Take her wrap, fellas; find her an empty lap, fellas

Alison and I are singing at a funeral tomorrow morning (a relative of a friend of hers). We are doing two songs: I Passed By Your Window (which I'd never previously heard of) and, would you believe, Hello Dolly. I've created duet versions and backing tracks for both of them (it's in a crematorium, so there's no piano or organ, so the backing has to be on CD). I'm just hoping that it will be widely known that these two songs are what the family has requested - I've never sung to an audience that's gazing at me in horror, but I imagine it's rather offputting!

I thoroughly enjoyed the concert we did at St Patrick's Church on Saturday. And what a pity we're not doing "We'll Gather Lilacs" or "The Bare Necessities" at the second a cappella concert - I suspect it will be a similar type of audience, and the audience on Saturday LOVED those two songs. I suppose I can understand why they've been dropped, though. I'm a bit more baffled at the fact that Bruckner's Ave Maria has also gone, despite the fact that it sounds fabulous in a church acoustic... yet "The Lamb" (which I have grown to detest over the years) is still in! *boggle*

Actually, there were three things that will particularly stay in my mind from Saturday: the sight of half the audience mouthing the words to "We'll Gather Lilacs"; the lady on the balcony who was dancing during "The Bare Necessities"; and the audience member who told me afterwards that I was a "model chorister" during "The Bare Necessities" \o/ I'm very smug about that!

Now, I'm not entirely sure how I've managed to accumulate 100000000 relevant links in the last week, but I have (well, almost that many!) so I'd better get on with sharing them. (In case you're a recent arrival here, I should explain that the links I share are of three types, and I tend to list them in this order: (a) music-related stories that interested me; (b) Manchester-related stories that interested me; (c) stories that interested me but that aren't related to music OR Manchester, but I thought you might not have seen them mentioned anywhere else.)

The Mahler in Manchester series has reached its halfway point: Mahler 5 was last Thursday, and the reviews are good, although a bit inconsistent: five stars from the Guardian, four from the Times, only three from the Telegraph. EDIT: And, belatedly, four from the Independent. But four stars from the MEN, and The Classical Source don't rate performances, but they seemed to like it!

Talking of reviews, I learned from this one that the William Byrd Singers have a new conductor that people in my choir know well.

Oliver Condy writes about early morning practice.

Via ChoralNet, news of a choir that only performs new works, and restricts this even further to Connecticut composers!

VHK's Singing has some interesting points to make about the increasing tendency for anthems in cathedral services to be thought of as separate from the liturgy rather than part of it.

I found this site while I was searching for the sheet music and/or lyrics of "I Passed By Your Window": My Mother's Sheet Music. (I didn't find either - at least, not free - so I ended up writing them out myself anyway!)

Philip Langridge died the other day, and this inspired the Guardian to write an editorial about English tenors.

A fascinating post from Allen H Simon on ChoralNet about a concert he's doing this weekend featuring misattributed works. What I found most intriguing was his description of how the singers treated the music differently when they knew it wasn't really by Bach etc!

BBC 6 Music has been arguing about who the best (non-classical) guitarists are. They have a poll in which you can vote.

Nigel Kennedy is running a Polish festival on the South Bank at the end of May. (I hadn't realised he lives in Poland these days.) The most intriguing event (to me) is a screening of the 1973 England v Poland football match, accompanied by Kennedy and Polish jazz musicians, playing a semi-improvised score.

Great short piece from the Guardian about bands who sing in minority languages.

Lots of discussion this week about a lecture given by Alec Ross to the Royal Philharmonic Society on Monday night. The subject: whether or not it's OK to applaud in non-traditional places. Tom Service and Intermezzo and Classical Iconoclast like what he said. The Times asked several influential people to comment before the lecture took place, but the exact subject matter turned out to be more specific than they'd imagined.

I enjoyed the first episode of the new BBC series A Band for Britain, in which Sue Perkins tries to help Dinnington Colliery Brass Band get new players. If you missed it, you can see it on iPlayer via that link.

Chris Rowbury wonders what rehearsals are for, exactly.

A fascinating article in the Spectator which explores the job of orchestra leader, specifically in an opera orchestra.

Tom Service reminds us that Elgar will soon vanish from our £20 notes.

Some news that involves both music AND Manchester: I've been warning you for a while that Manchester Central Library (including the Henry Watson Music Library) will close soon while the whole building is renovated over the course of three years. Well, I was in there the other day - the first time since the new year - and bits of it have already closed. The Henry Watson is still open, but only for the next three weeks - it closes at 8pm on 1st April. So, if there's some music you desperately need from there, get it ASAP! Full details (including specific dates and FAQ) about the Central Library closure are here, and specific information for users of the Henry Watson are here. (And if you're one of the surprising number of people who have never been inside the Central Library, do go and visit before the end of March, because it won't be there - at least in its current form - after that. The Social Sciences library (on the first floor) is one of my favourite rooms in any building anywhere, and I'm praying they don't change the basic structure of it. If you've never seen it, I beg you to.)

Here's a great feature about female Mancunian role models. One of them sigs in our choir :-)

Manchester Confidential tells us that the Beetham Tower is still whistling, even though it was supposed to be fixed recently. I've still never heard it!

Mancubist tells us that there is currently an exhibition about Manchester's past and present music venues - on platform 12 at Piccadilly Station. I hadn't realised that was an exhibition space, but there you go!

I'm sure you'll have read that the Lowry wants 1000 volunteers to be photographed naked. Sadly the dates involved are 1st and 2nd May, which is our Mahler 8 weekend. Otherwise I have no doubt our whole choir would be there :p

More Metrolink chaos this summer, this time on the Bury line.

Doctor Who is travelling round the UK on a tourbus! He'll be in Salford on 31st March, and there'll be a big-screen event in Manchester after that. I'm hoping I'll eventually get over the fact that he's not David Tennant any more, but it'll take a while!

This intrigued me: via BoingBoing, an article about an international argument over exit signs.

There are millions of online personality quizzes, most of them extremely stupid, but if you like that sort of thing, this one is a bit better than the majority: the HTML colour personality test.

And finally, I was telling Caroline about both these sites recently and realised that I don't think I've mentioned them here: Failblog and Learn From My Fail. They may or may not amuse you :-)

The bees are buzzin' in the tree to make some honey just for me

Yes, I've still got The Bare Necessities on the brain, but I do now know it from memory. I could remember the notes almost immediately, but I kept stumbling over a few of the words. The line in the title caused me particular problems, but I have it now. I was thinking about the process of memorising stuff as a result of this, so I was delighted to see a post from the wonderful Chris Rowbury discussing the topic. (Chris works with choirs that always perform everything from memory, but the points he makes are equally valid for choirs that usually sing from music.) Oh, and don't forget my downloadable hints!

I went to see Ruddigore at the Lowry on Saturday, together with several other members of the choir (although we didn't all go together). I really enjoyed it, but I was intrigued to find that some of us found the words extremely difficult to understand (I reckon I could only distinguish about a quarter of them), whereas others thought that the diction was perfect and they could hear every word. In general the latter people were those who already knew the words extremely well, though, so maybe that's what makes the difference. I already linked to the Guardian review a while ago, but here's one from the Times (which says that the diction is crystal-clear) and one from the Spectator (which found lots of it inaudible, and - perhaps unsurprisingly - didn't enjoy it as much). I have to say that the fact that I couldn't make out many of the words wasn't as big a problem as I might have expected - I had no trouble following the plot.

The Telegraph wonders where all the contraltos have gone (thanks to Graham for pointing this out).

Via Intermezzo, Wagner's description of the perfect audience. This amused me a great deal :-)

Via ChoralNet, a great post from Helping You Harmonise about managing stage fright. I particularly like the point that "If your normal rehearsal warm-ups are about getting people up and going after work, you’ll find that using them just before a performance produces a completely over-hyped choir poised to sing sharp and rush tempi." Obvious when you think about it, but I don't think it ever occurred to me before!

Tom Service has a thought-provoking post about music education cuts. Short, but contains some useful facts and figures.

Similarly useful and thought-provoking, but rather longer, is this Guardian article about arts funding.

I'm not sure whether or not I want to hear the result of this, but I'm fascinated by the idea that they did it at all: classical music stars get together to record a charity single. (Note that it's the BBC that describes all those people as 'classical music stars', not me...)

Via Londonist, news of a Chopin exhibition at the British Library. It's on till mid-May, so if you're in London before then, go and have a look.

I suspect this news will be like Marmite, in that you'll either love it or hate it: Intermezzo tells us that there is an all-male production of The Pirates of Penzance, and it's on in London for a month or so from mid-April if you want to see it.

Via the Times: Simon Rattle is fed up with Britain. Most interesting facts from it: he's never done the St Matthew Passion before this year (he's doing it soon with the CBSO) and he's never done the B Minor Mass, and has no plans to because it's too hard!

Tom Service again, this time telling us why we need to build 22 new opera houses.

Intermezzo spends an afternoon with Andris Nelsons (who, I only recently realised, is conducting our Mahler 8 when we do it in Birmingham), and points out in passing that the way to get good audiences for concerts is to do them on Sunday afternoons.

Chet's has launched an appeal to raise money for their new building. I have all sorts of attachments to the old one, so I hate the idea that it's being demolished, but I suppose I have to accept that nothing lasts forever!

A couple of non-musical links to finish. Firstly, from the ever-wonderful Seth Godin (whose blog is linked in my sidebar - I recommend you all read it regularly), my current favourite word: Sprezzatura.

If your email inbox is plagued with a few friends and family members who continually forward jokes and other random stuff to you, here is a brilliant solution: StopForwarding.com. You can stop them anonymously and educate them at the same time!

For the geeks (or semi-geeks) among you: some fascinating facts and figures about Google.

And another brilliant idea: Let Me Google That For You. This will be useful to those of you who are always being asked questions which could be solved in seconds if the questioner could be bothered to use Google. You got to lmgtfy.com, which looks very like a normal Google page. You do the search yourself. LMGTFY then gives you a link to copy, and that's what you send to the person who asked. Watch this example of how it works (imagine you'd been asked "Who's Aaron Ramsey?")

Don’t spend your time just lookin’ around for something you want that can’t be found

I've got The Bare Necessities on the brain, which is probably just as well since I'm trying to memorise it. (If any other members of my choir are having trouble getting it to stick, there is an mp3 on my download page that might help. I recorded it at tonight's rehearsal.) We finished the last three rehearsals with it (and that's in quite a short time - there have been MANY rehearsals in the past week). I think that's one reason why I've come away feeling as if I've enjoyed these rehearsals a lot more than some of the previous ones, but actually almost all the music we're singing at the moment is fun to do.

The wedding on Saturday (at which six of us sang an a cappella "I Was Glad" and Bruckner's "Ave Maria") went very well, although the priest got a bit confused and actually forgot to do the wedding vows - he'd done the next bit of the mass before he realised, and had to go back! Although he might have decided to ignore the order of service - it had dozens of mistakes in it. Most of them were very minor, but among the more significant errors were: the fact that it said we were going to sing "Amazing Grace" in addition to our other three songs (this was a total invention on the part of the printer as far as I can tell!); the spelling of "hymn" as "hymm"; and (my favourite) "deliver us FOR evil" (instead of FROM evil) in the Lord's Prayer. Changes the message somewhat!

Popstar to Operastar finished on Friday, and Darius won, although only by a very narrow margin (the votes are here if you're interested). You can see all the performances from all six weeks on the official website, or download mp3s of them (in a handy zip file) from my my download page. I thoroughly enjoyed the series (although there were many things about it that annoyed me) and it actually inspired me to practise! I don't do that often enough!

I was telling Ralph on Sunday about Eric Whitacre's blog, which is always interesting. Specifically, you may be interested in the post where he had an idea about an internet performance of "Sleep", and the post where he shares the surprisingly successful results of this idea. (Read the posts in between to find out how he solved the logistical problems - it's all interesting.) He's currently in the middle of another similar project, this time involving my favourite work of his, "Lux Aurumque". (I would LOVE to sing that.)

The Mahler in Manchester series is almost halfway through. Mahler 4 was last Thursday, conducted by the lovely Markus Stenz. The Guardian and the Times both seemed to like it - I haven't seen any other reviews yet.

I've been keeping a mental checklist of which of my "12 days of musical terminology" terms have come up in rehearsals in 2010 so far. I think I've only heard four of them actually mentioned by name, but more than that have come up in the music, even if they weren't pointed out at the time! For those of you who missed the series, here are links to the posts, with notes to say where the current examples are:

1. Dominant pedal - there's a sort-of dominant pedal in the Rachmaninov, in the 2nd bass part on the last line (all the repeated Gs). It's only "sort of" because although it seems fairly clear to me that the music IS in C major at that point (so that the G is the dominant), the piece actually ends on a G major chord, so you could argue that it's in G major. (You'd be wrong, though!)
2. Hemiola - I was about to admit defeat on this one, until I remembered bars 60 and 61 of "Faire is the Heaven" \o/
3. Suspension - "Lay a garland" has a suspension in just about every bar.
4. Ornaments - the Schubert has a few ornaments in the soprano part, although most of them are turns, which I didn't specifically write about.
5. Diminished chords - if you ignore the 2nd bass note, there's a great diminished chord in bar 11 of the Bruckner, but there are several in the Mahler too.
6. Neapolitan chords - the sf in the fourth bar of figure 41 in the Mahler feels like a Neapolitan, and sounds like one too, until you realise that the basses of the orchestra are all playing a B. Close enough, though.
7. Melisma - all the music we're doing has lots of these, but the Bainton has some particularly good examples, e.g. soprano five bars from the end.
8. Antiphonal - I already mentioned "I was glad" in the original post.
9. False relation - "Hear My Prayer" has loads of these, e.g. 1st soprano in bar 4.
10. Whole tone scale - soprano part (choir 2) three bars before figure 88 in the Mahler.
11. Recapitulation - Mahler 8, figure 15 in Part 1 (and other places too, but that was the one that was mentioned in rehearsal).
12. Fugue - none of the a cappella pieces are long enough to have a proper recapitulation, and the same goes for fugues, so it's Mahler again. Although there isn't a fugue in the strictest sense, the second half of part 1 (from figure 38 to the end of the movement) is often described as a double fugue.

(Next time you hear any of these twelve terms mentioned by a conductor, you will realise why I have a slightly smug grin on my face!)

Talking of me feeling slightly smug, at tonight's rehearsal it was decided that the 1st sopranos were drowning out the 2nds, and some of them were asked to move across so that there were equal numbers. However, there were (as usual) more than three times as many 1st altos as 2nds, but none of THEM were asked to move \o/

Anyway, a few links. Gareth Malone's next TV project sees him being an opera chorus master for a youth opera at Glyndebourne, and the Spectator has a great article describing what's been going on.

Hakan Hardenberger was busking outside the Bridgewater Hall on Tuesday, as publicity for his concert with the BBC Phil this Saturday.

On an Overgrown Path has a nice article about the death of St Francis of Assisi, who apparently died singing. I never knew that! It's a lovely story - do go and read it.

Here's another lovely story - I have no idea whether or not it's true, but I'm choosing to believe it is. It's called The Night I Met Einstein, and describes how Einstein encouraged a stranger to listen to Bach.

BBC News has a feature about the current popularity of the ukulele, and Tom Service talks about bagpipes.

Via ChoralNet, Jeffrey Tucker describes five great things about polyphony. I like this post - all five things are obvious when you think about them, but I hadn't really thought about them! (Scroll down a bit - there are a load of links at the top of the page that make it look as if there's no story there, but there is.)

Londonist and the Guardian report that seven out of ten Brits "said they'd like a Nessun Dorma-style theme tune for London 2012, played by a British orchestra". They're asking for suggestions - anyone have any?

BBC News tells us that teaching stroke patients to sing "rewires" their brains, helping them recover their speech.

I missed any mention of this at the time, but I would have loved to have been at this concert: Ex Cathedra celebrated their 40th anniversary by performing not just Spem in Alium, but a concert FILLED with 40-part choral works!

Here's a short but intriguing Spectator article about how to pronounce "Wednesday", and related topics!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there was part of an episode of "Shameless" set in the foyer of William Hulme's Grammar School. Well, the most recent episode took place partly in the WHGS car park and on the roof of one of the buildings. It was on E4 on Tuesday, but won't be on Channel 4 till next Tuesday night, after which you'll be able to watch it online. (It's not there yet - it's episode 6.) The scene in question is again right at the end of the episode - in the last ten minutes.

More Manchester news: it seems that this year there will be a big Manchester Day Parade! Hands up who never knew there was a Manchester Day? Yeah, me too. But the parade is on Sunday 20th June, and the theme is "Out of this World". If you want to get involved, here's the official website.

The MEN has a fascinating article about tunnels under the city centre.

I enjoyed the recent BBC series of The Virtual Revolution (which I think you can still watch via iPlayer - you should, it's very good), so I took the test on their website (it's HARD!) to find out what sort of web animal I am. I was a bit put out at first to be told I was a web elephant, until I realised that it wasn't entirely bad - I like to think I'm fast at doing stuff online, but the test results suggest I'm slower than I thought, but that it's because I'm thorough. Have a look at the descriptions and see what you think you are, then try taking the test!

And finally, it's rare that a week goes by without me discovering a new clever thing that Google can do. This week: the Winter Olympics on Google Maps. Great fun to play with! (Oh, and by the way, I'd never heard of skeleton or ski cross before a week ago, but now I'm a huge fan of both, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'm just sad that I managed to completely miss the luge!)

Nicht schleppend

So, this Friday is the final of Popstar to Operastar, although I won't be able to watch it live as we have a sectional (on a Friday night! AND rehearsals all day Sunday! It's just as well I have no life...) Can't say I totally agree with the results so far, but I also can't say that the two finalists don't deserve to be there. It's between Bernie Nolan and Darius Campbell, and I imagine Bernie will win, but I've been wrong several times so far!

On Saturday I'm singing at a wedding in Yorkshire as part of a group of six. We're doing I Was Glad (my a cappella version that I arranged for Dr Liz's wedding) and Bruckner's Ave Maria (adapted so that it can be done with six singers), as well as an a cappella arrangement of a hymn called On Eagle's Wings. We rehearsed on Monday night, so it felt really odd when the first two things that we sang in tonight's full choir rehearsal were Bruckner's Ave Maria and I Was Glad - except the proper versions! A little confusing. And it's been a while since I've sung I Was Glad without having to also sing the organ part :-)

The Mahler in Manchester series continues, and there are a few reviews of Mahler 3: Guardian, Telegraph, Times and MEN. The most interesting thing from those reviews, in my opinion, is Robert Beale's observation that "Mahler seems to have more of a male following than any other composer – at least it’s only when he’s on the menu that you get queues in the men’s loos, in my experience." Fascinating, if true!

I'm sorry to have missed Sunday's concert, which featured the lovely Jonathan Scott playing Rhapsody in Blue. It sounds as if I was one of the few members of the choir who WASN'T there! But I think it was Graham that alerted me to the Scott Brothers Duo's YouTube page - have a look at this great video of them playing the William Tell overture!

Thanks to Sheena and various others for alerting me to the fact that Janet Cardiff's Forty Part Motet sound installation is visiting Leeds until 3rd March. I saw this when it was in Liverpool a few years ago and loved it, but I thought it was now fixed in a permanent home (somewhere in Canada). There's a choral workshop too, if you want to go and sing it, on 27th February.

It's Chopin's 200th birthday soon, and Tom Service has an article about him.

Latest news about the Manchester Central Library closure, from the MEN: while the renovation is in progress, rare works will be kept deep underground in salt mines in Cheshire. There's all sorts of interesting info in that article, but the salt mines was the detail that fascinated me most!

And finally, the Big Picture has great photos of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony.

I met a strange lady, she made me nervous

I'm a bit baffled by the recent court ruling about Men at Work's song Down Under. (There's coverage of the story by BBC News, BBC Music Magazine and Tom Service in the Guardian.) What baffles me is that I remember the song very well, and from the first time I heard it I assumed that the use of the Kookaburra riff was deliberate, in order to make the song seems authentically Australian. I knew the Kookaburra song from being in the Brownies, and it never occurred to me that it might be copyright (well, obviously I'd never heard of copyright when I was in the Brownies, but I had by 1983). Bizarre.

I'm also baffled by last week's episode of Popstar to Operastar, because in a huge miscarriage of justice Danny was voted out! Shocking. Anyway, there are two episodes to go (including tonight's), and if you're curious - but not curious enough to watch a whole episode - I've put all the songs performed so far into a zip file, which you can download from my mp3 page. Each song is under two minutes long, and the whole list takes less than 45 minutes! EDIT: I just added the most recent songs, so it's 50 minutes now (for 30 songs!)

Also new on my mp3 page: songs we're doing in the a cappella concerts. Plus, in case any of you couldn't find Mahler 8 on IMSLP, I've added the scores to my page too. (The full orchestral score is only a few pages longer than the vocal score.) (Although, I imagine anyone who's a regular reader of this blog will have known all about IMSLP, because it's been near the top of my sidebar for a while now.)

I'm enjoying rehearsing Mahler 8, but I must admit I'm very grumpy that we're choir 2. I remember being a bit grumpy about it last time, but last time we split and sang both choirs, so I was only grumpy that I wasn't in the half of the choir that got all the good bits. This time NO-ONE in my choir has the good bits. I know there are good reasons for us to be choir 2, but I don't have to like them!

Finally (for now) on the Mahler series: it's Mahler 3 tomorrow (with the BBC Phil and A Choir That's Not Us) so I look forward to seeing the reviews of that. I've been watching out for reviews of Das Lied von der Erde, which the Camerata did last week, but I hadn't seen one, until Graham pointed out this glowing one from the Sunday Times which also mentions both Mahler 1 and Mahler 2.

(Which reminds me: I was quite impressed with this Guardian article by Charlotte Higgins, about the current wonderfulness of British classical music, until I realised that she'd totally omitted any mention of Mahler in Manchester, which other critics seems to agree is a very big deal!)

This will mean nothing to anyone who's not in my choir, but last week's episode of Shameless had a whole scene that took place in the foyer of William Hulme's Grammar School, in the exact place where we queue up before our rehearsals. It was this episode, and in theory you can watch it online via that page, although it didn't work for me when I tried it just now. If you do want to see, the scene in question is right near the end - in the last ten minutes, if I remember correctly. And, unlike most of the rest of the programme, it has nothing rude in it!

I really like the Puma Hardchorus video - football fans singing in harmony! I suspect there may have been a few ringers added, but it's still fun.

An interesting post from Intermezzo about how much orchestral musicians earn, followed by an even more interesting part 2.

The Spectator gives us a bit of notice of some very big musical anniversaries in 2013.

Via BoingBoing: the New York Times warns us that if you're singing karaoke in the Philippines, it's best not to choose My Way as it could get you killed.

Here's an interesting article that I found while looking for something else: the search for a notation index. I have a copy of the Barlow and Morgenstern book - I've had it for years, so I didn't realise it was out of print. But I was pleased to find that there's an online version. It's a bit easier than the book (the book requires you to transpose your tune into C major or A minor, but the online version works in any key) but it doesn't have everything - I tried it with the first choir entry of Mahler 2 (which it didn't have) and the first theme of the first movement of Mahler 2 (which it did). (What prompted the whole of this search was that I was actually looking for a tune which has been stuck in my head all week. It's NOT "We'll Gather Lilacs", although my brain seems to have convinced itself that those words go with it. I'd write it out to see whether anyone here knows it, but I'm falling asleep. Maybe I will if I haven't identified it by next week!)

Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir argues that choirs shouldn't sing pop songs. I agree with SOME of his points - I've tried to comment several times to say so, but Blogger keeps eating my comments!

They're planning to fix the whistling of the Beetham Tower. I've never heard it myself, but I believe it's quite loud at times.

And there's a month-long arts festival at Zion in Hulme starting in a couple of weeks. It includes choirs in Asda's car park!

Before that, though, it's the Chinese New Year on Sunday, and there are celebrations in the city centre, including a dragon parade starting from the Town Hall at 1pm and ending with fireworks at 6pm.

If you're sick of being freezing all the time, the groundhog said last week that there'd be six more weeks of winter - bad luck.

How to be a Retronaut is a fascinating site which is best explained by getting you to go and explore it.

And finally, a video which made me smile. At first you will think it's silly, but as you watch more of it I bet it makes you smile too!

Mahler 2 reviews

I will edit this list if more appear.

EDIT: Sunday Times

EDIT: Guardian

The Times

Manchester Evening News

Nottingham Evening Post

The Classical Source

I'm not convinced any of these has captured the full wonder of the concerts. And I take exception to the one that says we NEEDED the organ to keep us in tune. Oh, and the one that claimed the Matthews was in six parts. And both the ones that implied Markus Stenz wasn't PERFECT. Foolish critics - what do they know?!?

Nottingham, last night, was just as good as Manchester. They also had just as many inconsiderate coughers. (I considered urging the powers that be to include a page in every programme about what steps to follow if you HAVE to cough (and we all do, sometimes!) The steps would be as follows:

1. WAIT FOR A LOUD BIT.

(I'm thinking it could be in a really large font size.))

Finally on Mahler 2: I mentioned the series of posts by Kenneth Woods. He did a great post last week which concentrates on one particular aspect of the symphony - the keys. And this post really fascinated me, because I hadn't realised his main fact before he pointed it out. Summary: You know the series of brass chords in the last movement, immediately after the really loud "Was vergangen auferstehen" bit? Well, that chord sequence ends in E flat major, and that's the first time we reach E flat major in the WHOLE SYMPHONY. Which may not seem like a big deal, but the point is that since the symphony is in C minor, you would expect to have gone through E flat major (the relative major of C minor) quite a few times. But Mahler deliberately goes to unexpected keys instead, and saves the E flat major for the very end of the piece. I love facts like this :-)

Anyway, the next Mahler is Mahler 8. (Remember the tickets for the open rehearsal have gone on sale today - don't miss out!) I dug out my score last night and am excited already. For those of you who don't know it, you should be aware that (unlike in Mahler 2) the choir sings ALL THE WAY THROUGH. It's double choir, and the parts split occasionally within the two choirs. There is a separate part for boys' choir as well, and a million soloists (well, eight). And although most of it is in German, the whole of the first movement is in Latin just to confuse you! And there are some REALLY tricky bits. In case you want to listen, I've put the mp3s for the whole symphony on my download page (well, I'm actually uploading them now, so if you look and they're not there yet, try again in half a hour and they will be).

A few other links:

Rolando Villazon gives a very reasonable response to the people who are criticising Popstar to Operastar. (Latest news: Danny didn't have his best week, but he's still in it, while Jimmy Osmond is out. And Marcella Detroit did, as I predicted, finally sing the Queen of the Night aria.)

I'm a bit taken aback by another reality show story: a competitor from Britain's Got Talent is filing a discrimination complaint because she has a "condition affecting her ability to hear her own singing voice". And she entered a talent contest as a singer. *boggle*

There's a show at Earls Court in which you can perform with Abba holograms.

Great post about Bruckner from the ever-wonderful BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra blog.

On an Overgrown Path tells us about the Arabian Passion.

Intermezzo brings us the shocking truth about the classical charts. And it IS shocking.

Intriguing post by John Brough on ChoralNet about possible uses of the Apple iPad in choral music.

Manchester Confidential has some more detailed (and official) information about the Manchester Central Library renovation.

Here's another story about people wearing pyjamas outside the house: Tesco doesn't like it.

You'll already be aware that the Opera North production of Ruddigore is at the Lowry at the end of this month, but you may be even more inclined to get a ticket after you see this five-star review of it.

And talking of five-star reviews, Mariza is at the Bridgewater Hall this Saturday. She's a Portuguese fado singer, and I have an album of hers which I really like. Wish I could go this weekend: look at this review of her at the Festival Hall recently!

Hope that can never die

I had a Manchester United season ticket until last year, when I had to relinquish it due to having no money. It's probably just as well that I didn't have one tonight, because I'm not sure what I would have done. Go to Old Trafford for the second leg of a highly-charged cup semi-final against City, or go to the Bridgewater Hall for the orchestral rehearsal for tomorrow's Mahler 2 gig? On the understanding, of course, that missing the orchestral rehearsal means not doing the concert... I have to say that I think I would have gone to Old Trafford, but it would have been a close thing (and if we were performing the Mahler from memory that would have swung me the other way!)

As it was, I was in the Bridgewater Hall for most of the game, but my mum was texting me score updates, and I am delighted to report that the first time my phone vibrated in my pocket - when Paul Scholes scored United's opening goal - coincided with us singing the words "hope that can never die" in the Colin Matthews piece, Crossing the Alps. (The words are by Wordsworth, from The Prelude (this bit, although not all of those words are included.) I wasn't a huge fan of this piece at first, but I've grown to like it a lot (at least, when we do it without stopping! There have been a few rehearsals in which we've stopped after every bar or so...) And the "hope that can never die" bit is one of my favourites.

The rehearsal went very well, although I must admit I thought we might be out early and we weren't. Markus Stenz liked us, and we LOVED him. (At the piano rehearsal last night, not only did he smile all the way through - AND made helpful suggestions, so that the Mahler sounded even better after he'd finished - but he actually WINKED at us altos when it came to our big moment! We all wanted to take him home!) Have a look at his website - there are VIDEO CLIPS of him conducting.

The only bad thing that happened during the rehearsal was to do with the seating, but I could have predicted that! On the seating plan, you see, I was delighted to find that I'd been put on the end of the back row (almost my very favourite position - the only place I like better is the end of the FRONT row), so of course it was only a matter of time before something happened to get me moved to a different place. Last time, you will recall, I managed to push Lindsey off the stage using the power of my mind in an effort to fix this, but it might be a bit more difficult this time! Dr Liz pointed out, you see (quite rightly), that there are thirty-one 1st altos and only nine 2nd altos, and a few of the 2nd altos were a bit isolated and wanted to be nearer the others. So now I'm not on the back row OR on the end, and I'm racking my brains trying to think of a way round this, but I don't think there is one! Oh well.

Anyway, I have a few more links (don't I always?) Here's one I found just now while looking for stuff about Markus Stenz: Universal Edition have a special Mahler blog which has all sorts of links about the anniversary. I haven't read them all yet, but I plan to.

This is exciting: Intermezzo brings us news that the BBC is going opera crazy. Tom Service has more to say about this, and it turns out he's not a fan of Popstar to Operastar! I'm shocked. Well, I still love it - as long as Danny wins :-)

The Guardian tells us that the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples deserves to be better known, and opens a new opera season today.

And if, like me, you don't know (or used to know but have forgotten) the function of the middle pedal on a grand piano, Stephen Hough can tell you. (He mentions that in all his years of playing, he calculates that he's only used the middle pedal about fifty times. And I was at school with him - he was a couple of years above me, but he MIGHT remember me - so I know that that's a LOT of years of playing!) (He also has interesting things to say about the right pedal and the left pedal, but I knew more or less what they did before. It's the middle one I'd forgotten!)

Mahler 8 in Birmingham - ticket news

Quick posting, just to share some info with you. Well, it's not quite info, but you'll see what I mean... Because our Mahler 8 gig in Manchester has been sold out since the tickets went on sale, I know I'm not the only one who (a) has no-one coming to it because they didn't manage to get tickets, and (b) has people who are desperate to get tickets for one of the Birmingham performances in September. I've been keeping an eye on the Symphony Hall website, so I know that they're not even mentioned there yet, but the other day it occurred to me to actually ASK them. And I got a prompt reply, as follows:

Dear Jocelyn,

Thank you for your email. The concerts you mention are probably part of the next Birmingham International Concert Season, although we still don't have confirmation yet. The season goes on sale around mid June time but check back in around mid March as we should have much more information by then.

Kind regards,
Laura Marshall

So now you know!

While I'm here, I may as well share a few links, because this week is Mahler 2 week and I might not have time...

Via Intermezzo, news that the BBC is apparently jealous of the success of Popstar to Operastar and is launching an opera reality show of their own. (The story also mentions that apparently some opera stars were insulted by what Alex James did. I hope that's not true (at least, if they actually saw him), because (as I said at the time) I thought he took it very seriously and gave a good performance, even if he wasn't the best singer.)

On An Overgrown Path tells us about the Oxford Feral Choir. Can't say the music did anything for me, but I *love* the name!

Bachtrack has a blog post by a guy who hadn't sung in a choir for over forty years but was persuaded to join the tenor section for his daughter's school's performance of Zadok the Priest.

Very interesting post by Eliza Carthy about the links between folk music and politics, and how offended she was by recent events.

I hadn't realised this, but ever since that row at the Beijing Olympics over the little girl who mimed, lip-synching can get you in big trouble in China.

Talking of the Olympics, it seems that Calais wants to get visitors to think of it as part of London for the 2012 games!

It's Burns Night tonight (at least, it was until a few hours ago), and there was rejoicing because haggis is no longer banned from the USA. I never realised it was!

And, if you've ever wondered exactly how astronauts go to the toilet in space, here's the answer.

We got our moment back!

I was fed up a few days ago because we'd been told that the BIG ALTO MOMENT at the end of Mahler 2 had been transferred to the 2nd sopranos. (If there is a bigger alto moment in ANYTHING, I can't currently think of it! Any suggestions?) But it now seems that there may have been some confusion, and we have our moment back. I'm VERY happy about this. (Just so we're clear, under normal circumstances I don't enjoy singing top Gs, but I do HAVE a top G - we all do! - and when I don't have to try to do it any quieter than fff, it's great fun!) Mahler did NOT make a mistake - he was well aware that the altos would be right at the top of their range there, but that's the EFFECT he wanted.

I don't actually have any evidence for this statement, I have to admit (although it's not one I've invented myself - I've heard far more experienced people than me say the same thing), but while I was looking for some, I did find that there is a blog (by a conductor called Kenneth Woods) which is doing a series of detailed posts about the Mahler in Manchester series. He also has a great series of posts (from a few years ago) about Mahler 2 specifically.

The Mahler series has started now, of course. The Guardian even had an editorial about it, of which the gist was "London COULD have done this, but they didn't, did they?" And the reviews for Mahler 1 were great: Guardian, Times, Manchester Evening News.

I'm actually really quite enjoying the Colin Matthews piece now, although I doubt it will be one I'll listen to very often after this month. We sang it through without stopping for the first time on Wednesday, and I think it will be great. The triplet crotchet scales sound impressive rather than difficult now, and the bars that have the really satisfying chords sound spectacular. And I love the end! Hope the audience like it on Thursday.

I'm also still loving ITV's Popstar to Operastar, although I remain baffled about why the producers are doing some of the things they're doing. Tonight, for example, of the seven songs performed, only FOUR were from actual operas. (Wikipedia, as ever, has full details.) It seems that the producers think that any song counts as operatic if it's in Italian! (I mean, VOLARE?!?) I don't understand this - it's not as if there aren't LOTS of well-known operatic arias! Also, one of the ones they did include - Brindisi - is a duet, so it makes no sense to have Kym Marsh sing it on her own... and in totally the wrong key, as I realised when the backing choir joined in! I've sung that backing part lots of times, so I remember quite well that the alto part is all Fs... but when I joined in with the alto part tonight, it wasn't Fs. Bizarre. (Note: I'm not blaming the pop stars themselves - I presume they're not choosing their own songs.) Anyway, I thought the lovely Danny McFly WAS the best tonight (although his song wasn't from an opera), but Marcella Detroit was a close second. I'm sticking to my prediction that it will be between the two of them.

I'm getting lots of interest in my website - it's doing well on Google, and the free downloads have proved very popular. However, despite a few promises from people, I haven't actually made any money at all yet, so I'm getting a bit desperate! I have a few strategies I'm planning to try, though, and giving up is not an option, so let's hope something works soon.

I seem to have acquired a load of links again, so let me list them for you.

Via Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, news about the Extreme Cellists.

I mentioned the recent a cappella festival in London. This short video from the Guardian shows a bit of the Swingle Singers performance from it, but mainly it's a lesson in beatboxing. Very interesting.

ChoralBlog brings us this amazing video of a marching band. Even if you think you don't like marching bands, PLEASE watch this. It is full of brilliantly creative ideas that enhance the performance, and it must have been SO much fun to do!

You'll have heard the story about the headteacher who uses classical music as a punishment, because it's been all over the place since the Guardian printed this.

Great article by Charlotte Higgins about amateur music-making in the UK. I particularly love the idea of a Cobweb Orchestra!

Tom Service tells us about the Cleveland Orchestra strike, and its speedy resolution. As he points out, there are issues here that may come up in the UK too.

Via Classical Iconoclast, details of the English Song Weekend which will take place in Shropshire this June. Looks lovely - wish I could go.

Via A Cappella News, a Times article explaining why choirs are now cool.

You can now vote online in the BBC Music Magazine awards.

Stephen Moss writes in the Guardian about the enduring appeal of Gilbert and Sullivan. (I've never seen Ruddigore, so although one of my main World of Warcraft characters is called Mad Margaret (all my WoW characters are from G&S), I was delighted to learn that "her bouts of insanity can be calmed by shouting 'Basingstoke'"!)

There is trouble in Spain over music played in hairdressers' salons, would you believe.

I told you about Glee last July (I hope I can honestly say "you heard it here first!") You'll no doubt be aware that it's been airing in the UK for the past few weeks. My very favourite episode is the one that will be on E4 on Monday (not sure when it will be on C4), so don't miss that one. But in the meantime, the BBC website has a fact-packed article about glee clubs.

Here's an Independent article about female conductors, and Tom Service writes on the same subject. I'm disappointed that neither article mentions Ewa Strusinska, though!

Did you know about the missing visitor to Edgar Allan Poe's grave? I'm fascinated by this story. (The Guardian mentioned it too.)

Oh, and in my only bit of Manchester news this week, they've found human bones underneath Victoria Station! Which is all very well, but I wish they'd get a move on and FINISH WHATEVER THEY'RE DOING TO PLATFORM TWO (which is where I presume the bones are, since it's currently the only one that's dug up). It's causing great inconvenience to everyone who uses the Bradford/Leeds line (i.e. me!)

Popstar to Operastar

Yes, I know that title should be split into more than three words, but that's how ITV write it. Still, I'm fascinated by this programme. It was on ITV1 last night - if you missed it, you can watch it online via the link above, or you can wait till Wednesday, when it's repeated on ITV2 at 6.30. Via Intermezzo, there's a fairly balanced story in Wales Online about it.

My only real objection to it is that they give the impression that Katherine Jenkins is an opera star, although she's never actually been in an opera. (To be fair, I believe that she herself doesn't use this term - she refers to herself as a "classical singer".) And so far they haven't made clear that being an opera star involves more than just singing one aria, although there's only been one episode so far - maybe they'll make them do a whole opera in the finale, although I doubt they'll make them do eight performances of it in a week!

I'm supporting the lovely Danny McFly (well, his actual name is Danny Jones) because I have always loved McFly, as anyone who knows me well will know. I suspect that if it's entirely down to a public vote, he'll win even if he's rubbish, because he's probably got more fans than all the others combined. But I'd love it if he actually was the best one. He wasn't the best last night - he was a bit flat, and wasn't the most powerful singer, although he got better during his song (he did La Donna è Mobile). But I'm confident he will improve. He's a fabulous MUSICIAN, but this is a long way out of his comfort zone.

I expected the best singer to be Marcella Detroit, because I've always been very impressed with her voice in pop. She can sing RIDICULOUSLY high - for example, the last minute of Stay (probably their most famous song - the highest note she sings there is a top F (the one above the stave!)), or the beginning (and chorus) of You're History, which is in G, so she repeatedly gets the top B in the choruses, and I think she gets a high G (above the top B!) right near the end. I'll be amazed if they don't give her the Queen of the Night aria at some point. Last night, though, she did Casta Diva, and she did it pretty well.

The best PERFORMANCE, though, was (in my opinion) from Alex James. He was probably the weakest singer (in his defence, unlike all the others he never HAS been a singer, even in pop - he's a bass player!) but he sang his aria (Largo al factotum) very competently - he didn't stumble over the words, and it was in tune, but most importantly he COMMUNICATED. He was obviously having a great time, and I don't think he deserved to be voted out.

Several of the other singers were pretty good, and I think it'll be very interesting to see who improves the most. The one thing that baffled me, though, was that they gave Darius whatsisname - who has a lower voice than most of them - Nessun Dorma, but transposed it down a fifth! Why on earth didn't they just give him a different song? All the others had one that was appropriate for their range. Bizarre.

Choir, in case you're wondering, is making me grumpy at the moment, so I'd better not write much about it. We're doing Mahler 2 in a couple of weeks, which I was really looking forward to until it was announced that we're not doing it from memory after all, which means it won't be as good as last time. Such a pity. And we're also doing a world premiere of a thing by Colin Matthews, which isn't my favourite piece EVER but isn't actually that bad (although there are, obviously, no actual TUNES) - there are three or four bars I really like (not consecutive ones though!) What's making me grumpy with THAT is that although it's quite difficult and needs everyone to work at their own part, there are a few people who haven't, so we're doing more group notebashing than we should need to. I know that I'm lucky (in one way, at least) to be currently unemployed, so I do have time to practise - and I've spent quite a while on the Matthews. And I do understand that there are some people who don't currently have time to look at music outside rehearsals. But there are things that they could do DURING THE REHEARSAL to help themselves. For example, at the first rehearsal, a few people gasped in horror when they reached page 32 and realised - apparently for the first time - that there's a second evil triplet crotchet scale bit. Now, this music had been emailed to people a few days earlier so they could look at it, but I know not everyone had time to check their email. But even so, the fact that anyone could get to a point thirty minutes before the end of the rehearsal without AT ANY STAGE having at least glanced all the way through the score - that's what annoyed me. Even the busiest of people could take the time DURING THE REHEARSAL to flip through the score and mark which line they're singing (this isn't actually really necessary in this piece because the lines are in the same position on each page, but you'd have to look through it to know that!)

Anyway, I'll shut up about that now. I have a load of links!

Vuvuzela update: now the church is getting involved.

Via ChoralNet, a blog post about the top ten changes in classical music over the past decade. Some surprising inclusions - Maestro was the one that raised my eyebrows the most, I think.

I hadn't realised that Mahler used to conduct the New York Phil, but this Guardian article about his newest replacement sets me straight.

Michael Kennedy, in the Spectator, writes about Mahler's popularity.

Tom Service, in the Guardian, writes about Mahler too in rather more detail, and follows this up with a lot of YouTube links to Mahler performances.

I mentioned complaints choirs ages ago - now the Guardian has an article about them.

Via A Cappella News, an intriguing post by David Griggs-Janower that discusses possible reasons for the scarcity of tenors. He makes a lot of sense.

A Guardian article about a live music bill which seeks to "exempt small venues from the absurdities of the Licensing Act". There's a link to a petition you can sign.

A great article by Eric Siblin in the Guardian about Bach's cello suites.

Some sad news from Classical Iconoclast - apparently the V&A museum is closing its musical instrument gallery, so if you're in London any time soon, make sure you go and see it while you still can. (A few years ago, I spent a slightly insane weekend visiting ALL the major London museums and art galleries, spending no more than a couple of hours in each. I'd never been in the V&A before that weekend, and I wasn't particularly impressed with it, but the musical instrument section is the one bit of it I remember. To be fair, that's possibly because it's the only section in which I looked properly at every exhibit, but it was still good!)

Tom Service points out that the Festival of British Youth Orchestras is about to be lost unless someone finds some money to fund it.

Via A Cappella News, there's been an A Cappella Festival in London for the last few days. I would have loved to have gone to that, but even if I'd had the money, I'm a bit surprised not to have seen it advertised anywhere until it was too late! Either their marketing team needs replacing, or there are some obvious places I'm missing on my obsessive online faffing. (Yes, I know Facebook is one of them. That's deliberate.)

On the Radio 3 blog, there's a series of posts from the BBC Symphony Orchestra about their current Henze project. The introductory post is here, but the one I found most interesting is the one about a string sectional.

Another great post by Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir, this time about the dangers of complacency. This should be required reading for all choral singers, particularly before rehearsing Messiah.

Remember the X Factor v Rage Against the Machine chart battle? Apparently the next one will be the Smiths v Girls Aloud.

Bit belatedly, a great story about some guys who decided to launch their Christmas tree into orbit. Using 32 model rocket engines.

They're staging a crucifixion in Trafalgar Square this Easter.

For Mancunians, a summary of the most important local news stories of each year of the last decade. I'd forgotten some of these were so recent; they seem much longer ago!

A Manchester Evening News article about All Day Pyjama Syndrome. It seems that a doctor’s surgery in Wythenshawe has announced that patients will not be seen by the doctor or allowed access to the surgery if they attend in pyjamas. I hadn't realised this was so prevalent (although I've been baffled for YEARS about the other thing he mentions, i.e. girls going out with no coats etc.) - has anyone else encountered examples of it?

Here are some great photos of Manchester from above, in the snow.

And Manchester Confidential goes one better and brings us photos of rude snowmen in Manchester!

An interesting BBC News article about how other countries cope with lots of snow.

And finally, the Big Picture brings us a gorgeous selection of photos themed Fire and Ice.

Vamp Till Ready

I've had all sorts of links I've been holding back until I'd finished my musical terminology series (I didn't want to clutter those posts with anything unrelated) so I thought I'd get them out now. We were supposed to be rehearsing Mahler 2 tonight, but we didn't, because the rehearsal was cancelled due to the weather - the first time I can EVER remember that happening. (Even my cats are avoiding the snow - they insist that I open the door, and when I eventually give in, they stand there for a minute before retreating to the top of the settee, having presumably realised that the snow in the back garden is actually taller than they are!) Hopefully choir members will have spent the time memorising their parts - if you haven't started yet, remember that I've put up lots of resources to help you.

The title of this post is also the title of my new website, through which I am selling musical arrangements and other services. I added it to the sidebar a few days ago, but I haven't drawn your attention to it till now. I'd be really grateful if you could all have a look to see whether there's anything on there that might be useful to you, and also forward it to anyone you know who might be interested. If I managed to get ten commissions a month, that would pay my bills - anything more than that would mean I could start clearing my mortgage arrears. I've already got one (from a reader of this blog), so I'm hoping things will stay on track! Thank you in advance.

(For those who have asked about my repossession situation, here's where things are up to: the bank agreed to put it on hold for thirty days while I submitted a revised repayment proposal. The thirty days are up tomorrow, but they haven't responded to the proposal yet. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, all I can do is keep trying to earn money.)

Anyway, some links. The Guardian's guide to What to See in 2010 has our Mahler series as its top classical pick, and rightly so!

BBC Music Magazine interviewed John Rutter about Christmas.

Apparently O Fortuna is the most-played classical track of the past 75 years. The full list is here. I was quite excited when I thought it was our recording of The Planets that's in the top ten, but it's the Loughran one (I have that on vinyl - one of the first records I ever owned!)

BBC News had an intriguing story about how German researchers have managed to help some tinnitus sufferers by altering music to remove notes at certain frequencies. More on the same story at BoingBoing.

The current issue of BBC Music Magazine has Ed Gardner on the cover.

A thought-provoking article from the Times about why there is still a demand for audio cassettes.

Via ChoralNet, a collection of silly classical music stories of 2009 from the Seattle Times. Headline story: The baritone who forgot his pants.

A lovely post from Tom Service about connections between music and landscape, including some intriguing comments from our own music director about Elgar.

I like this idea: a nursing college is employing a composer in residence. (The RNCM, by the way, is heavily involved in Music for Health - I was fascinated to learn about this when I was preparing for one of my interviews there (for all the good it did me!))

There was a Radio 4 programme the other day called Jane Austen's iPod. I haven't listened to it yet, but it looks fascinating, and it's on iPlayer until Saturday morning.

I had high hopes of another R4 programme, The Vox Project, but I listened to the first part (of three) and wasn't particularly excited. YMMV.

The Telegraph has a list of the top ten guitar solos. Can't say I agree with all of them, but several are truly great.

Classical Iconoclast reports that Daniel Barenboim will be conducting the Elgar Cello Concerto this year. Big news!

There's a fascinating post about Purcell on the Radio 3 blog. (By "fascinating" I mean "I bet you will enjoy reading it even if you think you don't like Purcell.")

From the BBC Music blog, a very long list of the top albums of 2009, from many different genres.

Yet another in a series of wonderful posts on the BBC SSO blog: this one is about performing with and without amplification.

I've often linked to posts on Chris Rowbury's blog, From the Front of the Choir. The other day I was looking through the rest of his website, and thought some of you might be interested in the singing workshops that he runs. They look great fun, and are all over the country. All the music is taught by ear, and no previous experience is necessary.

It's a bit late now, but I was interested to see that the BBC published a guide to going to church (for people who haven't been before but wanted to go at Christmas).

I know lots of you will be aware of the NORAD Santa Tracker - CNN tells us how it came about. A really delightful story!

The ever-reliable Big Picture had some great Christmas photos and even better New Year ones.

Oh, and the Trafalgar Square fountains have frozen! I don't suppose that's all that rare, but I've never seen a picture of it before. (I was amused, by the way, by the alert categories on The Little Page of Transport Chaos, although of course it's entirely London-centric. When I first saw it, this afternoon, the level was "pandemonium" - it seems to have calmed down since!)

The MEN has a great selection of snowman pictures. (Barbara sent me one earlier, built by her friend's son, but it's a bit rude!)

Typically, though, it was in the Halifax Courier that I read about the new Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester. (That's the one for which they were auditioning Lego builders.)

Manchester Confidential has a feature about the best and worst Manchester food and drink phenomena of the past decade.

Also via Manchester Confidential, a comparison of the new tallest building in the world (Burj Dubai) with the Beetham Tower. It is NEARLY FIVE TIMES AS TALL. I can't even contemplate that!

The Manchester City Council website finally has some definite official info about what will happen to the libraries while the Central Library is being refurbished.

And finally, for those of you who haven't embraced Twitter yet - or, possibly more importantly, those who have but often have to defend themselves to people! - there's a very good article in the New York Times explaining why Twitter is here to stay.

12 days of musical terminology, day 12 - fugue

This is the last post in this series, which seems to have gone down like a lead balloon - oh well. I'm hoping that maybe SOME people will find these posts useful and/or interesting, but that they just don't read blogs very often and will discover this later. (If there's anyone reading who HAS enjoyed any of this, please could you comment and let me know? It'd do wonders for my self-esteem!)

I planned all along that my last topic would be fugue. It comes up all the time in choir rehearsals - so much so that I'm sure most people have at least a vague idea what it is. But there are all sorts of related details that you might not know.

If you're a choral singer, I'm willing to bet that your main understanding of the word fugue is "the hard bit". Personally I tend to think of the fugue as "the clever bit". Any good fugue is definitely clever, but that unfortunately often results in a high level of difficulty!

The height of popularity for fugues was the baroque period - Bach, in particular, is renowned for (amongst other things) being the king of the fugue. No-one else even comes close. He was so good that he could compose fugues on the spot from any given theme - you'll understand how difficult this was when I've explained what a fugue involves. (Mozart could apparently do this too, but Bach did it first!) There's a famous book called Godel, Escher, Bach (by Douglas R Hofstadter) which is well worth a read. I have a copy which I must reread at some point - it's been years since I did - but what I remember of it is as follows: 1. It is totally fascinating. 2. Lots of it will make your head ache because you'll be thinking too much. 3. You will fully appreciate what an amazing musician Bach was. 4. You will know everything there is to know about fugues. It's a long book, but well worth the read.

Fugues have remained fairly popular ever since baroque times, though - I presume because composers like to show off! Mozart wrote lots of them (there are a couple in his Requiem); Mendelssohn had a couple in Lobgesang (and his other symphonies too); Brahms has some in his German Requiem; Haydn has some in The Creation; there are some in Beethoven 9; there are several in Verdi's Requiem.

Anyway, the obvious omission to my list of familiar fugues is Handel, who uses fugues all over the place, including several times in Messiah. That's because I'm going to use the Amen Fugue for my examples - but first, let me explain the technical terms. The Wikipedia article does this in great detail, so I'll try to give you a simpler version.

The fugue structure has several things in common with sonata form, although fugue is earlier and more complex. The main similarity is that both forms rely heavily on key contrasts. (If you've read yesterday's entry, you will spot the other similarities, so I won't bother pointing them out.) Anyway, a fugue is a contrapuntal composition for a particular number of parts. In a fugue, the parts are known as "voices" even if it's an instrumental piece. (Oh, and "contrapuntal" is the adjective that comes from "counterpoint", which is defined in my music dictionary as "the ability, unique to music, to say two things at once comprehensibly". Think of it as "two different tunes going on at the same time".) A fugue is kind of an advanced version of a canon - the difference is that in a canon, nothing happens that's not the original tune in the original key.

Here's the start of the Amen Fugue (I missed out the words etc. to save time - you can guess what they are!):



This section of the fugue is called the exposition. Each voice in turn (starting with the basses in this example) enters with a statement of the fugue subject (i.e. the main tune). Usually a fugue subject is fairly short - much shorter than a sonata form subject - because the longer the subject, the more difficult it is to write the fugue. The most common length is four bars - Handel is slightly wacky here by writing a five-bar subject!

The voices don't all sing the subject in the same key, though - they imitate each other without copying exactly. The most common way to do this is how Handel does it here: the basses sing their entry in D major (the tonic key), then the tenors do it in A major (the dominant - this is called the answer), then the altos come back in D major (an octave higher than the basses, but in the tonic key => subject) and the sopranos finish the exposition by entering in A major, an octave above the tenors (answer). Fugues from later periods stick to the imitative entry idea but tend to ignore the key relations a bit more. For example, Mozart (in his Requiem) does have at least one fugue with the traditional tonic/dominant pattern (Quam Olim Abrahe) but he also has several other patterns, e.g. Ne absorbeat eas Tartarus, which has the voices entering on G, C, A and D respectively.

Before we proceed to the next bit, notice what each voice does AFTER its first five bars, when it no longer has the subject. It doesn't just stop singing - it has various fragments that couldn't be considered as proper tunes, but fit together. These fragments do get repeated (in the relevant keys) across the different voices. In some fugues, rather than just fragments, there is a counter-subject, i.e. another proper tune that fits with the first one. (It's only called a counter-subject if it comes back when the subject does.)

After the exposition (i.e. when all the voices have performed the subject), there will usually be an episode, in which the composer develops the material from the exposition. (I have heard this referred to as "noodling".) This leads to another entry (or series of entries) of the subject, and so on until the end of the piece - entries and episodes alternate. One function of the episodes, other than to make the whole piece more interesting, is to modulate into different keys. (The tonic/dominant alternation of subject entries is not usually strictly maintained after the exposition - if the fugue has reached a particularly remote key, this would make things unnecessarily difficult.) By the final entry, though, the music must return to the tonic.

There are many, many other details and technical terms associated with fugues - I've only mentioned the main ones. (Read the Wikipedia article if you want to know the others.) However, I do want to mention stretto. This is the fugue's equivalent of hemiola - it speeds things up (figuratively) and adds excitement, and is therefore most often used towards the end of a piece. Stretto is when the voices enter one at a time with their subjects and answers, but they don't wait for each other to finish - they overlap, so that the answer starts while the subject is still in progress, etc. For example, this bit:



Sorry it's a bit blurry, but hopefully you get the idea. The voices enter in the order soprano/tenor/alto/bass, one beat apart. Each voice sings the first five notes of the subject exactly, in A major followed by E minor alternately. There are several other strettos (I suppose really it should be "stretti") in the Amen Fugue - see if you can find them! Once you're aware of them, they are fairly obvious.

My favourite fugue, though, has always been the one at the end of The Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra, although I admit that the bit I really like in that is the brass section entry near the end, which isn't part of the fugue at all! (The clip is less than three minutes long - I don't know why they've put two minutes of silence on the end...) Enjoy :-)

12 days of musical terminology, day 11 - recapitulation

Sorry this is a bit late. (I started it before midnight but there was no way I was ever going to finish in time!) I decided before I started this series which topics I wanted to include - in fact, there were quite a few more than twelve on my initial list, and it took me a while to whittle them down. So I'm positive I want to talk about today's topic, but (unhelpfully) I've been trying for the past half hour to think of examples of it in actual choral works! I had a few in mind, but when I looked them up, they didn't illustrate things quite as well as I'd remembered. Anyway, I do know which piece it was that made me think of including it, so I'll use that.

The word recapitulation is, of course, used in everyday (non-musical) life, although it's more common in its abbreviated form ("recap"). In music, it actually has more or less the same meaning, but I need to explain the background a bit before I get to that.

Strictly, a musical recapitulation is part of a piece of music that's written in sonata form. Sonata Form is a type of musical structure (or “form”) often used in the first movement of a sonata, symphony or concerto in the Classical period (Mozart, Haydn etc.). It's also used in other movements, other types of work and later periods. Key relationships are the basis of sonata form - you need to know what the tonic and dominant keys are (if the tonic key is minor, the relative major is often used in place of the dominant). In general, the tonic key is the key of the whole piece. For example, in Mozart's Symphony no. 40 in G minor, whose first movement is in sonata form, the tonic key is G minor. The dominant would be D, but because the tonic is a minor key, its relative major - i.e. B flat major - is used instead of the dominant.)

Sonata form has 4 sections: exposition, development, recapitulation and coda. I will list the traditional features of each, but it goes without saying that there are many, many variations to these, particularly in later works.

1. Exposition

• 1st subject (i.e. tune) in tonic key
• 2nd subject in dominant (or relative major) key
• Sometimes there are other subjects (= tunes) as well
• Often subjects are repeated
• The exposition section often ends at the first repeat mark

2. Development

Usually (but not always) this starts with 1st subject in dominant (or relative major) key. Then “plays around” with both subjects, usually modulating through lots of new keys. The development section is usually quite long. Often there will be a dominant pedal towards the end of it, preparing for the recapitulation.

3. Recapitulation

• 1st subject returns in tonic key (it will have been heard in various forms during the development section, but its return in the tonic key signals the recapitulation).
• 2nd subject returns in tonic key (note that in the exposition section, the 2nd subject was in the dominant or relative major key).

4. Coda

This is the end bit. Sometimes it's very short, sometimes it's so long it’s almost a second Development section. In a concerto, the coda usually starts after the cadenza.


Even though there are very few well-known choral works written in actual sonata form (i.e. I can't currently think of any!), the concepts are used in many pieces, particularly those that use classical styles even though they were written during the romantic period. The obvious example is Mendelssohn, who is well-known for reviving interest in Bach's music (which, of course, predates sonata form), but also had lots of classical characteristics in his work. In Lobgesang (Symphony no. 2, which we sang in the summer), my favourite movement (Die Nacht ist Vergangen) has some similarities with sonata form, and it's that movement that made me think of writing about recapitulations.

I know that many of you will have your own copy of the score, but for those who don't, I'll include a few brief examples to show you what I'm talking about. It's the movement that starts with the joyous intro riff (that was likened at one point to a Highland fling!):



The 1st subject (at least, that's what I'm calling it) enters almost immediately. The brass have it, then the tenors and basses, and finally the sopranos:



Shortly afterwards, we get what I'm calling the 2nd subject:



If this movement really was in sonata form, there would probably be a repeat mark at this point to show the end of the exposition, and then the development section would start. However, it's NOT in sonata form, and at this point Mendelssohn brings in a 3rd subject:



He plays around with this for quite a while, and it feels a little bit like a development section (except that it isn't a real one, because it doesn't include the 1st and 2nd subjects). However, after a while we get something that initially looks like ANOTHER new subject... except that it's actually too similar to the 2nd subject to be described as totally new.



A few bars after this not-quite-2nd-subject returns, there's a huge crescendo, and the sopranos go up a chromatic scale until they culminate in two whole bars singing A. At this point - HURRAH! Recapitulation! (I used to always teach my pupils that Recapitulation = HURRAH! because that's exactly the feeling it engenders.) The tenors come blazing in with a fortissimo statement of the 1st subject, in the tonic key of D major. To reinforce it, the intro figure is played underneath - the first time this figure has been heard for quite some time.

We don't quite get all the rest of the sonata form bits - a proper recapitulation would have the 2nd subject in the tonic key at this point, and we don't here - but we DO get a bit where the upper three parts sing the RHYTHM of the 2nd subject together, followed by a coda-type section based on the 3rd subject. Then we get a proper coda, in which the sops sing the 1st subject twice (with the intro figure returning in the orchestra in between - again, this stopped when the 1st subject did), and there are a few more brief recaps of the start of the 1st subject, as the movement gradually fades towards its end.

That was much longer than I intended (why do I always do this to myself?!? I only really wanted to explain what a recapitulation feels like (i.e. HURRAH!) That way, when you sing one, you'll be aware that if you have the tune at that point, you are IMPORTANT! It feels better that way :-)

12 days of musical terminology, day 10 - whole tone scale

The whole tone scale is to melody what the diminished chord is to harmony. (I only just realised this, and I'm quite proud of the analogy!) You will recall that the diminished chord creates a sense of uncertainty, because all the notes are the same distance apart from each other, so it sounds the same whatever the root note is, and can resolve in many different ways. The whole tone scale creates a sense of melodic uncertainty, for similar reasons: it sounds the same whichever note you start on, because all the notes are the same distance apart.

It tends to be most used in modern music (Debussy, Messiaen, Scriabin etc.), and I can't think of a single choral work that uses an ENTIRE whole tone scale (although I'm sure there is one). However, there are often bits in choral parts that include excerpts from the whole tone scale, which is why it gets mentioned in rehearsals.

The Wikipedia article shows you what the two whole tone scales look like. (There are only two different ones.) To play one on a piano, start on any note, and count two keys to the right (including both black and white keys, but not counting the key you start on). Play the new note, and repeat. The seventh note you play will be an octave above the first one.

The most famous example of a whole tone scale is probably the intro to Stevie Wonder's You are the Sunshine of my Life. There's an entire whole tone scale (actually more than a whole octave - it spans a tenth) in the third and fourth bars, repeated in the seventh and eighth bars. It's even harmonised with ANOTHER whole tone scale (a major third below). It's a very distinctive sound which I'm sure you'll recognise immediately.

If you're singing an excerpt from a whole tone scale, you need to bear in mind that whole tones are usually slightly wider than you think. So if your phrase goes up, be careful not to sing flat, and if your phrase goes down, be careful not to sing sharp.

12 days of musical terminology, day 9 - false relation

This one doesn't come up all that often when we're singing orchestral stuff, but it's very common when we're doing Renaissance a cappella stuff (e.g. Tallis, Byrd, Palestrina). It sounds a bit jarring to the modern ear - so much so that if you're not aware of it, you may well think someone is singing the wrong note.

A false relation is a harmonic thing, and it's when there are two consecutive (or very nearby) notes in different voice parts, and those notes have the same letter name but different accidentals. For example, a B flat in the bass part followed immediately by a B natural in the tenor part. (it can also refer to different notes in the same chord, but consecutive chords are more common.)

The Wikipedia article gives an example from Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus. A more familiar one, though, might be the Mozart version. In the third bar of the clip below, you can see the false relation in the bass and tenor parts exactly as described in the paragraph above.

12 days of musical terminology, day 8 - antiphonal

Another quick one today (happy new year, by the way!)

Antiphonal originally had a more specific meaning, but when the term is used during our choir rehearsals these days, it refers to music in which the choir is divided into two halves which sing in turn. Usually the two halves consist of an SATB choir 1 and an SATB choir 2, but there are other possibilities - for example, in my a cappella arrangement of I Was Glad, which is written for SSAATB, the antiphonal section in the middle ended up as S1 A1 T in one half and S2 A2 B in the other). (You can hear the original version (including the usually-omitted Vivat bit, because the Queen was there, but annoyingly missing the start of the intro) performed at St Paul's for the Queen's Golden Jubilee here. The main antiphonal bit I'm thinking of - starting with the word "Jerusalem" - is at about 1:50, but the bit just before is actually antiphonal too. It's just not as obvious, because it's not choir 1 vs choir 2.)

Other famous antiphonal bits... let's see. There's lots of it in Belshazzar's Feast - so much, in fact, that I've been really annoyed when we've performed it WITHOUT sitting in two choirs (luckily we HAVE sat in two choirs the last few times, so I was happy). The best bit is the a cappella "Trumpeters and Pipers" section (starts at about 6:50 on the video). There's also lots in Gerontius, particularly during the big C major chorus. Komm, Jesu, Komm is a great example too. There are many more - I'm sure you can think of lots.

It's believed that this style (sometimes known as the Venetian polychoral style) originated at St Mark's in Venice, where the two choir lofts were so far apart that there was a sound delay between them. Rather than try (and fail) to get the two sides to sing together, composers took advantage of the separation. (By the way, in cathedrals and large churches, where the two choirs sit on opposite sides, traditionally choir 1 is called decani and choir 2 is cantoris.)