Morning all, good to see plenty of you at a surprisingly warm church last night.
It was evident that the time you spent last week in sections was worthwhile. We tackled the three movements you had looked at, and they started to come together very nicely.
They were:
1. Die Vorstellung der Chaos – notewise a very simple segment, but precision is everything. Work on the words so that we can get all the chords chiming absolutely together.
27. Vollendet ist das grosse Werk – This is one of the trickier movements, quite a lengthy one and with lots of motion and entries. We worked from the end towards the start, and by the time people were begging to move on to something else we were able to sing from letter C to the end. It was all very impressive, with the possible exception of the entries which were a bit tentative. Understandable when we are just learning the notes, but each one (Altos bar 32, Tenors bar 39, Basses bar 40 etc) needs to be emphatic. Phrasing of words like NAM-en and er-HAB-en, and slurred words like allein you were shaping beautifully, especially the Sops. It makes everything sound so much more musical when you do that.
2. Verzweiflung, Wut und Schrecken – a schizophenic movement with a chaotic mini-fugue entry followed by an almost twee section. Great job figuring out the complexity of the chaotic bits (A-B and at C). If you are working on it, make sure you are thinking 2 beats in a bar not 4. It makes much more sense.
Zadok – we finished up by looking at the third section, where there are some tricky semiquaver runs in each part. You sang these so well I felt that I had underestimated you in thinking we needed to clarify them. That said, with a piece you feel you know by heart, there is always the risk that there are occasional notes that you think you know but actually don’t quite. That Bass E, the last note of the second bar of the last page, is a good example, for me at least.
Practice Tracks – I haven’t made my own as there are several available. Cyberbass is a free option. The link is: https://www.cyberbass.org/Major_Works/Haydn_J/haydn_creation.htm. The movement numbers do not line up to the Carus score we are using but you will figure that out.
Scores – with huge thanks to Tricia Joshi for getting this organised, we are hopeful that the second batch will be with us for next week.
Until then
Chris