Dear all
Apologies for not sending a roundup last week – a combination of 3 concerts in two weeks, being unusually busy at work and a little unwell over the past fortnight meant that it slipped my mind!
On 25th April we started by working through the Introit and Kyrie of the Mozart. We have covered all the notes for the Requiem now so I will be topping and tailing a couple of movements at each rehearsal. We also bashed some notes on the Rutter numbers 1 and 2 – more on these below.
This week we moved on to the Dies Irae and Rex Tremendae of the Mozart. These are generally sung very well. Keep the pace up in the Dies Irae – it dragged a lot at the beginning, and again when the basses sing ‘Quantus tremor…’ with quavers. The Rex is only hard because of how slow it is – needs a lot of concentration to keep in time and know when your entries are!
We spent the majority of the last 2 rehearsals with detailed work/note bashing on Rutter 1 (It was a lover and his lass) and 2 (Draw on sweet night). Both have their challenges but are very singable once we have our heads around the style.
It was a lover – make sure you are confident with the rhythms, especially when the syncopation kicks in. The verses are much more similar than they seem, so be confident that even though it’s slightly different you know what you are doing! The 1st bass part is especially tricky – have a look over in your own time if you can chaps!
Draw on – main point here is simple – YOU ARE NOT DRAWING A PERSON CALLED RON. There is no R between the words ‘Draw’ and ‘on’ – please stop putting one in! Rant over 😜. Generally we are coping with this very well. In contrast to the previous piece, the rhythms are very straight forward but the notes are sometimes hard, especially the occasional semitone clashes between parts. Each part needs to be 100% confident of their own line, so they are not put off by all the others! We will continue to work on this.
Finally, just to clarify from previous weeks, we are rehearsing up to and including Tuesday 24th March. We then have 3 weeks off for Easter, starting again on 21st April.
Have a good weekend!
Dave