#MemorisedMessiah
Even up North they don’t do this – sing the Messiah from memory. The Bristol Choral Society do it every year, and although newcomers are offered a rather gentler way in I have decided to do it the hard way. Presumably it gets easier each year. [2015: it does]
We are doing all but four (I think) choruses. It seems very daunting when you have a score and a piano, but is easier in rehearsal. This is partly because we are brought in by our conductor, but also because hearing other parts and the harmony often guides you to where your entries are. And it’s coming in that’s usually the hardest thing to do from memory. There is also a certain amount of ‘muscle memory’ where you can recall the precise feeling of what it was like to sing the music before, down to how many beats you were silent in.
I have sung and heard the Messiah enough times to have most of the music in my head, so it is a case of slotting it into the right place, and not doing anything conspicuous at the wrong time. Some things that one might expect to be difficult are not. I had all the florid passages more or less from memory already because there are too many notes for you to read them off the page. Final cadences are deeply engrained in the memory too. I have my work cut out with Let us break their bonds asunder and Lift up your heads which are not always done; the latter of these has a split soprano part too, so I’ve done my part even less often. Of the movements which are always performed, I think that the chorus I find hardest to memorise is He trusted in God which I never feel I sing confidently even with a score!