Choir

I went to a choir last night. I have sung in several choirs, groups and musicals before, but nothing like this one! I may well be punching above my weight.

It all comes of their being so many people here, I guess. This is a regional choir, a Bach chorale I think was the name. There were at least 45 members there, including a healthy range of men. Habitual choir singers in Australia will know how amazing this is, especially to get any tenors at all.

Anyway, I got handed five manuscripts, two of which we were practising this evening. One of those was a Mass by de Padilla (in Latin). The other was a Requiem by Brahms (in German). I was thankful to hear that this was the first rehearsal for both pieces. Imagine my astonishment, when we had warmed up, when we picked up the Latin mass in eight parts and launched in! Sight reading without even a chord given, and a hum of everyone finding their first notes! And it was the tenors that kicked off! Anyone who has ever been in a country musical in Australia knows that tenors, especially, need a lot of encouraging and coaxing and repeats of their bits. This gives the other parts time to read over the music, latch on to a starting note or two, get the feel of the thing... (or have a sneaky whisper to the person next to you, and then get chipped by the poor conductor.) Even when I was in a large university choir in Sydney these things took time. But not here. Whew!

Anyway, after whipping through two movements a couple of times only, it was into the Brahms. No explanations of German lyrics or anything, we were off. They are very lovely, but I am going to have to do a lot of homework on these ones. That's without even looking at the South American Baroque choral music, which has titles that look like they are written in Incan... (Xicochi Xicochi conetzintle is one title!) Then in five weeks I get auditioned. That explains a lot. I wonder how many people don't make it? I will put it all down to experience, and not sook if I don't make the grade; I'm sure that there are other musical groups about that are less challenging. I guess it's just not what I expected from a small town group meeting at the high school hall!

(The flowers were given to us at the party. We are going to London this afternoon and won't be back until Sunday, when I suspect they will have had it. I thought this blog needed some sort of illustration!)