Hi everyone, an excellent 90 minutes of singing this week, very encouraging. I must apologise for forgetting to bring the stand for my phone, which means that I don’t have recordings of your performances. But the fact that we are now talking about dynamics, phrasing and sound rather than notes is great.
We started with our encore piece, Underneath the Stars. Note-wise, this now seems pretty much learned. Rhythms are the thing here. There are a couple of spots where we are not quite together. If you can, sing along to it with your hand tapping your thigh. But overall a very nice sound.
Another piece we have not spent a lot of time on, O Holy Night, we tidied up knowing which notes to sing, and making sure we can hit them. The harmonies are pretty simple, but need to be totally solid. Again, it sounded close to where it needs to be for the concerts.
Lully, Lulla, Lullay is one that we need to be doing without the piano, and although we drifted a little flat, the sound was good. Plenty of dynamics, including the entire second verse in loud and angry mode. And thining about phrasing – Lully Lulla – COMMA – Lully Lullay; By by lully lullay without a break.
In the Stillness was a big improvement on last time. Those last lines of each verse, which go very low, were much better. Keep checking that you know your notes there. And keep those lines moving. The slower ‘in the calmness’ and ‘in the quietness’ can make the music drag and that makes it harder to keep the harmonies together. Sopranos, the rising arpeggio of the coda, ‘There’s a patience as we wait for a new morn’ is still a challenge – getting up high enough on each note is hard. That phrase for everyone could be improved, so if you have time sing that a few times.
The big Dark Night came together very well. The piano part will mask a few bits of uncertain notes, but it would be better if we felt 100% certain that we know them. But again, the sing through from start to finish was almost performance-ready.
In place of our repertoire piece, we sang the two pieces that we worked on last week at the end, once through in performance ranks. Sleep was the best we have sung it. While I would love to be able to sing it without Robert’s support on the piano, I think we have found a way to do it that sounds right. And Sure on this Shining Night was also very nice. Speeds were generally ok – basses and tenors, just make sure you don’t lag in the very first section, and everyone needs to be watching me as we ‘meno mosso’ our way down to a ‘sense of wonder’ towards the end. No breath where Mr Lauridsen specifies no breath, and we are fine tuning for a performance rather than worrying about notes.
Very encouraging, but not there yet, so keep using the practice tracks if that is your thing, and please do your best to be at as many of the THREE remaining rehearsals before the Holly Lodge concert kicks off our winter season.
Have a good week
Chris