David-the-pianist, our rehearsal accompanist, is used to maintaining an Olympic calm in the face of hideous flatness. Only his eyebrows give away his inner angst, knitting themselves into interesting patterns as we wander through the lesser known parts of the harmonic series. And most of the time a gentle hint from the direction of the piano is enough for us to get back in tune. But at this weeks’ rehearsal the eyebrows were working overtime, as we sang Whitacre’s “When David Heard” resolutely, resoundingly flat. It must be the only piece in our repertoire where we resist the help of the piano and just get flatter. I don’t know whether to blame the continual repeated notes or the odd unexpected leaps more, but the whole piece is like an academic exercise in how to make a choir drop pitch. Luckily this is the third time I’ve done the piece with Oriana, and I know from experience that come the concert it will be an absolute show-stopper. In fact I urge you to get your tickets for our Southwark Cathedral concert now because it will be glorious. But getting through the Strangled Cat Chorus stage of rehearsal is always a bumpy ride!
Happily we only had time for an initial sing-through last night, because we were short on time due to the choir’s annual AGM. We all did our best to look intelligent and knowledgeable through the discussion of audits and accounts, and then patted ourselves on the back as we looked back on the last year with pride. What a year it’s been - concerts in the Barbican, Royal Festival Hall, Abbey Road studios and even the 02 Arena! And there’s lots more great things coming up. Our end of season concert at Southwark Cathedral is going to be fantastic, and before that we’re going on tour to Madrid, and doing a charity concert at Hampton Court in aid of Marie Curie and the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation. So last night was a very satisfying recap of choir activities. In fact the only big concern was highlighted by David-the-Conductor, who pointed out that we haven’t been socialising enough at the choir’s favoured three Cs social events – there hasn’t been a ceilidh, curry night or cabaret for ages. To redress the balance, I feel we should attempt every social event we can think of beginning with C. I would like to suggest a night of Crotcheting, with Coffee and Crudités served as refreshment. Camping and Caravanning went down well as options in the pub last night. We also decided on Curling, a Cheese and Cider evening, and a full day of Clarkson-baiting (standing outside Jeremy Clarkson’s house making nasty comments about his cars). Hopefully some of the choir will begin Courting, (and choir couples Colin and Carol, and Cat and Cen, deserve an accolade for setting such a fine thematic example). And I suppose, if we get a bit of extra time, we might indulge in the occasional bit of Choral singing.
Friday 30 April 2010
Sunday 25 April 2010
A glorious concert in St John's Smith Square
The blog’s a little bit late this week because I was didn’t want to jinx us before last night’s concert by being all optimistic about how amazing it was going to be. And it was indeed amazing! Unusually for us, we had a full orchestra – the Brandenburg Sinfonia – for this concert. We had our rehearsal with them yesterday afternoon and – the noble efforts of our rehearsal pianist notwithstanding – hearing the orchestral accompaniment really brought the music to life. In the Gardner Burns Sequence in particular, the orchestra’s wider variety of sounds meant we could really nail the different styles of each piece. Come the concert there were a couple of tentative “is it us now?” entries (where everyone does come in, but very quietly), but mostly we were confident and able to really perform the pieces. And I got through “Whistle and I’ll come to ye” without grimacing or spitting, which I think was a good effort. Although my nightmare of having to do it as a recurring encore in the future may be about to come true, as one of our singing teachers has already commended our performance of it. Eeeeeek.
The second half was devoted to the Puccini Messa di Gloria, which I have now come to love. Puccini wrote it at the age of 18 as his graduation piece from college, and he seems to have been a bit of a hellraiser in these teenage years. In my internet surfing about the piece I came across a marvellous story (which I really hope is true) that he played the organ in his local church throughout his teens, and he would sell the pipes for scrap metal and then hide his criminal activities by writing music that didn’t use those particular pipes! Isn’t that great? Using your talent for evil!
So looking at the Messa di Gloria as a piece written by a tearaway kid means you see it in a whole different light. It’s really glorious music, full of ideas and charm, and feels really Italian in the sense that it reminds you of that most quintessential Italian music, by which all other Italian music is judged – the music from The Godfather. (Look scandalized on behalf of the Italian masters if you like, but you know it’s true!) But the Messa seems to get more sparse as you go through. The Gloria is superb, at 17 minutes long and packed full of great music and contrasts. But then the movements get shorter right up to what should be the grand finale of the piece – the Agnus Dei – which comes in at a measly 2 minutes 20 seconds, and features mainly the soloists with only a couple of hasty entries from the choir. It was beautiful music, and when we’d finished singing it the audience started applauding enthusiastically, but we were all looking around our feet to see if a huge final choral movement had accidentally fallen out of our folders. I can’t help but think of a delinquent Puccini, the night before graduation, drinking away the ill-gotten gains of his latest pipe-selling spree, then waking up the next morning with a mega hangover shrieking “Mamma Mia, my deadline! And I haven’t written an Agnus Dei! Okay, quick, Miserere, ummm, Miserere again, oh god I forgot the choir, give them a Donna Nobis Pacem, okay done!” Still, pretty damn impressive for a schoolboy.
The second half was devoted to the Puccini Messa di Gloria, which I have now come to love. Puccini wrote it at the age of 18 as his graduation piece from college, and he seems to have been a bit of a hellraiser in these teenage years. In my internet surfing about the piece I came across a marvellous story (which I really hope is true) that he played the organ in his local church throughout his teens, and he would sell the pipes for scrap metal and then hide his criminal activities by writing music that didn’t use those particular pipes! Isn’t that great? Using your talent for evil!
So looking at the Messa di Gloria as a piece written by a tearaway kid means you see it in a whole different light. It’s really glorious music, full of ideas and charm, and feels really Italian in the sense that it reminds you of that most quintessential Italian music, by which all other Italian music is judged – the music from The Godfather. (Look scandalized on behalf of the Italian masters if you like, but you know it’s true!) But the Messa seems to get more sparse as you go through. The Gloria is superb, at 17 minutes long and packed full of great music and contrasts. But then the movements get shorter right up to what should be the grand finale of the piece – the Agnus Dei – which comes in at a measly 2 minutes 20 seconds, and features mainly the soloists with only a couple of hasty entries from the choir. It was beautiful music, and when we’d finished singing it the audience started applauding enthusiastically, but we were all looking around our feet to see if a huge final choral movement had accidentally fallen out of our folders. I can’t help but think of a delinquent Puccini, the night before graduation, drinking away the ill-gotten gains of his latest pipe-selling spree, then waking up the next morning with a mega hangover shrieking “Mamma Mia, my deadline! And I haven’t written an Agnus Dei! Okay, quick, Miserere, ummm, Miserere again, oh god I forgot the choir, give them a Donna Nobis Pacem, okay done!” Still, pretty damn impressive for a schoolboy.
Saturday 17 April 2010
Gardner: love or hate?
There are many composers that I love and many that I hate, but in John Gardner I have a composer that I both love and hate simultaneously. Every work I’ve heard, without exception, has generated one of only two reactions in me: “ooh, lovely!”, or, “blimey, I’ve accidentally walked into a hoedown.” It’s love or hate, nothing in between. He’s the Marmite of Music.
In fact they should put that on his website, which doesn’t seem to go in for too much hyperbole. It kicks off by describing him, not as England’s most interesting living composer, most unusual living composer, or even most under-rated living composer. No, he is simply “England’s oldest living composer” (and even then only “almost certainly”). Wow what an accolade! Maybe they’re scared Tavener will sue.
We’ve done quite a few Gardner pieces since I joined the choir, and he does seem to be one of the most divisive of composers when it comes to general opinion. A Burns Sequence, for example, is mostly on the “ooh lovely” side of the Great Marmite Divide, but some people find the unstable rhythms and keys quite frustrating and unnecessarily difficult to follow. Gardner freewheels through cross-rhythms and unrelated chords with gay abandon, and it often feels like we’re trundling along somewhere behind, as though we were scared of speeding in a built-up harmony. But personally I rather enjoy the challenge of the quick changes. I especially love the hymn-like first and last pieces where the metric form means we have to be absolutely together. Conversely, my least favourite piece in the sequence is the simplest one, the utterly twee and vile (or fresh and engaging, depending on your viewpoint) “Whistle an’ I’ll come to ye”. OOOOOOOOH I hate it! My fingers are involuntary curling even as I type. It’s a folk song about young love (bleurgh) where the ladies have to sing coquettishly (double triple bleurgh) while the men whistle humorously in accompaniment (actually I do quite like that bit). We struggled with the style a bit at rehearsal on Wednesday. “Convince me that you fancy this lad” entreated David-the-conductor, on what felt like our hundredth attempt. I tried, but I may not have been utterly convincing. It’s hard to be coquettish when you’re wishing you were running the lad through with a pitchfork. I don’t think I was the only one struggling either, as David declared us all lesbians at one point. I think we got there in the end, but my greatest fear is that we’ll give it our all on Saturday, and it will go down so well that our loyal audience will begin insisting we do it as an encore at every single concert. I would actually rather bath in Marmite.
In fact they should put that on his website, which doesn’t seem to go in for too much hyperbole. It kicks off by describing him, not as England’s most interesting living composer, most unusual living composer, or even most under-rated living composer. No, he is simply “England’s oldest living composer” (and even then only “almost certainly”). Wow what an accolade! Maybe they’re scared Tavener will sue.
We’ve done quite a few Gardner pieces since I joined the choir, and he does seem to be one of the most divisive of composers when it comes to general opinion. A Burns Sequence, for example, is mostly on the “ooh lovely” side of the Great Marmite Divide, but some people find the unstable rhythms and keys quite frustrating and unnecessarily difficult to follow. Gardner freewheels through cross-rhythms and unrelated chords with gay abandon, and it often feels like we’re trundling along somewhere behind, as though we were scared of speeding in a built-up harmony. But personally I rather enjoy the challenge of the quick changes. I especially love the hymn-like first and last pieces where the metric form means we have to be absolutely together. Conversely, my least favourite piece in the sequence is the simplest one, the utterly twee and vile (or fresh and engaging, depending on your viewpoint) “Whistle an’ I’ll come to ye”. OOOOOOOOH I hate it! My fingers are involuntary curling even as I type. It’s a folk song about young love (bleurgh) where the ladies have to sing coquettishly (double triple bleurgh) while the men whistle humorously in accompaniment (actually I do quite like that bit). We struggled with the style a bit at rehearsal on Wednesday. “Convince me that you fancy this lad” entreated David-the-conductor, on what felt like our hundredth attempt. I tried, but I may not have been utterly convincing. It’s hard to be coquettish when you’re wishing you were running the lad through with a pitchfork. I don’t think I was the only one struggling either, as David declared us all lesbians at one point. I think we got there in the end, but my greatest fear is that we’ll give it our all on Saturday, and it will go down so well that our loyal audience will begin insisting we do it as an encore at every single concert. I would actually rather bath in Marmite.
Thursday 8 April 2010
Our biggest venue yet
The Easter weekend was, for me, a weekend of both exhilaration and disappointment. Disappointment because, once again, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick failed to make it into the Classic FM Hall of Fame. But exhilaration, because Star Wars in Concert was fab! The O2 arena was an amazing venue and the orchestra – the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra - very slick indeed. (And with a nice line in sarcasm too: “Do you play all of these instruments?” one of our basses was overheard asking the percussionist. “No, we just set some of them up for fun” came the reply.) We were singing two pieces in three concerts, plus the sound checks, so we had several goes at getting the pieces right. We lulled the orchestra into a false sense of insecurity by being really quite dreadful at the first sound-check, but it was just the effect of a different conductor and an unfamiliar acoustic. Once we’d settled down we threw ourselves into John Williams’ space opera style with gusto, chanted through the Welsh-Sanskrit of the choral pieces to a demonic crescendo, while behind us on the giant screen Lord Vadar came into being! How exciting to spend a weekend invoking the forces of darkness.
We also got to meet C3PO himself, Anthony Daniels, who was the consummate professional and came to visit us unbidden to give us a quick pep talk. We asked him if we could get a group photo and he promised to pop back in the following day to do it, and was as good as his word. Unfortunately by that time we’d all forgotten about it. “Photo time!” he called gaily, striding into the dressing room. We all looked at each other with varying degrees of panic. Our usual photographer was out of the room - did anyone else actually have a camera? While his back was turned we compared mobile phone pixel counts and rummaged frantically through the pockets of all the choir members who were out having a coffee. How could we possibly confess to not having cameras for our important photo shoot?! Just as we were trying to rustle up a sketch artist and some charcoal, our efforts procured us four face-saving cameras. “Ratamah!” we all shouted into the camera with nonchalant grins, while Anthony remained blissfully unaware at the front. Phew, what a relief!
We also got to meet C3PO himself, Anthony Daniels, who was the consummate professional and came to visit us unbidden to give us a quick pep talk. We asked him if we could get a group photo and he promised to pop back in the following day to do it, and was as good as his word. Unfortunately by that time we’d all forgotten about it. “Photo time!” he called gaily, striding into the dressing room. We all looked at each other with varying degrees of panic. Our usual photographer was out of the room - did anyone else actually have a camera? While his back was turned we compared mobile phone pixel counts and rummaged frantically through the pockets of all the choir members who were out having a coffee. How could we possibly confess to not having cameras for our important photo shoot?! Just as we were trying to rustle up a sketch artist and some charcoal, our efforts procured us four face-saving cameras. “Ratamah!” we all shouted into the camera with nonchalant grins, while Anthony remained blissfully unaware at the front. Phew, what a relief!
Friday 2 April 2010
Star Wars: the choir strikes back
A long time ago (well, Wednesday), in a rehearsal room far far away .....
It is a period of mild consternation. The evil O2 galactic empire has discovered that rebel choir Oriana plans to converge on their Death Star – disguised as the O2 arena –to take part in Star Wars In Concert this weekend. To thwart the rebel’s plans, the O2 has forced the closure of the Jubilee Line – a magical conduit through London with the capacity to ship choir, orchestra and 20,000 audience members into battle in Greenwich.
Undaunted, Oriana’s leaders have stolen secret plans to London’s transport network from the fabled oracle tfl.gov.uk. Pursued by transport workers and probably some tourists, the choir will race through London on their ship – the Thames Clipper – and take the agents of the O2 by surprise. But the rebels have not accounted for the movie projection during the concert, which means that the lights will go out. The choir will no longer be able to see their copies, and will have to use the Force (of memory) to overcome the Dark Side (of the stage). Rebel leader Tenor-one Ken-obi (also known as Ken in the first tenors) will gamble all in a last-ditch attempt to teach the rest of the choir Welsh-Sanskrit – the language in which the piece is written. “Korah! Matah! Korah! Ratamah!”, he will intone. “Cora! Martha! Cora! Agatha!”, we will chant in reply. Can Oriana possibly prevail? Tune in next week to find out!
It is a period of mild consternation. The evil O2 galactic empire has discovered that rebel choir Oriana plans to converge on their Death Star – disguised as the O2 arena –to take part in Star Wars In Concert this weekend. To thwart the rebel’s plans, the O2 has forced the closure of the Jubilee Line – a magical conduit through London with the capacity to ship choir, orchestra and 20,000 audience members into battle in Greenwich.
Undaunted, Oriana’s leaders have stolen secret plans to London’s transport network from the fabled oracle tfl.gov.uk. Pursued by transport workers and probably some tourists, the choir will race through London on their ship – the Thames Clipper – and take the agents of the O2 by surprise. But the rebels have not accounted for the movie projection during the concert, which means that the lights will go out. The choir will no longer be able to see their copies, and will have to use the Force (of memory) to overcome the Dark Side (of the stage). Rebel leader Tenor-one Ken-obi (also known as Ken in the first tenors) will gamble all in a last-ditch attempt to teach the rest of the choir Welsh-Sanskrit – the language in which the piece is written. “Korah! Matah! Korah! Ratamah!”, he will intone. “Cora! Martha! Cora! Agatha!”, we will chant in reply. Can Oriana possibly prevail? Tune in next week to find out!
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