On Saturday I sang in a ‘come and sing’ performance in Derby Cathedral of Vivaldi’s Gloria and Fauré’s Requiem, in aid of a local hospice. My reasons for performing in this event were explained in the last entry. Come and sing performances tend to be rather scrappy because the choir is all-comers and there is only very limited rehearsal time. But this one had some merits. One was the chance to sing the Vivaldi, which I’d never done before (apart from singing the Laudamus Te duet in a service at Holy Trinity, Cambridge once). Also we got fed a buffet before the concert (all the Bakewell tart you could eat!)
Because I hadn’t done the Vivaldi before, I encountered one big problem. I borrowed a Ricordi vocal score from the library, but the edition is about half a century old and clearly in the meantime someone has found some extra bars that Ricordi left out – mostly in solo movements, but also a few in the second choral movement. At first I quickly checked I was singing what was in my score, next I assumed everyone else was coming in a beat too late (it’s happened before!) but then I realised they were also singing different words and at that point I abandoned Ricordi and got hold of a hire copy provided for singers who didn’t have their own.
comments about Vivaldi’s Gloria.