We began rehearsal at 9:45. I can't even remember how much we sang. The afternoon was spent in Cockington, a very pretty village next to Torquay, which has a lovely old church. Singing there was irresistible. The acoustics are perfect for a small group - open but fairly dry - and so the top notes were smooth and easy. It's curious how feeling closed-in by a venue will make the high notes strained. We started with some of the sacred half of the programme, but Monica had a great urge to do the Rutter It Was A Lover; most inappropriate for a twelfth-century church, but great fun even though it is Rutter.
Back to St John's for another hour-and-a-half, including more work on the Sandstrom. Sven-David Sandstrom took Purcell's Hear My Prayer, O Lord and added some very strange things to the end. Most of the notes are found in the Purcell - well, all of the notes which are written on the stave (though not always in the same octave - first sops have top C!), but there are also some notated by a downward-pointing triangle: this means make an open vowel sound very quietly at the lowest pitch you possibly can ("lowest" as in "below your range of musical sound"). The other odd notation is a Z below a written note, on an M sound. This is "hum with vibrato". Apart from that, it's random interlaced bits of Hear My Prayer producing even crunchier chords than Purcell deemed necesssary, sung more and more slowly to produce first unease, then detachment, and finally trance.
From the rehearsal of Full Fathom Five (dingdong dingdong etc):"Basses, make sure you don't end up with a large dong."
No comments:
Post a Comment