I’ve been a bit quiet recently. Most of my singing activity has been rehearsing for the 3 Choirs Festival, and what goes on in the rehearsal room stays in the rehearsal room, or at any rate doesn’t appear here. I’ve also been doing some negotiating in connexion with another choir I have sung in, which I’m not going to discuss online.
One side-effect of performing six major works (plus some bits and pieces in the opening service) all in one go is thinking about how they play off against one another and what they have in common. Berlioz and Mahler, for example, as well as sharing a taste for the gargantuan, have a way of doing really profound things with apparently trite melodies (no shortage of those in Carmina Burana either). How do Elgar and Mahler tackle the theme of the Holy Spirit? What about the way Elgar and Mendelssohn deal with setting Biblical stories? How do Vaughan Williams and Berlioz depict lamentation? Where can you trace the influence of plainsong in Elgar and Berlioz? Any significance in the fact that three of our composers are of Jewish descent? It will be interesting to ponder these sorts of questions with all the pieces in close juxtaposition.