Dear all
Many thanks for a fantastic first rehearsal of the year. It felt great to be back!
We made a great start on the Mozart Requiem on Tuesday. We spent a good proportion of the rehearsal on the opening movement, which sounds very solid already. The key is making sure entries are in the right place, especially given how slow the movement is.
We then looked at the Sanctus and Hosanna, which is a short but difficult fugue (because it is fast). We handled this very well. My real bugbear is words in the Sanctus – ‘Dominus Deus Sabaoth’ (pronounce both ‘s’s between deus and sabaoth), ‘pleni sunt coeli’ (clearly pronounce all consonants, no ‘pleni sun coeli’!)
We finally looked at the Dies Irae. This section is pure operatic drama, so we need to bring out that character. We looked a lot at dynamics towards the end of the movement, which were sounding good.
As mentioned at the end, we will also be singing the complete set of Birthday Madrigals by Rutter in the concert, so please bring copies to future rehearsal. We may also include the Spirituals from A Child of Our Time by Tippett – to be confirmed!
Finally, I mentioned that I am singing in an opera in a couple of weeks. I am playing Don Jose in an amateur production of Carmen with the new London Opera Group on Thursday 23rd and Saturday 25th January in Holy Trinity Church, Prince Consort Road, South Kensington (right by the Royal Albert Hall). More details and links to tickets on the Facebook event here – https://www.facebook.com/events/440053776689766/ – would be great to see some friendly faces in the audience!
All best
Dave