite link of all the ones I'm mentioning today: The BBC Music Magazine reports that the RLPO is trying to claim that our orchestra is not the oldest in Britain. I absolutely love the quote from our chief executive - I laughed out loud for quite a long time when I first read it!
The Guardian is very excited about the forthcoming Elbow concert. They had a preview piece a couple of weeks ago, and now there's a more detailed report about rehearsals.
Here's a thing from BBC News about how singing can help seriously ill people, and another thing about how opera is good for the heart. Oh, and apparently Verdi is better for your heart than Bach. (via Intermezzo)
An interesting thing in the Guardian about the evil that is booking fees.
It seems that Brynfest made a big loss last year and this year's has been cancelled. Very sad.
And, finally, a few non-musical links. The most important is about the Manchester Zombie Walk on Sunday 12th July. Put the date in your diary! Read the comments to the MEN article for a few more details. We should have singing zombies! 4-part harmony!
Star Wars fans - particularly if they also like games - will be excited about the forthcoming Star Wars MMO, called Star Wars: The Old Republic. Watch the trailer - the game looks AMAZING. (Also, like most games, it looks like one I'd be REALLY bad at, but I'd enjoy watching a friend play.)
The Guardian is as enthusiastic as me about the Spanish rail system.
Soup o' th' Day is a new website that lists "what's on in Greater Manchester". I don't really like the layout - it's quite hard to read - but the information is up to date, and may be useful to some of you.
What does the internet think? is a new site that gives a simple answer to a simple question.
And, finally - you'll be aware, I'm sure, that United have allowed Cristiano Ronaldo to leave. Both the Guardian and the MEN describe him as "irreplaceable", and I'm very much afraid they're right, although I hope they're not. I'm particularly worried because my season ticket has now expired, and my heart is broken because I can't afford to renew it. (I couldn't afford it last year either, but there was a miracle - i.e. a well-paid one-off piece of freelance work - at just the right time. This year, there was no such miracle.) The reason I'm WORRIED rather than just upset is that I've had my season ticket for the last three seasons, and we've won the league in all three seasons. We didn't win in the three seasons BEFORE I had a season ticket. So plainly I was the lucky charm, and it's all downhill from here. Oh well.
It occurs to me that I haven't said anything about rehearsals since we got back from Spain, and they've been fabulous - but I have no energy to write in detail now! Short version: we are currently rehearsing for a concert on 4th July, which has an all-American programme that I'm very excited about. There are things we're doing that night that aren't listed on the website - another four things at least, and who knows what else (we only found out about one of the extras last night, and we haven't seen the music for it yet!) In addition to the Barber Agnus Dei (which will be mindblowing, although my breathing feels worse every time we do it) and the Songs of Freedom medley (which I really like, especially after I asked whether we could change a note in the alto part and he agreed!), we're also doing a fun arrangement (involving the audience) of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, plus three spirituals: Go Down Moses (my favourite of the Tippett set, mainly because the 2nd altos have the best part, which NEVER happens); We Shall Walk Through The Valley In Peace (which is just gorgeous, particularly the bass notes) and A City Called Heaven, which is the one we just found out about. Our choral director sang it to us at the end of last night's ladies' sectional, and it was so beautiful I had a tear in my eye. Not sure whether that was because of the song itself, or his singing, or the fact that it was his last ever sectional with us. Probably a combination of all three. But I can't wait to sing it tonight.
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