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And......we have liftoff!
I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but we had an actual rehearsal on Tuesday! I'm such an Eeyore that I really expected our settling-in work to take half of the evening! But instead, before you knew it, we were actually making music, and sounding like an actual choir. I don't know when I'm going to learn that singers come to sing, not stand around getting organized.
We've now got a much better plan for arranging ourselves on the risers than the one we tried last Tuesday, one which will give everyone a chance to see and hear, including me. However, Bryan has asked that just for next Tuesday we'll again do that silly thing with the women across the back and the men in front. That was my idea, and in my defense I have to say you never know about something unless you try. We tried, and it was stupid.
There will be additional singers joining us next week, and after they're tucked in we can begin to progress. Next week let's again begin with the Bach, singing the "Sicut locutus est", p.55. We will have printed copies of the Austro-German Latin pronunciation guide, but maybe you can use the electronic version to at least check on the five words involved in that chorus! Really the only surprising and tricky thing in that movement is the need to use a "z" sound (with pitch) when a word begins with "s". That chorus is so big and solid, with no fast passages, that we can really use it to build our sound.
Next we'll dig more deeply into "Fecit potentiam", p.37. Last week we just sang through each section's turn with the theme, and that was fun, but now we'll look at what else is going on. This is one of the more difficult choruses, so I thought we may as well introduce it early. Slow and steady wins the race, so we'll be plodding as we do your part. Don't get scared!
After the break we'll turn our attention to the companion text in the Rutter setting (p.52), to compare the way the two composers exemplify the text as we learn the notes and rhythms. One way to prepare your Rutter score is to either mark out the Latin or underline the italicized English. Again we'll learn slowly, to become comfortable with his many meter (time) changes. This is a long movement, so I hope to allow plenty of time for getting to know it.
One other important thing for you to do this week: please mark the commas, perhaps with little checkmarks, especially in the Bach where the music and text are so small. It will save us all so much time if you do that yourself, so that the reminder to observe commas with a lift doesn't have to be a reason for stopping!
I'm so excited at the way we've jumped right in, really digging into the complexities of our music this term! Bravo, you!
Enjoy this brilliant weather but stay healthy, please. See you next week.
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