Dear Singers,
We had a most enjoyable and effective rehearsal last night. Thank you to everyone who came, and a warm welcome to new members, I hope you enjoy your time with us. The Requiem really started to make progress and I was very satisfied with our achievements.
We began with some chanting of the text, led by Elke. This was helpful and enabled us to explore the biggest challenge which is how to sustain the vowel sounds on long notes. I’m pleased that the language is improving slowly and becoming less daunting over time with familiarity. If any choir members haven’t joined us this term because of the German, please reconsider – it’s manageable, and you’re among friends!!
It was soup night! Big thanks to the committee and helpers for preparing this, it was lovely to see such a big turn out. A great way to start the evening, and a chance to chat. We had a special guest – Barbara Edmund our raffle organiser. She is not singing with us this term and we invited her to draw the raffle and announce the winners; the only time in 30+ years! She was presented with flowers to show our gratitude for all her efforts to raise a considerable amount of money over many years. Thank you Barbara, we appreciate all you have done.
WHAT WE DID ON 20.10.26
We had an excellent session with much fun and humour!
Pages 65 to 72 (Denn es wird) in sectionals. This chorus is fast and strong (‘The dead shall be raised incorruptible….) and eventually will be one-in-a-bar tempo. We made very good progress, well done. These articulation points are important, please note:
The commas indicate a breath OR just a break in the phrase (e.g. bar169 where there is not time to breathe after ‘Höle’, but the following ‘wo’ needs a good attack.
Add extra comma breaks in bars 87 & 93
Notice on pages 68 & 69 that the three ‘Sieg’ phrases have commas so don’t forget to breathe at the end of the phrases (bars 139, 142, 145)
Staccato notes (indicated by the dot over the note heads) – e.g bar 87: Make these notes very short/spikey EVERY TIME!
Altos note that you stop early in bar 206, let off for good behaviour, because you begin the fugue on p73.
Page 73-83 (Herr du bist) We sang through just to keep in touch with it, having worked on it a while back. It was rough-but-not-ready, and we will return soon!
Movement 4 (p44) We were reminded about the need for very legato and expressive singing again and this was pretty good. Bars 124 to 149 need work – do look at this if you can.
REHEARSAL ON 27.10.26
We are very lucky to have Peter A in Exeter, who will be playing piano in our concert. He is a very accomplished musician and runs the chamber choir ExeVox. He is passionate about the Brahms! Next week he will take the rehearsal and consolidate the good work from this week:
Movt 2 pages 12-19
Movt 4 page 65-72, then 73 to end (fugue)
Movt 7 sing through if time
All good wishes,
Peter