Morning all, nice to see many of you back in singing mood last night.
We started out (after a bit of Australian rounding – try getting that earworm out of your head) with a new piece – Geistliches Lied by Brahms. A choir like us does not often get to sing Brahms. Most of his choral writing is for a big group, and much is for big choir AND big orchestra. But saying all of Brahms is out of our reach is such a shame as he wrote for choir like he wrote for orchestra – lovely big sweeping phrases and those lush harmonies. If you have not listened to it, please do – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNHGslY5ic0 – those who found it a bit turgid last night will hopefully hear how it sounds when put together and with bucketloads of expression. Last night we just worked on the first section, which repeats with different words as the third section. The second section is a little darker and trickier. The final Amen coda won’t take a lot of learning. The sheet music (available out of copyright for printing off) is on the download section of the website. There was some discussion among the German speakers about the strangeness of the words. They are from the 17th-century German poet Paul Fleming, so probably bear the same relationship to modern German as Shakespeare does to today’s English. But they are correct in the music.
For our work on the Creation, we took a close look at 3 movements:
| 1 | 7 | Im Anfange schuf Gott Himmel und Erde | |
| 2 | 12 | Nun schwanden vor dem heiligen Strahle | |
| 4 | 22 | Mit Staunen sieht das Wunderwerk | |
| 10 | 38 | Stimmt an die Saiten | |
| 13 | 47 | Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes | We worked from the beginning to letter C. There is nothing terribly tricky in this piece, all of the musical progressions are pretty predictable and logical, so it’s about being spot on with detail. Pronunciation – erzählen is er-TSAY-lun and Hände is HEN-duh. Let’s not get into the habit of saying these wrong from the off or it will be hard to correct. |
| 18 | 76 | Der Herr ist groß in seiner Macht | |
| 27 | 107 | Vollendet ist das große Werk | We slogged hard through just six lines of music – up to letter C – and you did a great job of getting the parts solid and able to be slotted together. Bars 25-30 are where it gets quite chromatic. The tenors especially have some unexpected note sequences. It’s worth listening to this movement if you have time to get used to how it moves and flows. |
| 29 | 116 | Von deiner Güt, o Herr und Gott / Gesegnet sei des Herren Macht | This is one of the ‘easiest’ movements in terms of note learning and structure. You have the notes fine. We will dip back into this one now and again just to focus on being exactly together. |
| 33 | 151 | Singt dem Herren alle Stimmen! |
It is hard work going through movements note-by-note like this. Thank you all for your dedication and perseverance as we do. A few more weeks of this and then it will all start to fit together and the singing will become much more fun, I promise. Please keep coming along so that we all know the notes and avoid needing to go back over the same bits. That would be really quite a drag.
Next week I have a family commitment so cannot be at rehearsal. Apologies. Please watch out for messages from your section leaders regarding alternate arrangements which will most likely be separate upper- and lower-parts groups. Thanks to those organising and hosting.
Have a good week, especially Katrina who is recovering from a fall from her bike. Get well soon.
Chris