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Dear all

As mentioned in the last Roundup, we are looking to add another piece to the repertoire for a concert in June. There is a Doodle Poll at this link – https://doodle.com/poll/kkg8c95cxn5btakn?utm_source=poll&utm_medium=link – for you to vote for your favourite! We are looking for something not too long but substantial, with a bit of a challenge but not too much so. Not an easy list of requirements!

I’ve complied the list of possibilities below, mostly from suggestions from the choir but also from my own repertoire and tried to give some brief info on each. You can vote for as many as you like and I have presented them in alphabetical order to avoid bias!

Faure Requiem – one of the most popular pieces, fits the bill in terms of length and difficulty, but perhaps a bit overdone (several other amateur choirs have restarted with this). 2 solos (Soprano and Baritone), easy to do with just organ accompaniment.

Haydn Mass in a Time of War – one of Hayden’s most popular masses and a real showcase of his style! It’s a really rewarding piece to sing. Needs 4 soloists (SATB) and harder to do without the orchestra (medium-sized). About 40mins long, which is about the limit of the timing we need.

Jenkins The Armed Man (A Mass for Peace) – a great piece, more modern than the others on this list, can be done with a small ensemble which is useful for us. I’m including this as it was a popular suggestion before but, at just over an hour, it is probably too long for what we need.

Rutter Requiem – I know it’s Rutter but, as with most of his bigger works, it’s not all pretty tunes sung by adorable trebles that we usually associate with his music. Although Rutter’s talent for pretty tunes shines though, it’s a work with very serious undertones and interpolates a psalm setting and an anthem. Much like the Faure, this is very singable but challenging in the right way. Can be done with just organ and soprano soloist.

PLEASE complete this by Saturday 19th February so we can hopefully announce at the next rehearsal.

Have a good week off!

Dave

Dear all

Apologies for taking a week to get the latest roundup to you, but it gives me the chance to remind you that there is no rehearsal tomorrow, Tuesday 15th February as it is half term!

Last week, we spent a fair amount of time on the Festival Te Deum, mainly focusing on the next section we had not looked at before (from Figure 4 on Page 5 to Figure 6 on Page 8). This section was sounding really good once we had bashed through the notes and makes me confident we can give a good rendition of this piece. The trickiest bit is the rhythms between figures 4 and 5 – have a look in your free time to make sure you’re on top of it.

We then sung through movement 2 of the Vivaldi (Et in Terra Pax), which is probably the trickiest movement but we are singing it very well. It has a tendency to speed up (partly my fault) so we need to make sure we keep it steady.

Lastly, we learned the notes for the solo octet section of Mendelssohn’s Psalm 100 setting. Despite the lack of any bass 1s (!) we sang this exceptionally well. We’ll look at it more in coming weeks and, as before, I am hoping that we can have a small octet or hexadectet (I’m going with this for a group of 16 singers) singing this in future.

As I have mentioned a few times, I am hoping to add another piece to the repertoire for a concert in June and I hope to have this sorted by the end of half term. At some point you will receive a link to poll to vote for what we sing with the Vivaldi. Watch this space…

Dave

Dear all

Apologies my roundups have been a bit inconsistent so far this term, and that this one is coming around so late!

Firstly, as some were asking, our break for half term will be on Tuesday 15th February.. That’s next Tuesday.

At last week’s rehearsal we started with some detailed work on the 12th (and last) movement of the Vivaldi, the Cum Sancto Spiritu fugue. Lots of counting needed in this piece, as parts drop in an out at various times. It’s worth taking some private time to make sure you know the notes in this piece, as I’m not planning to do more bashing through them in detail. We also looked at the 9th movement (Qui tollis and Sucipe), which is generally straight forward but with some tricky intervals in the first section. Again, worth checking you are comfortable with it if you have time.

We then spent some time with the Vaughan Williams Festival Te Deum, mainly going over the opening few pages again (as it had been a few weeks!). This piece has some tricky moments but is generally very singable, and made easier by the fact that large parts of it are only in 2 parts. We will continue to work through it in the coming weeks.

Finally, we covered the Psalm 100 setting by Mendelssohn, especially the last page and a bit (after the solo octet section). This is sounding very good – we will add the middle section in coming weeks.

I mentioned last week that we will likely add another larger work to sit alongside the Vivaldi. I want the choir’s member to be a part of the decision-making for this so I will set up some kind of poll – watch this space.

See you tomorrow

Dave

A quick reminder for anyone thinking of joining us tomorrow here are the details and how to book. Starts at 10:30 for 11:00, hope to see some of you there. David

Just a reminder of the notice I gave at rehearsal last Tuesday:

The Hammersmith and Fulham Choral Society are having a “come and sing” Brahms’ Requiem on Saturday 5th Feb in St Mary’s Church, High Street, Putney. Many of you will remember that we sang this as a choir in 2014, and may like to relive the moment. You’re also welcome if you haven’t sung it, it’s a magnificent piece.

It starts at 11:00, has 2 rehearsal sessions with a break for lunch and finishes with a full performance. Tickets are £20. Full details are here.

David

Dear all

Many thanks to those who have attended the first 3 rehearsals and apologies for not sending out a note after each one.

We’ve made a great start to the year with some music that is really fun to sing! Rather than go over what we looked at in each rehearsal I thought I’d just give a quick overview of each piece we are looking at so far. There is no guarantee all these pieces will be in a concert in the summer, and we are more than likely to add other pieces as we go.

Gloria (Vivaldi) – this is a super well-known piece that always brings smiles to faces. We have looked at most of the movements in the last two rehearsals and have spent particular time on numbers 2, 5 and 7. Number 2 is probably the most difficult to get right because it is very slow, making it hard to follow at times. Number 5 is difficult for the opposite reason – lots of very fast quaver runs! We have also looked at the first movement (which is already sounding good) and a little bit at number 12.

I mentioned at the second rehearsal that this piece has several solos (minimum 2 sopranos and an alto required) which is would be nice to cast from within the choir if possible. Please have a think about this and let me know if you are interested. There is a lot of time between now and a concert in the summer to work on this.

Festival Te Deum (Vaughan Williams) – this is a nice accompaniment to the Gloria, as another celebratory anthem! It’s actually relatively straight forward for the most part, but needs a lot of energy to keep the sentiment going the whole way through. We spent time on this in the first rehearsal but not since. This is very likely to be in a concert in the Summer. This is a Vaughan Williams anniversary year.

Antiphon from Five Mystical Songs (Vaughan Williams) – we performed this in our last concert before the pandemic in November 2019 and are generally picking it up again quite quickly. It is another celebratory piece needing a lot of energy!

Psalm 100 (Jauchzet Dem Herrn) (Mendelssohn) – this psalm setting (in German) is one of three little motets by Mendelssohn we are looking at at the moment, as this is also his anniversary year. This one is mostly in 4 parts but has an 8-part section in the middle which is designed to be sung by a solo octet, which we will all learn together for now.

Kyrie (Mendelssohn) – this is not from a full mass setting but is a lovely short setting. It’s in a double choir arrangement (8 parts), which is something of an experiment to see how we cope!

Heilig (Sanctus) (Mendelssohn) – this setting of the words of the Sanctus in German is much like the Kyrie in that it is split into 8 parts. Along with the Psalm setting above, it is also good to broaden our language barriers a little!

Looking forward to seeing you all next week!

Dave

Dear All

We are going to make a bulk order for the chosen Vivaldi Score (link to the one we are going to use is copied below) to take advantage of discount.

If you would like to place an order through SGC then please email me directly on jonezfamily658@virginmedia.com or let me know next Tuesday 11^th. Order will be placed after Tuesday’s rehearsal so it arrives in time for the following week.

Dave will delay starting work on the Vivaldi & begin with pieces listed in the earlier message instead.

Link to Vivaldi edition: 

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas break and are looking forward to re-starting rehearsals.

Our first rehearsal will be next Tuesday 11^th January 2022, at Christchurch, 19:45 (SHARP!!!!) – 21:30.

This term’s rehearsal schedule will be as follows:

First rehearsal –                 Tuesday 11^th January 2022

Half term –                          Tuesday 15h February 2022

Last rehearsal –                  Tuesday 22^nd March 2022

The repertoire we will be rehearsing this term will be for the performance at the end of the summer term (date to be advised). Dave has asked us all to bring several pieces of music to the first rehearsal if possible. Pieces listed below with links:

Score for Vivaldi’s Gloria (if you have one, if not they are available from musicroom.com – https://www.musicroom.com/antonio-vivaldi-gloria-rv-589-pa-mixed-choir-and-ba7515 )

3 Pieces by Mendelssohn (2022 is the 175th anniversary of his death). All pieces available online:

Kyrie setting – https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/3/33/Mendelssohn-Kyrie.pdf

Heilig (Sanctus setting in German) – https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/4/40/Ws-mend-003.pdf

Psalm 100 in German (Jauchzet dem Herrn) – https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/94/Ws-mend-jau.pdf

2 pieces by Vaughan Williams (2022 is the 150th anniversary of his birth) All pieces available online:

Festival Te Deum – https://petruccimusiclibrary.ca/files/imglnks/caimg/6/63/IMSLP129160-PMLP252274-Vaughan_Williams_-_Festival_Te_Deum_(vocal).pdf

Antiphonal from 5 Mystical Songs (we did this in November 2019) – https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/f/f8/IMSLP31943-PMLP60778-fivemysticalsong00vaug_bw.pdf (this is the full score, Antiphonal is no.5)

Dear All

I hope everyone is looking forward to Tuesday.

As a reminder the timetable for the evening is as follows:

18:45 Meet at Christchurch to prepare altar area for choir (please arrive promptly as it will need all of us to get this done in 15 minutes)

19:00 Short rehearsal

19:30 guests arrive

20:00 performance starts – running time about an hour

Please could everyone bring a bottle and a couple of glasses to enjoy together at the end of the evening –  perhaps ask your guests to do the same.

Running order is as follows:

Once in Royal David’s City (vs 1,2,3,6)

Linden Lea

Turtle Dove

Swansea Town

Soirées de Vienne, No.6 – Schubert/Liszt – Robert Bridge

Away in a manger (vs 1,2,3)

All through the night

Skye Boat Song

Down by the Sally Garden

Danny Boy

Paraphrase on themes from Rigoletto – Verdi/Liszt – Robert Bridge

O Come All Ye Faithful (vs 1,2,6)

Ellan Vannin – suggest printing our extra pages to reduce page turns 

Battle of Jericho

Shenandoah

Hark the Herald Angels Sing (vs 1,2,3)

Hi all

Just a reminder to please bring Carols for Choirs books, if you have them, to tomorrow’s rehearsals (7th December). Either the green or white books are fine.

if you don’t have them, don’t panic! There may be some spares and we can share.

See you there!

Dave