Today's BBC sinters rehearsal took place at a very small refurbished church. When we stepped inside, they had rows of seats with programs and photocopied text and music for us to follow along. They kicked off their rehearsal with "Sure on This Shining Night" by Samuel Barber. I absolutely love this text and the Barber setting was pleasant to listen to. I liked the way they performed this piece. I've heard it done with quite a lot of pop sound but, I guess I should expect that the BBC Singers would be quality. I felt that the entrance gestures were less patterned and therefore more difficult to read than the BYU style. I noticed that throughout the rehearsal it seemed as though certain singers, particularly women, were competing for their color to be heard. There wasn't a very obvious lack of blend just a very subtle attempt to take over the sound. Does that make sense?
The second piece they rehearsed was "The Monk and His Cat" by Barber again. It was obviously a very playful song about the love between this scholar and his cat. You could even "hear the cat" in the piano part. For this piece, it seemed like the overall sound of the choir darkened considerably. I'm thinking this was intentional because of a comment made by their director. He made a comment that the BBC Singers is one of the few professional choral groups in England that actually has female altos which makes the treble sound a bit darker. I had another complaint about the sound of the choir in this piece...the words were not intelligible. Though this group may be less disciplined with tone and blend, they are incredibly sensitive to dynamics and also wonderful sight readers.
The 3rd piece they rehearsed was "Under the Willow Tree" a setting that I'm very familiar with for we sang it in honor choir in high school. The first run through was a little rough rhythmically but I just have to keep reminding myself that they are most likely sight reading all of this music. There was an alto soloist that I really didn't enjoy. Her tone was so swallowed and she had all sorts of visible tension. I could see it in her hands and neck and worst of all, her tongue! This left me wondering, "what...why?" There is a section of the music where it just really builds and there is this HUGE chord to the text "where shall we sleep my love" and it modulates. The higher voices were just stabbing the music there. It was so difficult to hear them rehearse over and over this bit without correcting that particular issue.
Later on in the rehearsal they got to pieces where I could really hear a wonderful blend, beautiful dynamic contrast, and perfectly crisp consonants.
Then they did "Twelfth Night" and I liked how sensitive they were to the composers intent based on what is included in the score. The consonants were a little rocky at the ends of polyphonic phrases and there were a few problems with the pitch in the soprano line. Other than that, I rather liked this piece and their rehearsal approach with it.
For the last half of rehearsal they worked on Schuman music set to Walt Whitman text. The director took a moment to talk to us about this selection. I was getting the feeling that he was basically saying we're only doing this set because we have to. BBC makes us do this kind of thing. I was surprised as they sang a section "To You" and the soloist was surprisingly unconfident. These pieces seem to be a bit robotic. I think perhaps the singers are struggling to enjoy them because their director doesn't enjoy them. I think they have more potential however I do think they are rather strange. Is it ok that I was offended at what he was saying about Whitman's poetry?
*we were there from 11:30 until 3:30 with only a small lunch break
*I took SO many notes on their performance
*notes on rehearsal technique
-lunch of food from Damascus
-dinner of pasta...as usual
-performance at Wesminster Abbey
*handel's music and Handel's burial sight
-sing along piano bar immediately after
-musical theatre stuff
*orange drink and mockery
*bathroom
*random friends
*called a virgin if it's your first time singing there
-it used to be a public bathroom
-Scott left early to skype his mommy
-meeting up with Kim and Paige
-going home barefoot and seeing a man peeing right there on the street....eeeew!
-home late and met up with Scott, made tea and ate bread, talked about Venice
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