aimez-vous Brahms?

Posted on March 25, 2004 by vhk10

I read the novel of this title recently, though Brahms’ music doesn’t really feature in it except as a chat-up line. Last Saturday I sang in his German Requiem in Bath Abbey. For this the Chantry Singers joined forces with the Bristol Bach Choir, who are comparable apart from being rather more numerous. They don’t seem to be affected by the current shortage of singers relative to choirs in Bristol, as they have a substantial waiting list in some voices.

A few years ago I was sorry to miss an opportunity to sing this with the Bath Camerata. But that would have been with organ, and it really does need an orchestra. I can’t imagine being left cold by this work, but it was clear from talking to others in the choir that some of them were. Perhaps I’ll write about my own blind spots some other time.

It was hard work rehearsing this with small numbers, all the more so because some sopranos either weren’t doing this concert at all or were singing alto. I can think of few choral works I’ve sung which have such intensive choral writing, with little time off: Israel in Egypt, or Cherubini’s Requiem (the latter of which dispenses with soloists alogether). This time round I felt much more comfortable with the demands it made than I did when I first sang it.

The space for singers in the Abbey is limited by the narrow nave, and I was in about the fifth row of sopranos and altos (out of eight). This only works if everyone (especially towards the back) watches the beat closely, as I think we did. I don’t attempt to review here performances in which I took part, but I’m told we got a good writeup in the Bath Chronicle, though it didn’t make it to the online edition.

The next thing I do is Rejoice in the Lamb on Palm Sunday. I am doing the soprano/treble solo in this (for the first time); it has similar interplay of two against three to the Copland I did recently, but at a much slower tempo! Arrangements for Westminster Cathedral on April 17th are also falling into place nicely.

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Mid-Somerset madness

Posted on March 19, 2004 by vhk10

Actually, there wasn’t very much madness about it, but it makes a good headline. I competed as planned in the Mid-Somerset Festival yesterday, in two classes: the Handel aria class (where I performed Cara Sposa from Rinaldo) , and the English-language song after 1940 class (where I performed Dear March, come in! by Copland). In both I neither distinguished nor disgraced myself.

With hindsight I realise that I should have committed my songs to memory earlier, as this would have allowed me to concentrate more in performance on the expressive touches which the adjudicator found wanting. Losing my voice for a week earlier this month didn’t help, but the fact remains that I would have found this task less daunting if I were more in the habit of learning music from memory!

The adjudicator also commented (à propos Handel) that my tone was a bit uneven and generally my singing needed more physical involvement. This is a fair comment and Jane Manning said much the same to me when I took part in a workshop with her a couple of years ago, so there must be something in it. I admit that I can be lazy in this respect, particularly if I’m concentrating on other aspects of performance. Partly it is the legacy of some tension problems I used to have and which I hope I’ve now banished for good. But I sometimes sing as if they were still there. Also, in the past I’ve spent too much time in choirs where I was forced to choose between singing with projection and focus, and blending in with the people around me. In one case I even had to put up with persistent critical comments in my hearing about this from another singer. I vowed not to be intimidated into singing badly, but I still have a tendency to keep my head down (in both senses!)

Do I regret entering the competition? No. Would I do it again? Yes, I think so, if only to see if I could improve on my performances this time.

I used to be on an email list for singers and I remember how boring it could be when people analysed their own performances and technique at length. I’ll write again soon, about the Brahms Requiem (tomorrow night!)

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playing at services

Posted on March 15, 2004 by vhk10

While our organist has been away, I’ve had to play at some services at church. As I’m not an organist, this has usually meant playing hymns on the piano (and conducting unaccompanied mass settings) but I did play our small electronic chamber organ a couple of times. This instrument is clearly intended for secular use, or at least not for our sort of church. I have wondered about the effect of accompanying the psalm with ‘Rhythmic Wah’ (sounds like what babies do when they’re hungry) or the ‘O Salutaris’ with ‘Bossa Nova 2’.
Meanwhile, my day at the Mid-Somerset Festival gets ever nearer and is now only 3 days away. My main worry is of not doing myself justice – having a memory lapse or my voice going abruptly. And I wish there were some way of performing without being directly in competition with others. It was clear that many of us in the Brandon Hill Singers also sang solo, or in small groups, more than could be accommodated in solo slots in our concerts. From time to time I’d come across others in the choir doing this, and I suggested to some the idea of having a choir party where those who wanted could perform a short turn to the others. I’d have enjoyed this, for the chance to hear what others did rather than the opportunity to perform myself. But the choir folded and we all dispersed.

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Master of the Queen’s Music

Posted on March 10, 2004 by vhk10

At last it’s been announced that Peter Maxwell Davies will hold this post for the next ten years. I met him once (at least, we were in the same room!) when he was director of the Dartington summer school.

For the last hundred years, it’s been the intention that the Master should be a distinguished composer. They haven’t always stood the test of time, though; is anything by Walter Parratt, other than a few Anglican chants, still performed? And I struggle to think of anything by Walford Davies, other than a few anthems, short organ pieces, military marches, and, erm, Anglican chants. I can’t imagine anyone naming their son Walford in his honour now, as someone did in about 1960 (I once went on a choir tour with this Walford’s wife). Actually, I find it pretty hard to imagine anyone doing this even in 1960. I think Maxwell Davies’ major compositions will not be so easily forgotten, even if he hasn’t written any Anglican chants.

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the missing chamber choirs of Manchester

Posted on March 2, 2004 by vhk10

In the mid 1990’s I lived in Manchester, and moved there with high hopes of lots of interesting singing possibilities. Looking back on that time now, I am still baffled and dismayed by the fact that, fresh from a choral award at Cambridge, I never found a place there in a good, small choir that met frequently, despite four years of trying.

There was a great shortage of such choirs, for which I suggest some possible reasons below. Places in the choirs that existed were jealously guarded and rarely fell vacant. At the time I moved away, neither the Manchester Chorale nor the Maia Singers had had a soprano vacancy for some three years. With hindsight, I was wasting my time even enquiring about joining them! The William Byrd Singers went for two years without a vacancy before I auditioned, unsuccessfully (I was competing against someone returning to the choir after an absence, and against a vocal student at the RNCM). I did however sing with the John Powell Singers, a chamber choir who performed occasional concerts, services and radio broadcasts.

I’ve sometimes come across singers of about my standard who held down places in more than one of these choirs. I therefore estimate that during 1992-96 the soprano places in the chamber choirs I knew about were filled by no more than 30 singers, in an urban area with a population of millions!

I realised how limited Manchester’s chamber choir scene had been when I moved, and had no difficulty in finding singing at the right level in Bath or Bristol. I also suspect that had I been a tenor or bass, I’d have found a place in a choir of this type in Manchester just as easily. Perhaps I was just unlucky, as I’ve heard of other singers having similar experiences elsewhere.

I attribute the shortage of chamber choirs partly to the strong North of England tradition of large choral societies. Also possibly to a lack of suitable performance venues. (Early in the 20th century almost all the parish churches in Manchester city centre were closed and demolished. No one thought of turning one of them into a small concert hall, similar to St. George’s in Bristol). Or maybe to low audiences for chamber choir concerts.

If anyone who was singing in Manchester at this time reads this, I’d be interested to hear their comments. Why were there so few chamber choirs, and such a low turnover of sopranos? Did none of them ever move away from the area or take time out to have a baby? Were the choirs’ waiting lists for auditions organised or chaotic? Was I trying the wrong choirs? Were there others which would have suited me, but whose publicity I never saw? Is the situation better now?

I have now also written about my experiences with Manchester’s church choirs.

I’ve closed this item to comments now but I received an interesting comment on it here.

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Britten and Duruflé for Holy Week

Posted on February 25, 2004 by vhk10

I’ve accepted invitations to take part in in a couple of concerts in Holy Week. On Palm Sunday I shall be singing Rejoice in the Lamb for the first time in over a decade. I remember it accurately enough, but also make the same mistakes as I used to! Despite (or perhaps because of) the rather dotty words, I prefer it to Brittens Hymn to St. Cecilia.

On Good Friday I shall be singing in Durufléis Requiem in Oxford. Conductor, organist and both soloists are all known to me by a variety of routes, so it should be fun socially. I prefer this setting to the Fauré, which I find can be insipid. On the other hand I’ve been over-exposed to it, mainly because Duruflé was a cult composer in some of the circles I moved in in Cambridge, and I’ve never considered his music to be that special. I would be happy never to perform Ubi caritas et amor again, and not just because the sopranos don’t do much in it!

Westminster Cathedral will let us do the Tallis Mass setting, and we are negotiating how to share Sheffield Cathedral with various other things that are going on there the weekend we visit.

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memory

Posted on February 20, 2004 by vhk10

This year, for the first time, I’m entering the Mid-Somerset Festival. I am competing in two classes, singing a Handel aria and a song by Copland. I took part in a similar event years ago, and didn’t enjoy it, perhaps because I feel that music isn’t essentially a competitive activity. Competitions are a necessary evil for people wanting a career as performers, but not compulsory for the rest of us!
I decided to take the plunge this year for a number of reasons. I wanted to perform something secular for a change. The adjudicator’s comments are also potentially valuable (though you can get similar feedback by taking part in a masterclass). And it might raise my profile a little locally, as most of my singing is done outside Bath. It’s already caused a certain amount of interest among fellow Chantry Singers, who on the whole aren’t aware that I do solo singing as well. And there seem to be a lot of Mid-Somerset Festival anecdotes from past years.

There’s a catch, though – unlike the other competition I once entered, you have to perform from memory! I don’t habitually do this, though I once gave a half-hour recital from memory so I know I’m capable of it. There doesn’t seem to be any short cut save singing the music over and gradually weaning yourself from the printed score. I ‘test’ myself on little bits of it at odd moments. The difficulties are different in the two pieces; in the Copland the challenge is getting notes and rests exactly the right length, whereas you don’t realise how much Handel permutes the various parts of his short text until you have to memorise his setting. Fortunately I have an accompanist I can trust.

Meanwhile, I make yet another thwarted attempt to join the Bath Festival Chorus. I’ve lost count, but this must be about the fifth or sixth failure I’ve had. This time the reason is that the Festival Chorus is not performing at all in the next Bath Festival. This has happened twice in the last four years, and it was not used in the last Mozartfest here either – a worrying trend. So there goes one of my resolutions for 2004 down the tubes!

I have negotiated some parking permits for the summer from Winchester Cathedral and am now trying to find out whether we can get away with doing Tallis’ Mass Puer natus est nobis in Eastertide at Westminster Cathedral.

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which composer are you sitting on?

Posted on February 16, 2004 by vhk10

We’re buying a new sofa and found that several models in a local shop were named after composers. (We think that it may have been the same shop which used to have on sale – quite without irony – an ‘Othello’ double bed.)

The ‘Mahler’ was appropriately well-upholstered and expansive, but we were disappointed that ‘Ives’ wasn’t covered in two different fabrics at once. And the ‘Liszt’ footstool doesn’t seem quite right somehow. The other composer represented is Borodin. We wondered about what others might be like – a minimalist but surprisingly comfortable ‘Webern’, for example.

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things I’d like to sing (2)

Posted on February 12, 2004 by vhk10

A sequel to my earlier posting of anthems etc. I feel overdue for singing. Now for some of the larger scale works. In some cases the reason I haven’t done them is clear; I’ve been in small chamber choirs rather than the large choruses required for them. But I feel the gap every time I hear them broadcast or see the work on a concert poster.

a) Bach’s B minor Mass. In fact, I have done this, with the Schola Cantorum of Oxford when I was a student. But I sang alto because that’s what the members of the choir who auditioned me thought I should sing (it’s the only choir of that size I’ve ever been in where members of the choir rather than the conductor took auditions). This wasn’t very satisfactory for me, or for the choir, as the alto section in general was underpowered and some choral scholars from New College had to be drafted in at the last minute to boost the sound.
I’ve narrowly missed this work a number of times by either joining a choir just after they’d done it, or leaving just before, so not having done it as a soprano is just unlucky.
b) Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Again, I have done this, in Oxford even longer ago. This was a scratch ‘come and sing’ performance with organ. Unfortunately the Evangelist fell ill and they couldn’t find a replacement and his words were spoken. So an unsatisfactory performance in the days when I was a novice singer and I feel I haven’t actually performed the work at all. [I took part in a very fine performance in Bath in April 2007]
c) Until a couple of years ago I hadn’t done any Handel oratorio other than Messiah; then I got to do Israel in Egypt. But I haven’t sung any of the others.
d) Likewise, I’ve done the Nelson Mass a couple of times but none of the other large-scale Haydn masses.
e) Despite its killer soprano lines, I would love to sing in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. I was unlucky last year as the Bath Festival Chorus did it but I was away during too many of the rehearsals to be able to sing.

There are a whole lot of other more recent works that I’ve missed out on: Mahler’s 2nd, the Glagolitic Mass [done this now], Belshazzar’s Feast, Poulenc’s Gloria [done this now], the War Requiem [done this now!], Bruckner’s masses [done the F minor one now] are some that come to mind.

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singing at the nursery

Posted on February 6, 2004 by vhk10

Yesterday I repeated something I did a couple of years ago and went to my son’s nursery to lead the children there in some singing. They like parents to come in and do things for the children from time to time if they have appropriate skills. So I sat in a rocking chair and we (me, about 30 children and nursery staff) sang nursery rhymes and children’s songs for about 20 minutes. This time round I was a bit more aware of current versions than I was before, when the little ones startled me with an extra bit of ‘Baa baa black sheep’ that must have been added since I was a child!

My son’s favourite song at the moment is the one which runs through the alphabet to the tune of the first three lines of ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’. This gets you as far as W; X, Y and Z are then delivered in a kind of Sprechgesänge at the end. When my daughter was not quite two, we suddenly noticed her doing the standard actions while we were listening to Mozart’s piano variations on this theme on a CD.

One thing I notice at all the children’s singing groups I’ve been to is that songs tend to be pitched lower than is necessary for children’s naturally high voices. (It’s a tendency that worries some music teachers too!) The extreme case was one a couple of years ago where the (female) leader was I think a heavy smoker and rarely ventured above even middle C. I try to avoid doing this if I’m leading, and if others sink into the basement I just sing those bits an octave up.

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secular gringing

Posted on February 3, 2004 by vhk10

This item of news appeared on the BBC website yesterday. Of course it’s not really news because organists have been sneaking secular themes into their improvisations for as long as they’ve been able to improvise in church.

I once spent a week in Canterbury Cathedral during which the organist decided to challenge the choir to keep a straight face as they walked in each day. We were treated to, amongst other things, the theme from Postman Pat (evidently a favourite for this treatment) and the 007 theme. The latter was slowed down so that had I not known in advance that it would be played, I would not have recognised it!

Another friend of mine in my student days used to include Tristan chords in his pre-service improvisation at a local church. His friends in the congregation would nudge one another as they came round.
The organist in the article, Matthew Redman, is known to me as we were in Manchester at the same time and later in Bath he was organist at the church I then attended, although I don’t think he ever heard me sing.

I enjoy the Ship of Fools website, especially comparing the Mystery Worshipper’s accounts of services at various churches I know with my own experience of them.

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a large interval

Posted on January 29, 2004 by vhk10

Not the musical kind (though there are quite a few of those involved), but the length of time since I last performed Brahms’ German Requiem, which I am doing with the Chantry Singers this term. The only other time I performed this work was when I was a student and just starting out as a choral singer. Since then I’ve only performed a couple of isolated movements as anthems. And I’ve never done any of it in German.

I’ve never before performed a work after such a long interval (it will be exceeded if I ever do the St. Matthew Passion). Somewhat to my surprise, many in the choir have not done it at all, so I’m not surrounded by people who know it any better. I find that my memory of it is very patchy – I can have no memory of a particular passage and then the next phrase comes back with total recall! This can have the curious result that I know the harder passages of the work better, presumably because I put more effort into learning them all those years ago. I suspect that when I first sang it I didn’t learn the notes all that thoroughly; I was less disciplined about this in those days, and also less confident and more likely to rely on others for leads. Of course I can supplement my limited memory with recollection of the work from having heard it on broadcasts or recordings.

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