In a first for the blog, I can actually bring you some breaking news! Tour is nearly here – the tour choir is convening in Madrid tomorrow night – and some of the choir have already started their heroic journey across the continent. Neither ash nor strikes shall cause us fear, we charge ahead undaunted. But airport security shall apparently stymie us! It had never occurred to us that the handbells we’re using for Whitacre’s “Cloudburst” might be considered potential weapons, but our first departee with a handbell got stopped at security this morning and forced to switch it to her checked baggage. I’m not sure what they thought she was going to do with it – dong sonorously at other passengers? This has caused some consternation, as many other handbell guardians weren’t planning to check luggage at all, and are now desperately trying to offload their offensive weapons to other members of the choir. Shady transactions are taking place all around London tonight, with Oriana members in large raincoats going “pssssst!” at each other from behind bushes and surreptitiously swapping briefcases. I am not a handbell guardian, but I confess I’m worried. I was planning to take a set of Indian chimes. They’re sitting on my table looking at me innocently, but I don’t know, I suppose the string keeping them together could be used to strangle a leprechaun. Maybe I’d better not risk it.
Anyway, if we’re not all in cells at Heathrow, a large part of the choir will be performing in Segovia on Saturday and Madrid on Sunday – hurray! It’s interesting to see the different balance of a tour choir to the normal choir. The sops, used to being hidden in a vast crowd, have dropped from about 40 to a measly 11, giving us 5 and a half people on each of the two soprano lines. We’re not used to being this exposed, and we’re a bit nervous. “Welcome to our world”, said the tenors’ body language. The tenors have managed to field an impressive 7 – more than did the last concert - and I think there might actually be more altos on tour than there are in the entire choir. They are either the most conscientious part or the most hardened drinkers.
Thursday 27 May 2010
Saturday 22 May 2010
A burst of percussion
I have fond memories of music class at primary school. The teacher would produce a box of tambourines and spoons and strange clattery things pretending to be musical instruments, and you could just pick them up and shake them enthusiastically in no kind of rhythm and call it music. So easy! I always got the jingly sleighbell thing, but between you and me, I really wanted the guiro. I had guiro envy. My friendship with Georgina Jones nearly ended for ever when she got the guiro and I didn’t.
All of this came flooding back at choir this week as Emma in the first sops, who is a music teacher in her non-choir time, laid out a selection of school percussion instruments. Various members of the choir will be attempting to play these for our performance of Whitacre’s “Cloudburst” at our Southwark concert in June. Cloudburst is a superb piece of complex harmonies and interesting extra sound effects, hence our sudden foray into the world of percussion.
Emma’s borrowed chimes were considerably more professional-looking than the matchboxes and bits of roller skates that passed for musical equipment in my school. They were super-cool triangular metal thingies with an attached clapper. There was a bit of a melee while everyone reverted to their inner 6-year-old and tried to grab a chime. I remembered the distress caused by Guirogate and decided to magnanimously rise above my need to do so, which turned out to be a good call as I then realised some of the chimes actually had to follow a melody. I think that might have been beyond my percussive abilities. Everyone peered at their scores in confusion and tried to shake their chime in time to the music. “Whose got top A?” David-the-conductor asked. No-one had top A. Not to be thwarted, David produced a bright pink mini-handbell that played approximately the right note and tried to hand it out to the tenors, who all shifted uncomfortably in their seats. This was clearly a bridge too far even for the campest of them. Luckily an alto came to the rescue. “G#!” cried David. Everyone peered around for a G#. “There definitely is a G#” muttered Emma, but G# had clearly lost their nerve. Out came another handbell. We proceeded laboriously through the chime melody, struggling to keep the pace even. It was like church bell-ringing on a drunk Sunday afternoon. Then came the freestyle section where the chimes could play as they wished – hurrah! Those of us who were chimeless began to simulate the sound of rain by clicking our fingers. “Now start slapping your thighs” ordered David. We obviously couldn’t do this and read the music at the same time, so down went the music. The people with chimes were going mental, while the rest of us were crouched over, slapping our thighs and trying to read our music off the floor. Suddenly the soprano line rose to the stratosphere. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to hit top B from a bent-legged crouch but believe me, it’s not easy. I think a couple of us made it, but it definitely wasn’t me as I was laughing too hard. I can honestly say I’ve never had so much fun at choir. Can we do percussion every week? I’ll buy my own guiro and everything.
All of this came flooding back at choir this week as Emma in the first sops, who is a music teacher in her non-choir time, laid out a selection of school percussion instruments. Various members of the choir will be attempting to play these for our performance of Whitacre’s “Cloudburst” at our Southwark concert in June. Cloudburst is a superb piece of complex harmonies and interesting extra sound effects, hence our sudden foray into the world of percussion.
Emma’s borrowed chimes were considerably more professional-looking than the matchboxes and bits of roller skates that passed for musical equipment in my school. They were super-cool triangular metal thingies with an attached clapper. There was a bit of a melee while everyone reverted to their inner 6-year-old and tried to grab a chime. I remembered the distress caused by Guirogate and decided to magnanimously rise above my need to do so, which turned out to be a good call as I then realised some of the chimes actually had to follow a melody. I think that might have been beyond my percussive abilities. Everyone peered at their scores in confusion and tried to shake their chime in time to the music. “Whose got top A?” David-the-conductor asked. No-one had top A. Not to be thwarted, David produced a bright pink mini-handbell that played approximately the right note and tried to hand it out to the tenors, who all shifted uncomfortably in their seats. This was clearly a bridge too far even for the campest of them. Luckily an alto came to the rescue. “G#!” cried David. Everyone peered around for a G#. “There definitely is a G#” muttered Emma, but G# had clearly lost their nerve. Out came another handbell. We proceeded laboriously through the chime melody, struggling to keep the pace even. It was like church bell-ringing on a drunk Sunday afternoon. Then came the freestyle section where the chimes could play as they wished – hurrah! Those of us who were chimeless began to simulate the sound of rain by clicking our fingers. “Now start slapping your thighs” ordered David. We obviously couldn’t do this and read the music at the same time, so down went the music. The people with chimes were going mental, while the rest of us were crouched over, slapping our thighs and trying to read our music off the floor. Suddenly the soprano line rose to the stratosphere. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to hit top B from a bent-legged crouch but believe me, it’s not easy. I think a couple of us made it, but it definitely wasn’t me as I was laughing too hard. I can honestly say I’ve never had so much fun at choir. Can we do percussion every week? I’ll buy my own guiro and everything.
Saturday 15 May 2010
How long would it take to walk to Madrid?
One of the most enjoyable parts of choir life is going on tour abroad - singing fantastic music to confused but happy local audiences, and then partying till we fall over. Friendships are formed, photos are taken, light blackmail is undertaken over said photos once we return to the UK. But getting there isn’t normally as much of a challenge as our end of May tour to Madrid is shaping up to be. The volcanic ash situation just hasn’t caused enough uncertainty, so BA have decided to really lottery it up by going on strike. A sizeable portion of the choir are flying BA, so it’s quite exciting to see what will actually happen. Will all of the men get stuck at Heathrow, and the altos will have to sing bass? If so, will the men enterprisingly form the Terminal 1 Male Voice Choir to entertain captive audiences of stranded travellers, leading to a reality TV show? What if David-the-conductor doesn’t make it – will we each have to take turns conducting? I may have to fake a broken arm if so. Two broken arms. And a leg. That should be enough to get me out of it.
Anyway if we do get to Madrid somehow we’ll be singing bits of music from the forthcoming June concert, but also, I’m delighted to say, bits from the Leighton and Martin masses we did back in March in freezing St Andrews church. Hurray! Memories of the extreme cold came flooding back as I opened the Leighton, and I shivered fondly with nostalgia, and then shivered a bit more with trepidation as we turned to the 5/4 hosannas which gave us such grief last time. We sang through the hosannas again to refresh ourselves, and it was a game attempt, but I don’t think we were singing in anything approaching 5/4 – it was kind of a combination of 6/4 and plainchant. We’ll be fine once we’ve got back into the swing of it though. Rather more worrying was the Benedictus. I know I only sang it two months ago, but I have absolutely no memory of it whatsoever. None. And the rest of the sops were all over the place too, even though it’s an easy sing. I was definitely there in the concert, and I’ve got notes in the score, and they’re in my own handwriting and everything. So the only possible explanation is that there was a Men in Black moment in the concert, and we had our memories wiped after witnessing an alien invasion. But perhaps I shouldn’t blow the whistle like this! If there’s no blog entry next week, I will have been kidnapped and taken off for re-education. Please inform Amnesty International.
Anyway if we do get to Madrid somehow we’ll be singing bits of music from the forthcoming June concert, but also, I’m delighted to say, bits from the Leighton and Martin masses we did back in March in freezing St Andrews church. Hurray! Memories of the extreme cold came flooding back as I opened the Leighton, and I shivered fondly with nostalgia, and then shivered a bit more with trepidation as we turned to the 5/4 hosannas which gave us such grief last time. We sang through the hosannas again to refresh ourselves, and it was a game attempt, but I don’t think we were singing in anything approaching 5/4 – it was kind of a combination of 6/4 and plainchant. We’ll be fine once we’ve got back into the swing of it though. Rather more worrying was the Benedictus. I know I only sang it two months ago, but I have absolutely no memory of it whatsoever. None. And the rest of the sops were all over the place too, even though it’s an easy sing. I was definitely there in the concert, and I’ve got notes in the score, and they’re in my own handwriting and everything. So the only possible explanation is that there was a Men in Black moment in the concert, and we had our memories wiped after witnessing an alien invasion. But perhaps I shouldn’t blow the whistle like this! If there’s no blog entry next week, I will have been kidnapped and taken off for re-education. Please inform Amnesty International.
Friday 7 May 2010
Mystic Madrigali
Our coming concert at the end of June sees a welcome return for an Oriana favourite – Lauridsen’s Madrigali. The Madrigali, or “Fire songs” are based on poems that describe the pain of unrequited love, and the music depicts this through some gorgeous dissonant clashes. They’re very satisfying to sing, and we’ll be pairing them with Monteverdi settings of the same poems so there will be some exciting contrasts of style.
Difficult though the Madrigali are, we did them in concert only last year, so lots of us already know them well and hopefully they’ll only need a bit of tweaking to get them back up to scratch. There was some struggling at this week’s rehearsal to maintain the semitone clashes without blending into one note – the basses in particular were being seduced into consonance by the altos – but by the end of rehearsal we were getting the notes well under control. So now the most challenging bit is trying to fit all the words in to the musical line. The songs are pretty fast, and my Italian is restricted to “ciao” and “cappuccino”, so I was rather letting the side down on clear diction. My contributions were along the lines of “ng, ng ng ng ng –o-re, ng, ng ng ng ng - vi-o”. But I made up for my shortcomings by ostentatiously rolling every “r” for a good two bars, and I’m pretty sure David-the-Conductor was fooled.
Lauridsen is an American composer of Dutch parentage, born in 1943. According to “Choral Music in the Twentieth Century” Lauridsen is the most frequently performed American choral composer, but also, rather surprisingly, the only American composer who can also be called a mystic. I’m not sure what that means. Do you suppose he has the gift of prophecy through composition? To test the theory I have been painstakingly translating the first Madrigal, which goes as follows:
“Ov’e, lass’, il bel viso?” (oy vey, lass, do you take visa?)
“Dov’il mio sol?” (Is that my Dover Sole?)
Lasso, che velo s’e post’inanti et rend’oscur’il? (Alas, what veil drapes itself and renders the heavens dark?)
Wow – hold the presses - Mystic Morten has predicted the ash cloud! And a day in the life of a kosher restaurant in York! Truly he is the new Nostradamus. So get your tickets for our concert now – not only will you hear great music, you’ll also learn the future.
Difficult though the Madrigali are, we did them in concert only last year, so lots of us already know them well and hopefully they’ll only need a bit of tweaking to get them back up to scratch. There was some struggling at this week’s rehearsal to maintain the semitone clashes without blending into one note – the basses in particular were being seduced into consonance by the altos – but by the end of rehearsal we were getting the notes well under control. So now the most challenging bit is trying to fit all the words in to the musical line. The songs are pretty fast, and my Italian is restricted to “ciao” and “cappuccino”, so I was rather letting the side down on clear diction. My contributions were along the lines of “ng, ng ng ng ng –o-re, ng, ng ng ng ng - vi-o”. But I made up for my shortcomings by ostentatiously rolling every “r” for a good two bars, and I’m pretty sure David-the-Conductor was fooled.
Lauridsen is an American composer of Dutch parentage, born in 1943. According to “Choral Music in the Twentieth Century” Lauridsen is the most frequently performed American choral composer, but also, rather surprisingly, the only American composer who can also be called a mystic. I’m not sure what that means. Do you suppose he has the gift of prophecy through composition? To test the theory I have been painstakingly translating the first Madrigal, which goes as follows:
“Ov’e, lass’, il bel viso?” (oy vey, lass, do you take visa?)
“Dov’il mio sol?” (Is that my Dover Sole?)
Lasso, che velo s’e post’inanti et rend’oscur’il? (Alas, what veil drapes itself and renders the heavens dark?)
Wow – hold the presses - Mystic Morten has predicted the ash cloud! And a day in the life of a kosher restaurant in York! Truly he is the new Nostradamus. So get your tickets for our concert now – not only will you hear great music, you’ll also learn the future.
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