|
Dear wonderful singers/friends,
We accomplished so much last Tuesday night, largely due to your willingness to follow my plan of its being a check-up, cleanup time, not at all fun but quite necessary, doggedly examining those three movements, slowly checking for any leaks or weak places, so to speak. And it worked! We found quite a number of small sections that improved as we clarified them. We'll do the same thing next Tuesday, tackling the other three movements in which the full choir is involved:
- Tui nati vulnerati p.53
- Virgo virginum p.70
- Quando corpus morietor p.88
We'll also check back on the movement involving the tenors and basses (Fac me vere tecum flere p.62) to be sure everything is in place. It should be, given the fact that we had a fully dedicated 45 minutes of work on it, but it's best to check, anyway. There seems never to be a time when absolutely everyone is there, so we might well find a few stray inaccuracies as we proceed through the term.
Let's all acknowledge that this week's rehearsal could not have happened without our dear Accompanist Emerita, Ann Snelling, stepping in with only a few hours' notice following the news that Brenda was so sick that her principal sent her home from school! Ann didn't miss a beat when I called her to inform her of our need; "Of course!" was her immediate answer. Yes, she was our accompanist when we last prepared this work, but how many of us would remember something from 13 years ago? After I thanked her for helping us at such a crucial time, she said it was great to be together with so many old friends! All I can say is, it's a good thing she liked you back then.
With the hard, rather thankless work we're doing in these two rehearsals, we'll have the luxury of polishing these choral moments through the month of March, finding the meaning in the text and bringing it out so that we can fully communicate it to the audience. Undoubtedly, in the course of the final rehearsals, we'll find yet more corrections to make in notes and rhythms, and certainly in the Latin diction. (After all, you're having to unlearn the Austro-German!) Please do take seriously the need to hear yourself in this process. Unlike in English, Latin vowels must be pure and unchanging: "a" is ALWAYS pronounced "ah", and "i" is ALWAYS "ee"! It's amazing how often I'm still hearing inconsistent "i" vowels, especially from the soprano section! Expect me to stop you over and over about that, so to avoid pain you might just pronounce all the texts slowly at home, to catch yourself in the act.
Our goal is for this performance to be as beautiful as possible, and we're well on the way—but I'm greedy for more!
See you next Tuesday,
| 
