Just a quick one this week I’m afraid, and apologies it’s so close to the rehearsal – I had a lovely bank-holiday weekend away in Dublin with The Acafellas.
What we did on Wednesday 3rd May
We began with some good work on the Fauré, working well on the text, the blend of the sound, and a few notes. Remember to keep everything nice and smooth, and we’ll be able to use the vowels to help with this as we become more confident with the text. After this we looked at Locus Iste, again working on a few notes but mainly thinking about the emphasis and movement of the music, creating really strong and exciting dynamic contrasts. Tenors; listen to it lots and internalise that C in bar 21! We also made sure to give the long notes some good direction. After this we looked at the notes in To Music, putting various parts together to pair the important parts of the music. We ended the set with If ye love me, making sure all the entries were really well bounced off each other, and the sound was beautiful throughout. After the break we looked at Farewell dear love, beginning to shape and phrase the music excellently. We ended by working on Sing we and Chant it, again familiarising our notes to ‘ding’ and then adding the text, both at slower and quicker speeds.
What we will do on Wednesday 10th May
We’ll begin with The Silver Swan, Ave Verum, and Fine Knack for Ladies, then look at It was a lover, As Torrents in Summer, and The Long Day Closes. This should be enough, but if we have time we’ll work on the last section of the Fauré, just to secure it.
I thought the seating blocks of S-A-T-B sections next to each other worked, so we’ll do that again, however I would like to put Sopranos on the far left (as you look at it from my point of view) as above. Altos felt a bit isolated.
Marked Score
I’ve done all the hard work for you this term by providing a marked booklet, so I won’t be sharing it here as you all already have physical copies. Below, however, is a guide to my markings, just as a reminder for what it all means.
Remember a pencil to each rehearsal!! You’ll still need to write things in your copies!
Recommended Recordings
It’s a bit of a bitty term, as I’m sure you’ve realised; a great programmed formed of wonderful, but shorter, pieces. For this reason, and given some of the arrangements/editions we’re doing haven’t been recorded, the recommended recordings are on the whole meant to help you understand and get to grip with the pieces, not necessarily learn them note-for-note. They’re good to have on in the background, and to follow some of the text, melodies and rhythms to, but they’re not always going to line up 100% accurately.
You can listen HERE.
Section Reps
Great to appoint our new Section Reps on Wednesday. They are:
Soprano: Sian
Alto: David
Tenor: Ruth
Bass: Martin
Eric will be sharing their emails soon once we’ve all had a chat to commence the hand-over from the previous reps. A huge thank you to Rachel, Naomi, Peter and Bill for being our inaugural Section Reps, and doing such a good job of getting it off the ground. We’ve all learnt so much from our first year of having SRs.
See you all on Wednesday,
– Ben