My choir on the wireless

We sang some Rachmaninov and some Eric Whitaker the other day on the wireless. Here we are. The link will be live until about the 20th of October if you want to have a listen.

My choir singing Bach

If you want to hear a wonderful piece of Bach, come along!

we're doing the St John Passion on Saturday 23 April.

From Requiem by Anna Akhmatova

A poem about the women waiting outside Stalin's prison in Leningrad. We sang it last night at the Opera House, to music composed by Moya Henderson.

It's the horror of oppression without the hope of resurrection.

Epilogue II

Once more the day of remembrance draws near.

I see, I hear, I feel you:



The one they almost had to drag at the end,

And the one who tramps her native land no more,



And the one who, tossing her beautiful head,

Said, “Coming here’s like coming home.”



I’d like to name them all by name,

But the list has been confiscated and is nowhere to

be found.



I have woven a wide mantle for them

From their meager, overheard words.



I will remember them always and everywhere,

I will never forget them no matter what comes.



And if they gag my exhausted mouth

Through which a hundred million scream,



Then may the people remember me

On the eve of my remembrance day.



And if ever in this country

They decide to erect a monument to me,



I consent to that honor

Under these conditions— that it stand



Neither by the sea, where I was born:

My last tie with the sea is broken,



Nor in the tsar’s garden near the cherished pine stump,

Where an inconsolable shade looks for me,



But here, where I stood for three hundred hours,

And where they never unbolted the doors for me.



This, lest in blissful death

I forget the rumbling of the Black Marias,



Forget how that detested door slammed shut

And an old woman howled like a wounded animal.



And may the melting snow stream like tears

From my motionless lids of bronze,



And a prison dove coo in the distance,

And the ships of the Neva sail calmly on.


March 1940


From here. Trans. Judith Hemschemeyer

Choir singing

This week, Wednesday and Saturday my choir is singing. Including Beethoven's 9th.

See the advert here.

Our choir on ABC FM tomorrow, 11.05 am

The choir I've been singing with, the Sydney Philharmonia Symphony Choir, will be broadcast on ABC FM tomorrow at 11.05 am Sydney time for Remembrance day. Click on the link for the text to Beach Burial by Kenneth Slessor (music by Andrew Schultz) and texts to Donna Nobis Pacem (various including the Bible and Walt Whitman, music by Ralph Vaughan Williams).

You can listen to ABC FM online here, but I don't know if there will be a podcast available—will update if it happens, but I suspect not because of copyright issues on the Schultz.

Reconciliation

This poem by Walt Whitman, Reconciliation, was set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams:

Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly
wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world:
... For my enemy is dead--a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin--I draw near;
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

If you want to hear our choir sing this (and the whole work by Vaughan Williams), then the details of the concert are here.

It's this Sunday at 5.

We're also premiering a new work by Australian composer Andrew Schultz, Beach Burial. Flutes that sound like incoming missiles!

Choir review

Here. I'd review the review as accurate but boring.

Singing Verdi Requiem with 450 people

This is going to be a blast, even more for the hearers than the singers I would say.

If you want to hear our choir singing it this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday arvo at the Opera House, here are the details.

For me the most amazing part of hearing so many voices at once is not when you listen to them at full bore, but when every single person is singing yet you can hardly hear a sound. Softness and dread at full intensity.

Our choir got reviewed

In the SMH and The Australian.

From the Australian:

William Walton's oratorio Belshazzar's Feast (1931) was the final work. It was electrifying. Thrillingly fast tempos, biting syncopated rhythms and knife-edge precision generated sizzling energy and bold drama that celebrated the work's pagan savagery and manic wildness. By contrast, the performers brought sinuous shape and expressive intensity to the passages of pungent lyricism.

Both nice reviews, though both completely miss the theological point in a fairly major way!

The concerts themselves (2 nights) were an absolute blast, and Vladimir Ashkenazy is without a doubt da man. Not to mention that the current choir master, Brett Weymark, has really lifted the Sydney Philharmonia to a very high level.

"Happy is he who taketh your children and dashes their heads against a stone"

-Ps 137, and a part of the text we sang.

Singing pure gospel tonight

The words to this really are quite good.

Especially the ones that are lifted straight from the gospel of John.

21:1 After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. 3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” 6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. 8 The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to him and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” 22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” 23 So the saying spread abroad among the brothers [2] that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”

24 This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.

25 Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Hard to go wrong with that stuff, isn't it.

Singing something is a way of forcing you to pay attention to the words, slowly, and can be a great blessing.

Hear Messiah

Our choir is singing Handel's Messiah for our next concert, December 4, 6, 7.

Let me know if you want discount tickets, through facebook or through the comments (mark 'Not for Publication' if you don't want it to appear)

Sydney Phil reviewed

Harriet Cunningham's review of the concert Saturday:

NEXT year Sydney Philharmonia Choirs will present a concert entitled Amadeus, and Mozart's Requiem will no doubt feature prominently as a key work in the mysterious (and probably apocryphal) tale of the rivalry between Mozart and contemporary composer Salieri. This year, however, the Symphony Chorus is presenting Mozart's Requiem straight, and a very fine performance it is too.

On Saturday the 50-strong choir sang from memory and, with no score in between them and the audience, the music came through with huge immediacy. Furthermore, without a book to hide behind, all attention was focused on the conductor, Brett Weymark, who led them through the work with rock-like reliability and discreet flashes of brilliance.

In the SMH. If you are in Sydney and free this Thursday it's worth trying to get along.

Super choral concert coming up

I am singing with my choir in a couple of concerts at the Opera House on November 1 and 6.

We've started rehearsals and from the sound so far, this one is going to be fantastic. If you have never been to a choral concert before, and you have even vaguely thought you might go one day, this is one worth turning up for to find out what it's about. Here's the ad.

The Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem was used for an ad a few years ago, might have been the Melbourne Grand Prix, might have been Firestone tires; you will recognize it even if you aren't a classical music buff. Spine-tingling. Here 'tis on YouTube.

I can get cheap tickets for you (15% off A res, B res or C res) if you let me know soon enough, just respond with a comment and mark it Not For Publication if you don't want it to appear on this blog.

Berlioz tomorrow and Saturday

I'm singing this tomorrow and Saturday.

If you're a facebook friend and you want to go, contact me via facebook only for cheapish tickets. Do it today but, because I suspect we may have full houses.

If you're not a facebook friend, you'll just have to befriend me then, won't you!

Berlioz—Romeo et Juliette

Our choir's singing this on June 6 and 7

Someone cleverly managed some free advertising in the letters page of today's SMH

Next month the Sydney Symphony will perform Berlioz's dramatic symphony Romeo and Juliet, a work paid for by Niccolo Paganini, proving money can buy great art. Freed from the daily grind of writing newspaper articles for a crust, in nine months Berlioz conjured the high point of Western art music. Thank you, Mr Paganini.

Richard Lynch, Waterloo

One for the sports fans out there

My choir is singing Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet on June 6 and 7.

Sometime I will find out if I can get discount tickets and will post details on this blog for those interested.

Sydney Philharmonia—I'm in

My darling wife Fifi has been encouraging me for a while to get back into a choir. I love it, and she loves it that I love it. Her concern for my happiness is gracious and undeserved.

So, last week I just wandered in with the crowd at the Sydney Philharmonia and looked over someone's shoulder, more or less hoping I'd blend in. But some of these choir dudes are pretty sharp, and anyway Shelley who invited me had introduced me to some of them, so last night I had to audition.

It was not a friendly audition, let me say. Not like auditioning for the Victoria Chorale, where I have only the faintest memory of even having to do it, or for the Melbourne Chamber Choir, where the delightful but slightly dotty Faye Dumont told me what a wonderful sight-reading job I was doing. And although it was not unfriendly either, this was more like being hauled up in front of the judges in one of those 'You've Got Talent' things you see on the telly, except without the audience; in the back room with a small piano. (Do you remember the bit in John Safran vs God where he auditions for the Harlem Gospel Choir?) Short on time, down to business.

I was hoarse, it's been 10 years since I sang in a serious choir, so there I was with my Christian Praise hymn book in hand, slightly nervous. Cheerful hello from Brett the director, "Come through here please." No warm-ups, brisk "what are you going to sing for us?" I launched tentatively into verse one of No. 89, Thou who was rich, beyond all splendour. "Second verse please, this time would you sing out, sing operatically and give us a lot of sostenuto".

Limped through that, and we went straight into some frighteningly atonal sequences of five to eight notes at a time. "I'll play these once, then you sing them please." Half a dozen of those."Sing the bottom note of each of these chords please." Half a dozen of those. Now are there any of these hymns you don't know?—actually that's a leading question isn't it, here's what we're singing tonight, start from there please." I sing. Brett stops playing and stands up "OK, now I'm going to stand next to you, you take the bass line, I'll take the baritone, from here, 3—4—." We sing.

"Good, I'll need to listen to you again. Oh, you're in by the way, what part did you sing last week? OK, you'll need to look on again, make sure you sit at the end of the row."

Polite, to the point, and so I sight-read my way through another evening of choir. It was quite the most intense audition I've ever had. But nothing at all compared to the three young people auditioning for the part of assistant conductor. They had half an hour each, doing Brett's work for him, on some of the most difficult choral music I've seen in a very long time indeed (Poulenc's Stabat Mater).

So now we perform in about three weeks. I got my own copy of the music for the first time at the end of last night's rehearsal. For some reason I'm thinking about the badges I used to get after doing first aid tests in the Air Scouts.

I couldn't be happier!

Oh, and Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour has a glorious statement of the reason for Christ's incarnation in the second verse, so I was happy to sing it out loud and strong:

2. Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love's sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenwards by thine eternal plan!
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love's sake becamest man.

Sydney Philharmonia

Another parent at school sings in this choir so I went along for the first time tonight for a rehearsal. Sang Stabat Mater by Poulenc and Requiem by Duruffle (not how it is spelt, but I don't have the music with me to check). I used to sing in the Melbourne Chamber Choir so it is nice to have a go at doing this again.