Wasn’t it good to sing right through the Schubert Mass at rehearsal last night?  Thank you, Carlos, for bringing it together to this point, and thank you for last night encouraging us to sing those lovely solo lines.  Schubert certainly knew how to write a good tune!

I was wondering what Schubert might have thought of us last night.  Would he be pleased that his music is still giving pleasure to people around the world?  Would he be embarrassed by the naivety of his early music compared to his later, more mature works?  Would he mind that our performance is perhaps not up to the standards he would expect?  Indeed, what would the likely standard of performance have been in 1815 when the work was first performed?

Similar musings occurred when Anne and I attended two concerts back-to-back a couple of weeks ago.  Both included a Mozart piano concerto.  One was played on a modern Steinway accompanied by a full orchestra.  The other used just a string quartet as accompaniment (a version Mozart performed himself on more than one occasion) and there was some considerable debate as to whether the piano should have been a fortepiano as used in Mozart’s day rather than the Steinway which was actually used.  Again, what would Mozart have thought about the performances and about the debate surrounding them?

A third comparable musing came when Choir members Julie Dawson and Jane Cameron sent photos of themselves at The Big Sing in the Royal Albert Hall in London recently.  Just imagine the hall full to capacity with 5,000 people singing en masse.  It must be a wonderful experience.  This year’s works were the Glorias by Vivaldi, Rutter, and Jenkins.  Presumably the latter two composers, being very much contemporary, had actively consented to their music being performed in this way.  But what about Vivaldi?  Could he possibly have conceived of his Gloria being performed several centuries after his death, and what might he, a priest turned composer, have thought about the sheer number of singers, the musical standard of the performance and the very secular nature of both the event and the venue?

So, lots of questions this week, and no answers.  I suppose that is what musing is all about.  And if, in searching for the answers, we begin to understand the music and the composers better, then it can only be to our benefit.

Well that’s maybe not quite accurate.  As with any statistic, it depends on what you count and how you count it.

In this case, it’s rehearsals for the next concert.  To be absolutely precise, there have been eleven rehearsals up to last night; there are four more general rehearsals to go; then the session with the orchestra at the School; and finally the general rehearsal in the Chapel on the Thursday evening before the concert.  So you might say it’s eleven down and six to go.

But for my money the last real rehearsal is the one before the orchestra joins us.  By that time the choir needs to sing accurately and confidently so that Carlos can then concentrate on joining choir and orchestra together.  Hence the reality is eleven down and four to go.

How are we shaping up?  It’s hard to say.  Some pieces such as the Schubert Mass seem to be in good shape, while others such as parts of the Misa Criolla still seem to be a bit of a struggle.  Perhaps it’s not surprising.  This is the season when we more mature folk can easily catch colds and ‘flu, leading to a few weeks away from the music.  It is also the season for folk to take extended overseas travels (including musical ones) leading to the need for more compressed rehearsal times.   Add to that the fact that many of us are unfamiliar with south American dance rhythms and with Spanish text and so need extra help to learn them.

In my ten years in the Choir, we have somehow always managed to get there on the night.  However difficult the final rehearsals might have been, the concerts have always gone well.  So with hard work and concentration on everyone’s part, I am sure that this concert will follow suit.

Last night’s rehearsal shows what we can do when we get down to it; both Misa Criolla and El Gavilan were sounding much better by the end of the rehearsal.  El Gavilan is wonderful to sing, the rhythms criss-crossing each other, the music bouncing along like a horse at a gallop.

Incidentally, there is a great YouTube of El Gavilan (click here to see it), which is not entirely the same as our version in the middle, typical for arrangements of folk songs, and which has a fantastic addition at the end (but don’t tell Carlos in case he wants us to do the same!)

Right.  Nearly time to go and do the weekly shop with Anne.  Just time for another run-through of El Gavilan before we go!

Members may not realise that MWC is a member of the Australian National Choral Association (ANCA).  Every two years, ANCA holds Choralfest in one of Australia’s state capitals.  This year’s Choralfest was in Brisbane in early July.

One of ANCA’s leading lights is Dr Debra Shearer-Dirié, who, amongst many other musical activites, conducts the Brisbane Concert Choir.  Pam Lewis, our Librarian, has a sister who is a member of the Brisbane Concert Choir, so it was natural for Pam to arrange a visit to her sister to co-incide with Choralfest 2017.

Pam says that she got a real buzz from Choralfest, similar perhaps to that enjoyed by some of our members in their recently reported overseas experiences.

She explained that Choralfest is a celebration of choral music which brings together some of Australia’s and the world’s finest choirs.  The delegates were choral specialists and composers from schools and universities, both here and international.

The program comprised performances, lectures, seminars and workshops, led by internationally recognised specialists in choral music.

As well as listening to some wonderful performances, Pam was able to take part in the Festival Women’s Choir, performing with other choirs in the closing concert, which was a real delight.

For Pam, the highlights of the weekend were to hear fresh choral music and to see composers in action, also hearing three outstanding young men’s choirs.

With the shared passion and enthusiasm that Pam observed over three days, she is sure that the future of choral singing is in good hands.

Click here to read more about Choralfest 2017.

The next Choralfest will be held in Fremantle in 2019.

This week there is some real news to report, rather than some vacuous musing; something more concrete than ethereal.

Although……………

Julie and Roger Dawson spent some time in the US following the Carnegie Hall concert, including going to some wonderful events at the famous Tanglewood Festival.

Then it was across the Atlantic to another music festival, this time in South Wales, the Gower Festival – not at all the sublime to the ridiculous, but certainly not so extensive or so well known, yet nonetheless fascinating.  The modest community of the Gower Peninsula, just west of Swansea, puts on a series of fifteen concerts on consecutive evenings at the start of July, in local churches and community halls, buildings dating from 12th to 20th century, and seating audiences of from 50 to 1200.

Imagine Julie and Roger’s surprise when, over the interval refreshments at one of the more modest venues, they found themselves chatting to none other than Sir Karl Jenkins and his wife Lady Jenkins.  Sir Karl had not only sponsored the concert, but the performers were the winners of the Sir Karl Jenkins Music Prize for 2017.

When Julie mentioned that she is to be in the massed choirs at the Royal Albert Hall next week to sing Jenkins’ Gloria, Sir Karl said he would be there, and that she was to be sure to “pop by”.  She wonders whether – and this is where this week’s musing comes in – she should invite him to Sydney to hear the Manly Warringah Choir giving voice to one of his splendid works.

Now there’s a thought!

It might seem strange for musings about music to start with a reference to a TV programme about railways.  But read on, for all will be revealed in due course.

Great Continental Railway Journeys has the British ex-politician Michael Portillo using a 1913 Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide to devise journeys around Europe.  He travels by train to places featured in the guide book, visiting places and peoples whose lives in 1913 “would soon be changed by the advent of war”.  Once in almost every episode, in the interests of providing some local colour and culture, he is called upon to learn to dance – anything from a stylish waltz in a grand Viennese salon to a folksy side-stepping polka in St Petersburg.  Part of the programme’s enjoyment is that Portillo is completely left-footed and unco-ordinated, but seems happy to be filmed outside his comfort zone, stumbling around alongside experienced performers.

It might also seem strange for me to mention that, where Anne and I come from, the UK, community halls have to be licenced.  Hence above the main entrance to every hall there is a sign “Licensed for the pursuance of public singing and dancing”.

There is a connection..  Read on, dear reader, read on.

Anne, who has suffered the bruises and broken bones to prove it, says of my ability to dance that, should the licencing be of the individual rather the the premises, I might well get a licence for making music in public, but there is no way I would get a licence for dancing.  I am not even supposed to dance in private, behind closed doors.

So the first connection is that I would be well placed to take over from  Michael Portillo when the series needs a change of presenter.  Admittedly, my own Bradshaw dates from 1910, is only a facsimile, and covers only the British Isles.  But my dancing makes me ideally suited to the role.  I would make an even bigger hash of it than Michael Portillo.

Which – and here at last is the connection to MWC – might explain why I am having such difficulty grasping the rhythms of these wonderful songs from South America.  The other works, especially the Schubert, pretty much sing themselves.  But these songs are outside my comfort zone.  Other choir members seem to catch the rhythms after a couple of times singing through, but I finished last night’s rehearsal  completely out of step.

So, irrespective of anything Carlos might have set for homework this week, I know what I shall be doing.  Sitting alone in a darkened room with a cool towel around my head, hammering out these rhythms   e v e r   s o   s l o w l y.  Then hopefully, gradually increasing the speed, then adding some words, and finally maybe singing the tune.

Incidentally, have you noticed how Bethany can play completely contrary rhythms simultaneously in both hands?  She has to do it in at least two of these songs.  She does it completely without fuss.  And I bet she’s a great dancer too!