Welcome to SYMPHONYCHORUS.Blogspot.com – blogging our way through the new choral season! This is a work in progress and, I’m sure, will develop and grow as I learn how to use this medium to communicate with you all. I also need to establish a regular schedule for my posts. Note that there are several ways to subscribe to be notified when I have posted new material, or when others have commented.
Here is the list of choruses we are doing in the Bach:
(Please get two large paper clips and seal shut Cantatas II and IV. You are also encouraged to use smaller paperclips - or some other system of your choice – to close up the arias in between our choruses and chorales.
Bach Weihnachtsoratorium (Christmas Oratorio)
Cantatas I, III, V, VI
First Part
1. Coro: Jauchzet [7'40"] (DaCapo)
5. Choral: Wie soll Ich dich [1'03"]
7. Choral: Er ist auf Erden (sop) [2'57"]
9. Choral: Ach, mein herzliebes [1'13"]
Third Part
24. Coro: Herrscher des Himmels [1'53"]
26. Coro: Lasset uns nun gehen [0'39"]
28. Choral: Dies hat er alles [0'43"]
33. Choral: Ich will dich mit Fleiß [0'49"]
35. Choral: Seid froh [0'44"]
24. Coro da capo: Herrscher des Himmels [1'53"]
Fifth Part
43. Coro: Ehre sei dir [5'56"]
45. Coro: Wo ist der neugeborne [1'40"]
46. Choral: Dein Glanz [0'45"]
53. Choral: Zwar ist solche [0'47"]
Sixth Part
54. Coro: Herr, wenn die stolzen [4'58"]
59. Choral: Ich steh an deine Krippe [1'02"]
64. Choral: Nun seid ihr [3'26"]
10 Choral: 15 minutes
7 (6) Coro: 25 minutes
I do not yet have Ms. Miller’s cuts for Messiah. I will post them once available.
In our first two rehearsals we have looked at
Chorus No. 1 (Jauchzet) mm. 1-137
You should know pitches and rhythms (including performance of the trills) and be comfortable with text and pronunciation.
Chorale No. 5 (Wie soll ich) We have not yet added text text, but you should be able to perform your part independently or in small groups on the syllable “loo”
Chorale No. 9 (Ach, mein) see No. 5 – syllable “da”
Chorus No. 26 (Lasset) we read this and learned pitches on “da”
Chorus No. 45 (Wo) see No. 1, above
Chorale No. 64 (Nun seif) see No. 9 and No. 5
We also read several Messiah choruses.
On Tuesday, September 23 we will read choruses in Messiah that we have not yet sung and attempt the following in the Bach (not necessarily in this order):
Chorus No. 1 (Jauchzet) mm. 1-137
reivew pitches and rhythms (including performance of the trills) review pronunciation.
ADD the “B” section: mm. 138-201
Chorale No. 5 (Wie soll ich) reivew pitches; add text
Chorale No. 9 (Ach, mein) review pitches; add text
Chorus No. 26 (Lasset) reivew pitches; add text
Chorus No. 45 (Wo) reivew; polish
Chorale No. 64 (Nun seid) review pitches; add text
If you are looking to purchase a recording of the Bach, I recommend the John Elliot Gardiner performance on DG:
http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Christmas-Oratorio-Gardiner/dp/B0000057D5
If you have additional recordings to recommend, please do so by leaving a comment!
If you would like to listen to a performance of three of the cantatas on the web, check out the Collegiate Choral:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17525876
(note the related link to a full online performance of Handel’s Messiah, too)
The Bach is a rather relentlessly un-musical affair, led by Robert Bass. The Handel is Philadelphia Singers Chorale prepared by David Hayes and conducted quite nicely by Richard Hickox.
Note all the neat related material on all these NPR pages:
RELATED NPR STORIES
Jan. 4, 2006
The Eternal Genius of Handel
Dec. 17, 2002
Facts About Handel's 'Messiah'
Apr. 13, 2001
Handel's Messiah
Feb. 23, 2000 Handel
Posts
20 comments:
This is where you may post your comments...
As a soprano, I feel that "loo" is a very difficult syllable to practice with, it is too closed. It is a worthy syllable as a warm up to the lower to mid range but straining for the upper range. Ohs and ahs are of course more helpful. Thanks!
To anonymous soprano: Yes it is a difficult syllable but it challenges your voice and believe me we need the challenge. I try not to strain when singing high, but most of the time it is due to breath support because I get too caught up in the moment. To deal with it I drift. It makes a person look dumb so I got a lot of hills to climb. Inevitably you will have this syllable in performance and so how are you going to sing it right if you haven't practiced it??? I know difficulties believe me. Without elaborating I will tell you that, I know that my ear has been greatly affected by all these high notes that I have not sung since high school. Just as then, I have to work hard to sing notes in the right place for instance not a higher version of the same note. It really is something that I have tried hard not to do but it happens. I would love to unload some of these notes on someone. So you see it all challenges us in one way or another. Aside from that this blog needs some color, art work, or pictures, something to avoid my eyeball rolling over to that gargoyle. I don't know why it is on this blog. Did it come with the Google account? Steven is not Quasimodo so I don't know why he has an ugly horned gargoyle roosting on his blog, like it is ready to drop an egg on someone. I can't tell if it is a snake or a goat or some kind of dragon. He needs an inviting sort of picture that says "come on and audition we won't bite,breathe fire on you or throw you off the steeple" God help us all do I hear "SANCTUARY!". Maybe he is attached to it somehow? Who knows. OK you can smile now cuz you see we all have troubles.
Great picture and now our blog has feng-shui! Picture-beautiful, gargoyle-stoned thinker,the combination-priceless. I really crack myself up!
"not all who wander are lost"-J.R.R. Tolkien.
PS: I could not remember my password.
I am not sure why you took the picture off the blog but please put it back. It makes me sad that you took it off and if it is because of my joke then I take it back and I am sorry but please return it as it means a lot to me to see us singing in such a beautiful setting.
Never mind my friend sees the picture on her computer so it must be my computer. OK now I feel like a total idiot and fool. I wish I could say something musical but everything comes out flat.
Lunch is calling my name and it ain't Ann.
Can you put something on this blog about whether or not you believe someone is crazy if they hear music in their head? I mean really hear music not just humming or singing to yourself I mean where the person can't shut it off and it sounds like they are right there next to the music. Also do you think someone is crazy or autistic or worse if they see things when they hear music? Please don't give me other peoples opinions as I have had enough of that.
I am not a psychiatrist but if my best friend told me that he was "seeing things" while listening to music, I would ask him if he was on acid. Maybe getting a visual scene in your head is what you are talking about. You are not really seeing things are you?
Hearing music in your head is a totally different subject. I thought everyone hears music in their head. I thought that it was in the job description under "singer." I can't tell you how many times I went to bed on a Tuesday night with our rehearsal music in my head.
Now if you really want to get freaky, try singing or humming the harmony for songs when they are playing on the radio. That's what I do. While everyone else is singing along with the melody, I'm sitting there singing harmony. Do you think I'm crazy?
Now back to the real reason I am leaving a comment. In the past, I remember doing a vocal exercise where we punched the air with our fists while rehearsing melismas. That really helped me a great deal & I think it would help others. We have quite a few riffs & runs in the Bach where I think this exercise would help some of us.
I have never even smoked pot in my life so, no I am not on "ACID" and I don't drink or party or eat mushrooms other than the Portabella ones. I have never talked to things that are not there and I don't feel psychotic and have never had fits of any kind. I love animals and kids and they love me too. I am usually kind and considerate of other's and pride myself with possession of true empathy for the mentally/physically suffering. I don't like fake people so I know I am not schizophrenic but what you describe is not what I am talking about at all and maybe if I explained it better it would help the answer. OK, say you are singing or listening to music and then all of a sudden you see a shape, a simple shape pop up in your mind or in your visual field and you are not afraid of this simple shape and you look at it in an interesting way and then it might linger or go away and then return. The shape can be like the dome of a church for instance. Nothing moving just a shape. Then sometimes you sing or hear music and you see a blurry color and it's ok no big deal and it is pretty and eventually it goes away and you think it is really something special but you don't know what it is you just know it is entrancing. OK then sometimes you are driving and listening to the Mahler CD and you are humming and singing no big deal right? you go to turn it down some but guess what? It was never on????
You thought you turned it on but then you forgot that before you got into the drive thru line you had turned it off a while ago. Well you are hearing it JUST LIKE A CD OF THE MUSIC not humming or faint, really really really clear and distinct to the point that it races ahead of you like you are not in control of the notes you hear. Ok then say you wake up in the morning and you don't want to wake up anyone so you don't really sing loud right? you think you are singing but I am not moving my lips and you know how I know because I am brushing my teeth in the shower!!!That used to really scare me because I don't want anything to happen in the shower. I would pray that maybe I am not really hearing music in my head but then I calm down and realize that it's just a pretty song and for goodness sake no evil entity or condition would use it as a means to freak me out? I try and drown out notes that I don't know where they are coming from and sometimes they come out anyway and I hope that no one heard it. You speak of "harmony" well if it were that simple!Sometimes it is worse than "harmony" sometimes it is a string of notes from out of nowhere and I don't even play an instrument! I try and learn my music and can't do anything about it because I connect notes and don't have the dots. When I was a young girl it was the same and I would just sing it out. It was no big deal then and I did not think anything of it but the world is not just a broken toy it is a broken monopoly game and you keep things to yourself until it is safe.
PS: I hope that maybe I am just a little neurotic which is acceptable in life don't you think?
Here is a true story:
I have a 65 year old friend who was told by a nun that she was tone deaf and should just be the BLESSED MOTHER in the school play[speaking part], this was 50 years ago. She was so mortified and pained that she did not sing ever again! She is now a little widow with a crazy friend in gym class. But this is no 'usual crazy' friend, this is me. I tell her, who knows if the BLESSED MOTHER could sing? She looks at me like, I have a point. So I tell her that the "abstract nature of my statement lends it self to scrutiny". Of course she then asked me, ?WHAT? I said, "you need to show me whether the BLESSED MOTHER can sing or not". I asked my friend to sing with me a simple tune. She freaked out and said she could not do it and had to go and get a sip of water. She started to tear up which of course made me tear up and then I have to get a sip of water. So after we have dried our eyes and cleared our throats and blew our noses{different tissue}. We then finished gym class and went to the lockers. With our backs to each other I asked her to sing a simple tune. She said why did I want to put her through this but said it with tiniest giggle that I heard as clear as a bell. I took courage. Then she had to pick up her bra off the floor and got dressed but I had already told the lady on the other side of the locker that "we are fixing to hear history". My friend started crackin' up and I asked her "Listen, do I look intimidating to you?" She said, "NO" and so she sung a simple tune with me. I heard her sing and she matched my singing! I told her that the nun was wrong and she has a voice and the BLESSED MOTHER could sing. I told her no man, woman or child should hush her ever again. She should start singing again in her church. She sings at an Episcopalian Church because since then, she has hated the Catholic church. {I can see her point though, hate comes easy when you are hurt, but 50 years and switching religions is sort of drastic}. She is now singing along with the church choir. She looks around a lot, she says, to see if anyone notices if she makes a mistake, but then she keeps going because she can hear my voice in her head yelling. "SING!"
I used to think that it was justified for conductors to state sing with your heart when they show up as "weekend warriors" after the choir director has done all the hard work of teaching the music. It is not really fair, is it?Anyhow German reminds me of Hitler and ovens and so I can't really warm up to it. But the notes of course are beautiful. Bach must have wanted to do some ear training to help his medieval peeps when created this rollercoaster.
Quote of the day:
To avoid being consumed by anything
You must be able to walk away from it.
Buddha
While we are on the subject of Walt Whitman...
Now the great organ sounds...
Come forward O my soul, and let the rest retire,
Listen, lose not, it is toward thee they tend,
Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber,
For thee they sing and dance O soul.
Then I woke softly,
And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream,
And questioning all those reminiscences, the tempest in its fury,
And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,
And those rapt oriental dances of religious fervor,
And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs,
And all the artless plaints of love and grief and death,
I said to my silent curious soul out of the bed of the slumber-chamber,
Come, for I have found the clew I sought so long,
Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day,
Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real,
Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream.
--Leaves of Grass: Proud Music of
the Storm.
Ok here is a Martin Luther King Jr. quote of the day:
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
I just loaded the SOUL party pix to the computer and some of them are pretty good (if I say so myself). Now I need to figure out how to email them. I wonder if there is any way I can put them up here.
"My Lovely Elizabeth" live by singer/songwriter S.E. Rogie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-lGuHtL1No
The SOUL concert stirred my heart and soul as a rue in a gumbo. I now conclude that even though music is a double edged sword dipped in sea salt on one end and a sweet rainbow wine on the other, it does not let you numbingly forget. In a major way it is as sharp as it is flat. It has already pierced your soul and in the pianissimo light of day, it whispers: "I am keeping you from being a "Stepford".
I wonder if everyone in the choir understands or cares how hard it is for someone to try and blend with stray pitches so as not to sound totally off from others?
I started to write something and then I started to hear parts of the BACH in my head.All of a sudden the background of this comment section turned into a pulsating blue color and then yellow dots.As I type this a yellow streak is across this WORD...Maybe if I stopped singing all together, I would be quiet and calm and not see it and life would be good.I am going to pray that I lose my sense of pitch and that my voice goes straight to hell.Then maybe nothing would affect me and I could go to the mall in peace and then maybe sounds would leave me alone.However,my mother in heaven would surely not be pleased and life would not be so peachy after all because she would make her disapproval known and I frighten easy.So it is enough to dream conservations with living people and too much to dream conversations with the departed.Plus she was a Soprano and you don't want to mess with someone of your own section.
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