I listened to Mahler 8 all the way through yesterday, while on a six-bus journey. I was pleased to find how much of it I know from memory - always useful. Needless to say I got annoyed all over again about choir 1 getting all the good bits, but mainly I was very excited about the whole thing - I'd totally forgotten some of the amazing orchestral bits (e.g. what the brass are doing in the "hostem repellas" section - that's all about driving away the enemy, but I can't decide whether the brass are the enemy and we're trying to drive them away, or the enemy is elsewhere and the brass are helping us! No doubt it will become clear...)
I had an idea last night involving Mahler 8 Bingo. This idea amused me a lot, and I may have to put it into action, if only because I love the thought of someone trying to concentrate in a rehearsal while itching to jump up and shout "HOUSE!" Leave it with me :-)
Other than this, I haven't done anything music-related since my last post. We didn't rehearse this week, although we have two rehearsals next week to make up for this. I've spent most of the time distracting myself from being broke - I'm very good at that! (Just as well - it's been worse than usual recently due to the DWP not paying me, because they're currently my only source of income. So food has been a major issue. They've paid me now, but it's not been the most pleasant of weeks.)
Anyway, I have a load of links, so I thought I'd post them even though there was nothing else to say.
Via Intermezzo, a fascinating interview with Sir Colin Davis.
You probably heard about last week's disruption of a string quartet concert at the Wigmore Hall. The Jerusalem Quartet (whose concert it was) have something to say on the matter, as does Norman Lebrecht, with a lovely Telegraph article about how the concert hall is a sanctuary.
Talking of concert halls, have you seen the one they're building in Hamburg? It has OCEAN WAVES on its roof!
Tom Service writes sympathetically about Leonard Slatkin's recent much-publicised withdrawal from La Traviata at the New York Met.
Again, you'll have seen this, but since it's not often that a choir-related story makes the front page of the BBC News website, I figured it was worth repeating: the guy who's sung with the same choir for SEVENTY YEARS.
Our own orchestra is giving free tickets to people in deprived areas of Manchester - although, as one of the commenters points out, not the MOST deprived areas... I wonder why?
I hadn't realised there was a danger of this year's Whit Friday brass band contests not going ahead until 4 Bars Rest told me that Oldham Council has saved the day. (The contests this year are on 28th May - put it in your diary and keep the evening free, if you've never been before!)
Also from 4 Bars Rest, news that the Fairey Brass Band (one of the best in the world) will be performing after the Mahler 7 concert on 24th April. So if you're going to that concert, don't leave without hearing them.
This is fun: a music video set in an empty school, in which the composer (a 17-year-old boy) plays everything himself, using various things as instruments (e.g. piano, marimba, locker door).
Chris Rowbury writes about the process of learning songs by ear. Of course we can't usually do this in our choir due to the short time we have in which to learn complex stuff, but most of the points he makes are still valid for a choir that DOES use sheet music. (I'd love to be able to tell him he's wrong when he says that singers who have the music in front of them never look at the conductor, but sadly he's not ENTIRELY wrong! I think our choir probably has more counter-examples than most, though.)
I mentioned recently that I wasn't particularly impressed with The Sixteen, so I was only SLIGHTLY surprised to find that the Guardian only awarded them one star for a recent concert of theirs. The Telegraph hated it too.
This is very clever: via Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog, Wii-controlled percussion.
This year's Proms lineup is announced on 22nd April. Tom Service describes what he hopes will be in it, while Intermezzo has a lot more info, including quite a few rumours. Looks as if the opening concert might be Mahler 8 - but sadly not our version!
On An Overgrown Path has an intriguing post about why Latvia produces more than its fair share of outstanding musicians.
If you know anyone who attended the Oscars for Orchestra concert in Manchester a couple of weeks ago, see if their photo is on the Red Carpet page.
Tom Service brings news that Radio 3 is introducing classical chart hits to its programming. Rupert Christiansen, in the Telegraph, writes about why this is a very bad idea.
Here's a nice story from A Cappella News: a choir that was formed to help unemployed people in Leipzig. It mentions one guy who was on his way to jump under a train (literally) and changed his mind as a result of seeing a choir recruitment poster. *boggle*
Seth Godin's blog often has potentially life-changing insights, but I particularly like this one: how to be one in a million.
I absolutely hate politics and ignore it wherever possible (it bores me rigid), so it's entirely possible that everyone apart from me already knew this, but just in case it's news to you too: from BBC News, who actually runs the country while all the MPs are off campaigning? I hadn't realised that they actually stopped being MPs shortly after an election is called - I assumed they continued until the day of the election, and then either continued or left afterwards. The actual process, now that I know what it is, makes a lot more sense when I think about it!
Anyone who uses Twitter, however much they hate politics, will probably have seen all the stuff about the Digital Economy Bill. Until this hit the news, I didn't know there was a Minister for Digital Britain. Now that I *do* know that, I'm unimpressed to find that he doesn't even know the meaning of basic terms such as "IP address". (Even my Silver Surfers, who have only been using computers for a few weeks, know that it stands for "Internet Protocol".)
Manchester Confidential raves about the new Legoland Discovery Centre at the Trafford Centre. Sounds like fun!
From the category of "random trivia that will blow your mind", here's a fascinating fact about pie :-)
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Thursday, April 01, 2010
They can only do it once a night
There was a lot of giggling at last night's rehearsal, most of it during the attempt to get the men to sing "Komm" with a suitably seductive initial consonant. I have to admit that the idea of a long k is new to me, but that certainly seemed to be what our German coach was asking for a few weeks ago, so I will continue to try. I don't think I've managed it yet - I think the sound I'm coming out with is more of a gurgle - but there's still time to improve!
There's definitely room for improvement when it comes to the spatial awareness of the 1st altos. For Mahler 8 we're sitting in a formation which we've never used before (as far as I can recall) - the men are on the conductor's left (basses on the end and then tenors), followed by altos in the middle (2nds next to the tenors, then 1sts next to the sops) and sops on the right (2nds next to the altos and 1sts on the end). (The reason for this formation is that we're one of two choirs, and the other choir will mirror our formation so that all the men from both choirs will be together in the middle.) When I arrived last night, there were no 2nd altos there yet, but quite a few 1sts... and they were all sitting to the LEFT of the halfway point (as viewed from the conductor's position). They had obviously decided that the sopranos needed more chairs than all the rest of the choir combined. (There aren't THAT many sopranos - in fact, for quite some time now, 1st alto has been the most numerous section!) And as if that wasn't bad enough, they had only left ONE seat on the front row for the 2nd altos. (We've been insisting, this year, that we always have a wedge of 2nd altos, with several on the front row. Until we put our collective foot down, the 1st altos usually took up the whole front row of the alto section, leaving all the 2nds to sit at the back. And it's not that we object to sitting at the back in general - it's just that there are three times as many 1sts as 2nds (sometimes four times as many) and we just can't be heard unless there are at least some of us at the front.)
I'm amused, by the way, that two different conductors have recently realised - only after months of working with us - that there are far more 1st altos than 2nds, and when they've said "do we need to do something about this?" we all reacted with a resounding "NO!" I found it quite telling that they didn't notice from listening to us - it was only when they asked for a show of hands that the discrepancy in numbers was obvious :-)
I *am* jealous of the 1st altos for one thing, though, and I only noticed it last night. They have the best note in the whole of Mahler 8! Right at the end (figure 217) all the singers are on a fortissimo chord - with a crescendo - very high in the voice. In the third bar of figure 217, the chord continues, louder than ever... but one part MOVES. Admittedly the two alto soloists are singing in unison with the 1st altos, so they move too... but no-one else does. That's such a good - and IMPORTANT - note that if it were up to me, I would suggest that all the 2nd altos sing 1st, just for those three bars - the B flat in the 2nd alto part is well-covered by the basses and 2nd tenors, and the altos are likely to be drowned by everyone else (look at what STB and all the soloists are doing!) unless they use all the power they have available. (And yes, if you're being picky, the 1st basses and 2nd tenors do change notes when they go into the third bar of 217 - but they only change to a note which was already in the previous chord. It's the note that the 1st altos sing that makes it a whole different chord.)
I'd get the 2nd altos to switch back to their own part for the last two notes, though, because NO-ONE else has a B flat in the last chord. Although, once you realise what the orchestra - with full organ - is doing at that point, you'll see that it will make very little difference what note the 2nd altos are singing :-)
I had an interesting journey home after the rehearsal - it took almost three hours. (I live 17 miles from the rehearsal venue.) Usually I get a lift with Alison, who lives very near where I do, but she's on holiday this week, so I was on public transport. I really don't mind using public transport, because it gives me the chance to read and/or listen to podcasts etc. - it does take a bit longer at times, but I do have time to spare at the moment! Last night, the bus back into town was bang on time, so there was no problem there - as usual, a couple of choir members stopped to offer me a lift into town, but I always say no, because my train isn't till 2228, so if I got a lift I'd have to sit on a cold bench at Victoria Station for almost an hour, whereas if I get the bus I still get there with half an hour to spare, but I have a warm bus seat until then.
Last night, there was a platform change for the 2228, so I wandered across to platform 3. The train turned up at about quarter past, and I went to get on at the rearmost door as usual (because that's where the exit is when I get off). As I got on, the driver and guard got off (at the same door), deep in conversation. I sat down and got re-engrossed in my book. A while later, the train started to move... in the wrong direction. This was a little offputting, and it was only at this point that I realised that the carriage was totally empty apart from me, which is unheard of for any of the trains on my line. I realised that the train must have split, and the other carriages formed the 2228 to Leeds, whereas the carriage I was in was heading to the depot. Great. You'd think that the guard and driver (who saw me get on) might have mentioned that, wouldn't you? Or that the new driver would check there was no-one on his train before he drove it to the depot? *sigh*
Anyway, the depot turned out to be only a few minutes away, and the driver emerged from his carriage and looked at me in bemusement. He asked how I'd got on the train, and didn't seem to believe me when I said I'd entered through the door.... I asked how I could get back to Victoria, and he said that the only way was for him to reverse the train to there. And, after a brief phone call to his controller, that's what he did. Needless to say, the 2228 had gone by then, so I had to sit on a cold bench for ages ANYWAY, because the next (and last) train wasn't till 2320. By the time I got home I was frozen, but oddly cheerful - I never mind having a prolonged amount of time in which to read, and there is no-one who cares what time I get home (or even whether I do). (This depresses me if I let myself think about it, so I distract myself by reading!)
So, some links to entertain you after I've sent you all to sleep with my train trauma! The Mahler in Manchester series can still do no wrong - it was Mahler 6 the other night, with the BBC Phil, and the reviews are great: Telegraph, MEN, Times, FT, and Guardian. Oh, and the Radio 3 broadcasts start on Monday and continue weekly: Mahler 1 (BBC Phil) is on 5th April at 7pm, which suggests that our Mahler 2 will be on 12th, and Mahler 8 on 24th May. But you know what the BBC are like for interrupting series!
It turns out the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain were at the Lowry on Sunday. I would have loved to have seen them - they were great at the Proms, and this concert sounds as if it was great fun.
I love this story (on Stephen Hough's blog) of Steven Isserlis trying to get to a concert on time. Hilarious!
Intermezzo brings news that reading about music before listening to it is not always a good thing.
The Guardian has a long, detailed, interesting article about Renee Fleming singing non-classical stuff. You can even listen to the whole album there for free.
Yet more on the thorny question of when applause is appropriate, this time from Ivan Hewett in the Telegraph.
Great post from The Chorister called Am I a bad singer? I would add one thing - if you don't identify with anything in her post, I'm willing to bet you're not as good a singer as you think you are :-)
The all-conquering Gareth Malone has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London. Wouldn't it be great (and VERY convenient) if he felt like moving to Manchester? I think someone should ask him. (Seriously.)
The Guardian's music blog discusses the enduring legacy of Kate Bush.
I've mentioned Shazam a few times - here's an article from Mashable that compares Shazam to other methods of identifying the song in your head.
Chris Rowbury wants to discuss why men won't sing.
Mark Burstow (of the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir) has an interesting post about the difficulties of singing in English.
The Radio 3 blog has the first in a series of posts about life in the BBC Symphony Chorus.
And finally, the teachers among you will like this: a poem by Taylor Mali called What Teachers Make. Very true.
There's definitely room for improvement when it comes to the spatial awareness of the 1st altos. For Mahler 8 we're sitting in a formation which we've never used before (as far as I can recall) - the men are on the conductor's left (basses on the end and then tenors), followed by altos in the middle (2nds next to the tenors, then 1sts next to the sops) and sops on the right (2nds next to the altos and 1sts on the end). (The reason for this formation is that we're one of two choirs, and the other choir will mirror our formation so that all the men from both choirs will be together in the middle.) When I arrived last night, there were no 2nd altos there yet, but quite a few 1sts... and they were all sitting to the LEFT of the halfway point (as viewed from the conductor's position). They had obviously decided that the sopranos needed more chairs than all the rest of the choir combined. (There aren't THAT many sopranos - in fact, for quite some time now, 1st alto has been the most numerous section!) And as if that wasn't bad enough, they had only left ONE seat on the front row for the 2nd altos. (We've been insisting, this year, that we always have a wedge of 2nd altos, with several on the front row. Until we put our collective foot down, the 1st altos usually took up the whole front row of the alto section, leaving all the 2nds to sit at the back. And it's not that we object to sitting at the back in general - it's just that there are three times as many 1sts as 2nds (sometimes four times as many) and we just can't be heard unless there are at least some of us at the front.)
I'm amused, by the way, that two different conductors have recently realised - only after months of working with us - that there are far more 1st altos than 2nds, and when they've said "do we need to do something about this?" we all reacted with a resounding "NO!" I found it quite telling that they didn't notice from listening to us - it was only when they asked for a show of hands that the discrepancy in numbers was obvious :-)
I *am* jealous of the 1st altos for one thing, though, and I only noticed it last night. They have the best note in the whole of Mahler 8! Right at the end (figure 217) all the singers are on a fortissimo chord - with a crescendo - very high in the voice. In the third bar of figure 217, the chord continues, louder than ever... but one part MOVES. Admittedly the two alto soloists are singing in unison with the 1st altos, so they move too... but no-one else does. That's such a good - and IMPORTANT - note that if it were up to me, I would suggest that all the 2nd altos sing 1st, just for those three bars - the B flat in the 2nd alto part is well-covered by the basses and 2nd tenors, and the altos are likely to be drowned by everyone else (look at what STB and all the soloists are doing!) unless they use all the power they have available. (And yes, if you're being picky, the 1st basses and 2nd tenors do change notes when they go into the third bar of 217 - but they only change to a note which was already in the previous chord. It's the note that the 1st altos sing that makes it a whole different chord.)
I'd get the 2nd altos to switch back to their own part for the last two notes, though, because NO-ONE else has a B flat in the last chord. Although, once you realise what the orchestra - with full organ - is doing at that point, you'll see that it will make very little difference what note the 2nd altos are singing :-)
I had an interesting journey home after the rehearsal - it took almost three hours. (I live 17 miles from the rehearsal venue.) Usually I get a lift with Alison, who lives very near where I do, but she's on holiday this week, so I was on public transport. I really don't mind using public transport, because it gives me the chance to read and/or listen to podcasts etc. - it does take a bit longer at times, but I do have time to spare at the moment! Last night, the bus back into town was bang on time, so there was no problem there - as usual, a couple of choir members stopped to offer me a lift into town, but I always say no, because my train isn't till 2228, so if I got a lift I'd have to sit on a cold bench at Victoria Station for almost an hour, whereas if I get the bus I still get there with half an hour to spare, but I have a warm bus seat until then.
Last night, there was a platform change for the 2228, so I wandered across to platform 3. The train turned up at about quarter past, and I went to get on at the rearmost door as usual (because that's where the exit is when I get off). As I got on, the driver and guard got off (at the same door), deep in conversation. I sat down and got re-engrossed in my book. A while later, the train started to move... in the wrong direction. This was a little offputting, and it was only at this point that I realised that the carriage was totally empty apart from me, which is unheard of for any of the trains on my line. I realised that the train must have split, and the other carriages formed the 2228 to Leeds, whereas the carriage I was in was heading to the depot. Great. You'd think that the guard and driver (who saw me get on) might have mentioned that, wouldn't you? Or that the new driver would check there was no-one on his train before he drove it to the depot? *sigh*
Anyway, the depot turned out to be only a few minutes away, and the driver emerged from his carriage and looked at me in bemusement. He asked how I'd got on the train, and didn't seem to believe me when I said I'd entered through the door.... I asked how I could get back to Victoria, and he said that the only way was for him to reverse the train to there. And, after a brief phone call to his controller, that's what he did. Needless to say, the 2228 had gone by then, so I had to sit on a cold bench for ages ANYWAY, because the next (and last) train wasn't till 2320. By the time I got home I was frozen, but oddly cheerful - I never mind having a prolonged amount of time in which to read, and there is no-one who cares what time I get home (or even whether I do). (This depresses me if I let myself think about it, so I distract myself by reading!)
So, some links to entertain you after I've sent you all to sleep with my train trauma! The Mahler in Manchester series can still do no wrong - it was Mahler 6 the other night, with the BBC Phil, and the reviews are great: Telegraph, MEN, Times, FT, and Guardian. Oh, and the Radio 3 broadcasts start on Monday and continue weekly: Mahler 1 (BBC Phil) is on 5th April at 7pm, which suggests that our Mahler 2 will be on 12th, and Mahler 8 on 24th May. But you know what the BBC are like for interrupting series!
It turns out the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain were at the Lowry on Sunday. I would have loved to have seen them - they were great at the Proms, and this concert sounds as if it was great fun.
I love this story (on Stephen Hough's blog) of Steven Isserlis trying to get to a concert on time. Hilarious!
Intermezzo brings news that reading about music before listening to it is not always a good thing.
The Guardian has a long, detailed, interesting article about Renee Fleming singing non-classical stuff. You can even listen to the whole album there for free.
Yet more on the thorny question of when applause is appropriate, this time from Ivan Hewett in the Telegraph.
Great post from The Chorister called Am I a bad singer? I would add one thing - if you don't identify with anything in her post, I'm willing to bet you're not as good a singer as you think you are :-)
The all-conquering Gareth Malone has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London. Wouldn't it be great (and VERY convenient) if he felt like moving to Manchester? I think someone should ask him. (Seriously.)
The Guardian's music blog discusses the enduring legacy of Kate Bush.
I've mentioned Shazam a few times - here's an article from Mashable that compares Shazam to other methods of identifying the song in your head.
Chris Rowbury wants to discuss why men won't sing.
Mark Burstow (of the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir) has an interesting post about the difficulties of singing in English.
The Radio 3 blog has the first in a series of posts about life in the BBC Symphony Chorus.
And finally, the teachers among you will like this: a poem by Taylor Mali called What Teachers Make. Very true.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Polly put the kettle on
There's a bit in the Mahler 8 alto part that I've had on the brain for the past few hours. I think of it as "the Polly Put The Kettle On bit", and I don't think I've ever sung it correctly before tonight, but I practised it on the bus on the way to choir (in my head, in case you're wondering!) and I can do it now. It's just two bars, of which the first is "Polly put the kettle on", and the second is a kind of warped version of "Polly put the kettle on" in which Mahler deliberately changed every note just slightly, but in such a way as to make the resulting bar as difficult as possible. Evil man.
The only other thing I have to report this week (it's not been the most exciting of weeks!) is that I gave a one-off singing lesson to a soprano a few days ago. She was very late, and just when I was amusing myself thinking "typical soprano, they're ALWAYS late", she called to say she was lost. I nearly got the giggles at that point, because I couldn't help thinking that if she'd been flat as well, she'd have embodied all the main soprano characteristics in one go! (Sorry, sops, I couldn't resist that! I love you really!)
By way of a change, I'm going to start my links with a few videos. The first one was mentioned by Graham in the comments last week: a large barbershop chorus singing Seventy-Six Trombones. Do watch the whole thing - it's absolutely wonderful, especially the end.
Here's another one that will make you smile - several people have emailed this to me: Elderly Couple Plays Piano Duet.
The Bridgewater Hall website has a set of three fascinating chats between the two Manchester music directors, who discuss the whole Mahler series in detail. I discovered all sorts of interesting things from these videos.
Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir has completed its second project, and if you were impressed by their version of "Sleep", you'll be blown away by Lux Aurumque. This is my favourite of his works anyway, but the quality of this performance is unbelievably high given how they did it. (Read Eric's description of the process - it's a lot more complicated (and musical!) than what they did for "Sleep".) Also, we get to see Eric himself in this one, and I think he's quite pretty :-)
That's all the videos. What else? Well, I'm sorry I couldn't witness this, but a trombonist was planning to play a duet with a RIVER the other day. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else - I'm hoping to find a recording eventually though!
Guy Garvey (from Elbow) writes in the Guardian about how albums are still important in these days of single-track downloads.
Oliver Condy, in the BBC Music Magazine, wonders whether London needs quite as many orchestras as it currently has.
Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) analyses the factors that make live performance different from rehearsal.
As with many things, I found this while I was looking for something else: something called the Complete Vocal Institute, which describes the four vocal modes. I'm mainly fascinated by this because I thought I knew quite a bit about singing, but most of the information on this page is completely alien to me, and I don't know how much of it to believe! I plan to ask Maggie to explain it to me :-)
Sad but true: an American high school banned an INSTRUMENTAL version of "Ave Maria" from a graduation ceremony, because it's too religious. *boggle*
Via Intermezzo, the chief exec of the London Phil tells the Times how it was possible for his orchestra to be defrauded of millions of pounds.
Also from Intermezzo: Aretha Franklin is singing opera. And from the same source: news of a Chorus Festival on the South Bank at the start of May. Some interesting ideas there - I'll be interested to find out what reception they get!
I'm a huge fan of Shazam, which is great for identifying music on the radio or during TV programmes. That only works with recorded music, though, and it's much less reliable for classical music, because the main information it uses is the beat, and there isn't always a clear and/or regular beat in classical stuff. However, the other day I heard about SoundHound, which allegedly works even if you sing or hum stuff into the phone. I haven't tried it, though, because it's not free - can anyone with an iPhone who HAS tried it let me know whether or not it actually works as well as Shazam?
I was in the Central Library today, wandering round trying to memorise everything about it (most of it closes next week). I love that place so much - I'll be very sad if it loses its character during the renovations. The Manchizzle agrees with me, but I'm mainly mentioning their post because it has a photo of the Social Sciences room - my favourite bit of the library. And I'm ashamed to say that today is the first time I'd ever really paid attention to the details of that room, and noticed that there is a quotation round the edge of the ceiling. I looked it up and found that it's from the Book of Proverbs: "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee." I really hope that's still there when the library reopens! But in the meantime, the library has set up a Flickr page for people to put up photos of the library. I haven't looked through them all yet, but if they're all as good as the ones on the first page, I will be delighted. And I'm even more delighted that I realised (if somewhat belatedly) why they're calling this project "Get Wisdom" :-)
What will you be doing at 8.30pm this Saturday? Can you do it in the dark? If you can, you should, because it's Earth Hour.
I've seen a few people raving about this recently: FutureMe gives you the chance to send an email to your future self. I might try it if I can think of anything inspiring to say, but my mind's a bit blank at the moment!
Merlin Mann pleads with everyone to take computer backups seriously. The details in that article might be a bit too technical for some people, but the message is important enough that I wanted to mention it: if you've never backed up the important (i.e. irreplaceable) data on your computer, YOU SHOULD! And if you HAVE done it, but not for ages, go and do it again RIGHT NOW. Always assume that your computer could die at any time, and if (when!) it does, you will have lost all the work you've done (and photos you've taken, etc.) since the last time you backed up. If that's not a problem for you, you don't need to bother with backups. Otherwise... you really, really do.
A friend pointed this out to me today: the London Review of Books personal ads. There is no way I can describe them effectively - just go and look!
And finally, if you're a bit of a drama queen (or king), you may find this button useful....
The only other thing I have to report this week (it's not been the most exciting of weeks!) is that I gave a one-off singing lesson to a soprano a few days ago. She was very late, and just when I was amusing myself thinking "typical soprano, they're ALWAYS late", she called to say she was lost. I nearly got the giggles at that point, because I couldn't help thinking that if she'd been flat as well, she'd have embodied all the main soprano characteristics in one go! (Sorry, sops, I couldn't resist that! I love you really!)
By way of a change, I'm going to start my links with a few videos. The first one was mentioned by Graham in the comments last week: a large barbershop chorus singing Seventy-Six Trombones. Do watch the whole thing - it's absolutely wonderful, especially the end.
Here's another one that will make you smile - several people have emailed this to me: Elderly Couple Plays Piano Duet.
The Bridgewater Hall website has a set of three fascinating chats between the two Manchester music directors, who discuss the whole Mahler series in detail. I discovered all sorts of interesting things from these videos.
Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir has completed its second project, and if you were impressed by their version of "Sleep", you'll be blown away by Lux Aurumque. This is my favourite of his works anyway, but the quality of this performance is unbelievably high given how they did it. (Read Eric's description of the process - it's a lot more complicated (and musical!) than what they did for "Sleep".) Also, we get to see Eric himself in this one, and I think he's quite pretty :-)
That's all the videos. What else? Well, I'm sorry I couldn't witness this, but a trombonist was planning to play a duet with a RIVER the other day. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else - I'm hoping to find a recording eventually though!
Guy Garvey (from Elbow) writes in the Guardian about how albums are still important in these days of single-track downloads.
Oliver Condy, in the BBC Music Magazine, wonders whether London needs quite as many orchestras as it currently has.
Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) analyses the factors that make live performance different from rehearsal.
As with many things, I found this while I was looking for something else: something called the Complete Vocal Institute, which describes the four vocal modes. I'm mainly fascinated by this because I thought I knew quite a bit about singing, but most of the information on this page is completely alien to me, and I don't know how much of it to believe! I plan to ask Maggie to explain it to me :-)
Sad but true: an American high school banned an INSTRUMENTAL version of "Ave Maria" from a graduation ceremony, because it's too religious. *boggle*
Via Intermezzo, the chief exec of the London Phil tells the Times how it was possible for his orchestra to be defrauded of millions of pounds.
Also from Intermezzo: Aretha Franklin is singing opera. And from the same source: news of a Chorus Festival on the South Bank at the start of May. Some interesting ideas there - I'll be interested to find out what reception they get!
I'm a huge fan of Shazam, which is great for identifying music on the radio or during TV programmes. That only works with recorded music, though, and it's much less reliable for classical music, because the main information it uses is the beat, and there isn't always a clear and/or regular beat in classical stuff. However, the other day I heard about SoundHound, which allegedly works even if you sing or hum stuff into the phone. I haven't tried it, though, because it's not free - can anyone with an iPhone who HAS tried it let me know whether or not it actually works as well as Shazam?
I was in the Central Library today, wandering round trying to memorise everything about it (most of it closes next week). I love that place so much - I'll be very sad if it loses its character during the renovations. The Manchizzle agrees with me, but I'm mainly mentioning their post because it has a photo of the Social Sciences room - my favourite bit of the library. And I'm ashamed to say that today is the first time I'd ever really paid attention to the details of that room, and noticed that there is a quotation round the edge of the ceiling. I looked it up and found that it's from the Book of Proverbs: "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee." I really hope that's still there when the library reopens! But in the meantime, the library has set up a Flickr page for people to put up photos of the library. I haven't looked through them all yet, but if they're all as good as the ones on the first page, I will be delighted. And I'm even more delighted that I realised (if somewhat belatedly) why they're calling this project "Get Wisdom" :-)
What will you be doing at 8.30pm this Saturday? Can you do it in the dark? If you can, you should, because it's Earth Hour.
I've seen a few people raving about this recently: FutureMe gives you the chance to send an email to your future self. I might try it if I can think of anything inspiring to say, but my mind's a bit blank at the moment!
Merlin Mann pleads with everyone to take computer backups seriously. The details in that article might be a bit too technical for some people, but the message is important enough that I wanted to mention it: if you've never backed up the important (i.e. irreplaceable) data on your computer, YOU SHOULD! And if you HAVE done it, but not for ages, go and do it again RIGHT NOW. Always assume that your computer could die at any time, and if (when!) it does, you will have lost all the work you've done (and photos you've taken, etc.) since the last time you backed up. If that's not a problem for you, you don't need to bother with backups. Otherwise... you really, really do.
A friend pointed this out to me today: the London Review of Books personal ads. There is no way I can describe them effectively - just go and look!
And finally, if you're a bit of a drama queen (or king), you may find this button useful....
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Barbershop seventh
I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I spend so much time doing what can only be described as "faffing online". However, I justify it by the fact that I learn so many new things as a result! Most excitingly, this week I discovered a NEW CHORD, plus several other related interesting facts. Well, it's not really a new chord - it's just a standard seventh chord - but I didn't know that it was known as a barbershop seventh. I also didn't know that there are strict rules for barbershop arranging, including the fact that barbershop seventh chords should comprise at least a third of the duration of the music... and the 2nd tenor part should have the tune all the way through. (I'd noticed that barbershop arrangements always do seem to have the tune in the 2nd tenor, and contain lots of seventh chords, but I never knew these were RULES!)
I've done lots of singing in the last week, and there's lots more to come. We're off to Mold on Saturday to repeat our a cappella concert, but tonight it was all Mahler 8. We had our German coach with us (the lovely Norbert), which was great, but we're all getting a bit fed up with the bittiness of the music. We'll love it when we can sing through a whole movement, but the fact that none of us are singing any of the choir 1 bits makes it difficult to do that at the moment. Oh well.
I also performed twice last Thursday. The funeral went fine - and our songs were listed in the Order of Service, so there was no shock from the congregation! I was a bit worried that the crematorium staff might make a mess of playing our backing CD (the right track at the right time, and both at the right volume) but they did fine. Then, in the evening, I went to help out the boys' choir at Sue's school, which involved Ave Verum Corpus (which I've sung a million times) and Haydn's Insanae et Vanae Curae, which I'd never heard of. Always fun to discover a new piece!
I was sorry to hear that Craig Wild, a fabulous trumpeter (originally from Rochdale) who I used to teach, had all of his trumpets and equipment stolen from Leamington Spa on Sunday. (Thanks to the BBC Phil Twitter feed for this info.) If anyone who's reading this hears anything, please contact Craig.
I wrote a guest blog post for Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir - my post was about what makes a good choral arrangement. Needless to say I was just as successful at driving away any commenters there as I am here! But do go and read it anyway. (Chris's most recent post (NOT written by me) is about why he believes it's a good thing for choirs to change their conductors every so often.)
Talking of choral directors, here's another thing I found while faffing: some great programme notes for The Dream of Gerontius, written by our own ex-choral director.
This Saturday is Dynamic Range Day - an online protest about CDs being too loud. I can't see it making much difference, sadly. Maybe we can do our bit by exaggerating the dynamics in our Mold gig :-)
I'm rather pleased to discover that this blog is now the top Google search result for "2nd altos". It's been ages since I looked to see what searches are bringing people here, but I did yesterday. One of them was "how good are choir seats at bridgewater hall"... so in case the answer wasn't obvious, I will say: great to sing from, but not quite so good to sit and listen from, because the seats aren't as deep (i.e. they're not as long from front to back) as the seats in the rest of the hall. I've always assumed this is to keep the choir awake...
The Bridgewater Hall, by the way, now has an archive of selected reviews: here's the page for the Mahler in Manchester series, and there's also one for some of the concerts from the 08/09 season.
Here's an interesting Guardian article about how someone became a Radio 3 listener.
Also in the Guardian, Tom Service is enthusiastic about the British Library sound archive.
I love this post by Stephen Hough, which explains why we remember music as more than just a tune.
Via Intermezzo and the Times: Scottish Opera is putting on an opera especially for babies.
I've been enjoying Sacred Music on BBC4, but I was a bit disappointed with the actual singing in the first episode - The Sixteen sounded a bit out of tune to me in several places. So I was a bit surprised to read this glowing review of a recent concert of theirs, which says that the choir were better than the soloists!
(Also, if you haven't been watching A Band For Britain, I recommend you do. There's only one episode left, but you can see the earlier ones on iPlayer.)
There's an exhibition at the Barbican featuring birds playing musical instruments. Tom Service has more to say about this, and tells us about some even better nature/music collaborations.
If you like pop songs but are a bit out of touch, the Telegraph has a helpful list (with YouTube links) of what it thinks are the top hundred songs of the last decade.
Via The Register: a bass (guitar) player was asked to leave a train near Portsmouth, because... well, you won't believe me if I tell you - read the story!
Hands up who knew that Manchester Cathedral is now hiring itself out as a non-classical gig venue? No, me neither.
It seems that Manchester City's stadium will be a glowing blue beacon from next season. I actually really like the way it looks at night already, although I'm still distraught that the B of the Bang was removed.
Talking of football and being distraught, I'm quite unreasonably upset about David Beckham's injury. I've been unable to stop thinking about it all week. If you haven't seen the moment when his world fell apart, here's a very sad (and very short) video. (DId you know that the Poet Laureate has now written a poem about this tragedy? More about this from the Guardian.)
The football fans among you will be amused by Dara O Briain's revelation of Fabio Capello's top-secret plan for the World Cup.
And here are some great photos (from the Big Picture) of the 2010 Winter Paralympics. What a pity none of these events were on TV!
If you ever deliver training sessions or presentations, you might like this: from Stepcase Lifehack, an exercise about changing your focus.
If you're having a bad day, there's always someone worse off: FMyLife may make you smile!
And if that doesn't, surely this will: from I Can Has Cheezburger, Kitteh Choir Director :-)
I've done lots of singing in the last week, and there's lots more to come. We're off to Mold on Saturday to repeat our a cappella concert, but tonight it was all Mahler 8. We had our German coach with us (the lovely Norbert), which was great, but we're all getting a bit fed up with the bittiness of the music. We'll love it when we can sing through a whole movement, but the fact that none of us are singing any of the choir 1 bits makes it difficult to do that at the moment. Oh well.
I also performed twice last Thursday. The funeral went fine - and our songs were listed in the Order of Service, so there was no shock from the congregation! I was a bit worried that the crematorium staff might make a mess of playing our backing CD (the right track at the right time, and both at the right volume) but they did fine. Then, in the evening, I went to help out the boys' choir at Sue's school, which involved Ave Verum Corpus (which I've sung a million times) and Haydn's Insanae et Vanae Curae, which I'd never heard of. Always fun to discover a new piece!
I was sorry to hear that Craig Wild, a fabulous trumpeter (originally from Rochdale) who I used to teach, had all of his trumpets and equipment stolen from Leamington Spa on Sunday. (Thanks to the BBC Phil Twitter feed for this info.) If anyone who's reading this hears anything, please contact Craig.
I wrote a guest blog post for Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir - my post was about what makes a good choral arrangement. Needless to say I was just as successful at driving away any commenters there as I am here! But do go and read it anyway. (Chris's most recent post (NOT written by me) is about why he believes it's a good thing for choirs to change their conductors every so often.)
Talking of choral directors, here's another thing I found while faffing: some great programme notes for The Dream of Gerontius, written by our own ex-choral director.
This Saturday is Dynamic Range Day - an online protest about CDs being too loud. I can't see it making much difference, sadly. Maybe we can do our bit by exaggerating the dynamics in our Mold gig :-)
I'm rather pleased to discover that this blog is now the top Google search result for "2nd altos". It's been ages since I looked to see what searches are bringing people here, but I did yesterday. One of them was "how good are choir seats at bridgewater hall"... so in case the answer wasn't obvious, I will say: great to sing from, but not quite so good to sit and listen from, because the seats aren't as deep (i.e. they're not as long from front to back) as the seats in the rest of the hall. I've always assumed this is to keep the choir awake...
The Bridgewater Hall, by the way, now has an archive of selected reviews: here's the page for the Mahler in Manchester series, and there's also one for some of the concerts from the 08/09 season.
Here's an interesting Guardian article about how someone became a Radio 3 listener.
Also in the Guardian, Tom Service is enthusiastic about the British Library sound archive.
I love this post by Stephen Hough, which explains why we remember music as more than just a tune.
Via Intermezzo and the Times: Scottish Opera is putting on an opera especially for babies.
I've been enjoying Sacred Music on BBC4, but I was a bit disappointed with the actual singing in the first episode - The Sixteen sounded a bit out of tune to me in several places. So I was a bit surprised to read this glowing review of a recent concert of theirs, which says that the choir were better than the soloists!
(Also, if you haven't been watching A Band For Britain, I recommend you do. There's only one episode left, but you can see the earlier ones on iPlayer.)
There's an exhibition at the Barbican featuring birds playing musical instruments. Tom Service has more to say about this, and tells us about some even better nature/music collaborations.
If you like pop songs but are a bit out of touch, the Telegraph has a helpful list (with YouTube links) of what it thinks are the top hundred songs of the last decade.
Via The Register: a bass (guitar) player was asked to leave a train near Portsmouth, because... well, you won't believe me if I tell you - read the story!
Hands up who knew that Manchester Cathedral is now hiring itself out as a non-classical gig venue? No, me neither.
It seems that Manchester City's stadium will be a glowing blue beacon from next season. I actually really like the way it looks at night already, although I'm still distraught that the B of the Bang was removed.
Talking of football and being distraught, I'm quite unreasonably upset about David Beckham's injury. I've been unable to stop thinking about it all week. If you haven't seen the moment when his world fell apart, here's a very sad (and very short) video. (DId you know that the Poet Laureate has now written a poem about this tragedy? More about this from the Guardian.)
The football fans among you will be amused by Dara O Briain's revelation of Fabio Capello's top-secret plan for the World Cup.
And here are some great photos (from the Big Picture) of the 2010 Winter Paralympics. What a pity none of these events were on TV!
If you ever deliver training sessions or presentations, you might like this: from Stepcase Lifehack, an exercise about changing your focus.
If you're having a bad day, there's always someone worse off: FMyLife may make you smile!
And if that doesn't, surely this will: from I Can Has Cheezburger, Kitteh Choir Director :-)
Thursday, March 11, 2010
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 :-)
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 :-)
Thursday, March 04, 2010
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?")
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?")
Thursday, February 25, 2010
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!)
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!)
Thursday, February 18, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, February 12, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, February 01, 2010
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
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!)
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!)
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
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!)
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!)
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