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Hi everyone,
I was going to welcome you to the second step in our term's work rehearsals, since I told you at the end of rehearsal that we'd now seen and worked on everything! I lied. Well, not intentionally. We haven't looked at "Psalm of Life" at all yet. Truth be told, I'm trying to decide whether to include it. Probably, before last Tuesday I would have leaned toward cutting it, since we have so much to work on—and then we had that extremely productive rehearsal! Stay tuned. If we accomplish the agenda for next Tuesday, we'll have a look at "Psalm of Life" at the first March rehearsal.
I was just so surprised and gratified at the progress we made last week, especially with the surprising number of singers absent. Hopefully they will hear your confidence and not take too long to catch up.
Here's the plan, with some indication of special things/places I'll focus on:
Alzheimer's Stories
I want us to feel the continuity through the whole second movement now. I've pulled out little bits, since the stories are all so different in atmosphere, but now we'll go for the flow, always with the accompaniment. Altos and then tenors have the first stories, and we'll aim for more clarity of text and certainly some facial alarm as Mom passes out behind the wheel.
Sopranos and altos, I'm going to ask you to be clear and light, rhythmically precise as you mimic the ticking clock, but definitely a level softer than the story of the Grandfather brought by the tenors and basses. At letter J, you're all clocks, with the tenors sort of a booming Big Ben. Basses do have a sort of melody, but every note is sort of separate. And then there are the first sopranos before letter L...holy cow! With the boat to Panama, you just have comments, and with Navy Dad you've got both spoken and sung commentary, with appropriate faces (and notes), squarely in time—we'll work on that. It's interesting how many stories are being told at the same time, during that last section. We'll have Brenda clock-ticking along throughout that part, until we take a big break before the last beat on p. 66: get in the habit of looking up in that last measure, because I'll stretch things out a lot.
"We Beheld Once Again the Stars"
Boy, I know that things were sounding great in our separate rooms on the fast section! I could sense the excitement building as you all could tell what a thrilling buildup it has. We'll have one more session separated, to try to incorporate those who missed last week, before putting it together. One way you can keep from forgetting the work we did will be to speak the text to yourselves, with strong rhythmic emphasis. That will also help you to get used to where your part is, on the page. In this portion, every section is equally important: it's a real battle!
And do enjoy and milk the contrast within the expressive portions, really showing the rise and fall of text emphases such as MAH-lah NOH-tay, ree-SOOR-jay.
"Alway Something Sings"
We just need some more time on p. 9 to the end. From p. 11 on, it's as broad and strong as we can make it, with beautiful tone! And with the final pages of "Ah," we're just soaring high above the earth on a glider.
Can't wait to see you all on Tuesday!
Solveig
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