{"id":1388,"date":"2011-12-12T23:57:09","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T05:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2011-12-12T23:57:09","modified_gmt":"2011-12-13T05:57:09","slug":"choral-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1388","title":{"rendered":"Choral Author"},"content":{"rendered":"

So…a week ago I was just coming home from the dress rehearsal for Messiah<\/em>, feeling better about it than I had at the first rehearsal with GuestConductor.\u00a0 He had slowed fractionally at the first orchestra rehearsal on Sunday night, when the orchestra also had some problems…and we’d left just as the soloists were starting their rehearsal.\u00a0 Dress rehearsal was pretty much straight through, with soloists in their order, and there was another fractional slowing.\u00a0 Not quite enough, and the tempo was still not steady through some of the faster choruses (speeding up as we went along.)\u00a0 But by this time we had figured out what to do about it–thanks to the tools that UsualConductor had given us over the previous rehearsals (and, in my case, the years of singing under him and taking voice lessons from him.)<\/p>\n

So Tuesday night was looking like a possible save.\u00a0\u00a0 UsualConductor had sent us all a very encouraging email Saturday night, telling us that though he knew we’d felt blindsided and clumsy with the much faster tempi on the fast choruses and much slower on the slow, we’d actually held it together and sounded pretty good.<\/p>\n

Now usually the Messiah concert is sold out.\u00a0\u00a0 This time, it wasn’t–numbers WAY down.\u00a0 I don’t think that had anything to do with GuestConductor–I think it was the economy plus the weather plus the venue.\u00a0 I hope to goodness they schedule us into the real concert hall some year and get us out of that miserable carpeted vault with the lousy acoustics and terrible parking for performers (it’s one of those megachurches designed for amped performances), but I suspect they won’t.<\/p>\n

Anyway…UsualConductor managed to come himself and warm us up, then rushed off to warm himself up for the tenor solos.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most of us had done this several times before, and thus knew how to line up, and emerge from the choir room and get to our seats in seemly fashion.\u00a0 (Four lines of us.)\u00a0\u00a0 Having spent several Messiahs on the top row of the risers (where a wicked draft comes up your back)\u00a0 and next to the tenors, I now had an assigned seat one row down next to one of the best altos we have, and only one away from the sopranos.\u00a0\u00a0 But I was used to that from the two previous rehearsals, and always like to have C- in my left ear.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t care what section’s singing in my right ear, but when I’ve got the tenors in my left ear it’s hard not to jump in with them.\u00a0 Weird but true.<\/p>\n

We had time, with the little Pastoral Symphony section first, and then UsualDirector singing the first tenor chorus and recitative, to settle ourselves and then we launched into the first chorus.\u00a0\u00a0 There is, for me, no greater thrill than singing great music with orchestral accompaniment to an audience…comparable to taking off at a gallop across country on a fast horse.\u00a0\u00a0 So, as we settled into it and realized we were handling the tempi as sectional units, not just individuals struggling, we got happier.\u00a0\u00a0 On a couple of choruses the melismas weren’t as crisp as they would have been slower–but almost.<\/p>\n

The final chorus–which is a wrought-iron stinker in which the inexperienced easily get lost (and the experienced if they try to sing it on automatic)\u00a0 was as strong as it should be–we had, as recommended, reserved something for it.\u00a0\u00a0 (For those who don’t know it, it’s a fugue on “Amen”\u00a0 and the head motif is handed off from section to section while the other sections have other motifs and weird little accented bits…it’s gorgeous, but boy can you mess it up, and you can also make it dull and boring if you don’t carve out the lines with expression.)<\/p>\n

So the audience clearly enjoyed the performance; both conductors gave us a thumbs-up (and at least from UsualConductor, it wasn’t just courtesy.)\u00a0\u00a0 And I got home near midnight.<\/p>\n

Is it worth it to spend the time it takes to rehearse to UsualConductor’s standard and do these extra performances?\u00a0\u00a0 It is for me, for several reasons.\u00a0 First, because music nourishes me–complex music more than simple.\u00a0 Second, because when singing in choir I’m not the boss…having to subordinate my authority regularly is good for me (and for the writing.)\u00a0\u00a0 Third, it’s social–something a solitary writer needs…it exposes me to real live people on a regular basis and enriches my understanding of them (it’s not ALL singing.)<\/p>\n

And now, back to the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So…a week ago I was just coming home from the dress rehearsal for Messiah, feeling better about it than I had at the first rehearsal with GuestConductor.\u00a0 He had slowed fractionally at the first orchestra rehearsal on Sunday night, when the orchestra also had some problems…and we’d left just as the soloists were starting their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-1388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1390,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}