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Penance and straight tone
Jun. 11th, 2019 12:06 pmIt's Davide Penitente production week, y'all!
Have I talked about this piece at all? So Mozart wrote what is now referred to as his Great Mass in C minor for his wife, but he never finished it (it's missing the end of the Credo and the Agnus Dei). However, even incomplete, it's one of his most famous choral works, up there in popularity with his (also fragmentary) Requiem. Our very first concert with the Mainly Mozart festival was the Great Mass in C minor five years ago, and it was an amazing thing to be part of.
Why do I bring up the C minor Mass? Because Mozart was later commissioned by a schmancy music society in Vienna to write a choral-orchestral work, so Mozart pulled out the incomplete C minor Mass, removed the Latin mass text, added Saverio Mattei's Italian psalm translations, wrote a couple of new arias and a cadenza for the final movement, and BOOM: we have Davide Penitente, a 45-minute cantata with Italian text and oodles of drama. For reasons likely related to the weirdness of singing psalm-inspired Italian, it's an unusually underperformed bit of Mozart's oeuvre, so it's extra-cool that Mainly Mozart hired us to sing it this year.
Maestro Francis arrived at last night's rehearsal as JR was warming us up on the final (blisteringly fast) chorus. He took the podium with a smile and said, "That sounded jolly good! Almost like you've sung this piece before! Though I think your Latin has got worse."
*giggles*
He gave us a talking-to about how necessary it is to bring the drama to this piece. We are collectively King David, repentant after finding out God is kinda annoyed with him for getting Bathsheba, a married woman, up the duff, and then deliberately getting her husband Uriah killed at war. So there's lots of wailing and moaning and wearing musical sackcloth, but also moments of hope and joy. And then we sang. And it was good.
One of the big things Maestro did was dial back our vibrato. Some is good, because Italian. But so much of the drama in the music comes from suspensions and resolutions thereof, and semitone disonances don't really come through when both parts are wobbling liek whoa. So swaths of the slow movement and the final movement are almost entirely senza vibrato (aka straight tone, wot the Anglicans love). This is, of course, right up my vocal alley. However, I've been practicing it with vibrats for almost a month, so I'm glad we have 2 more rehearsals of getting used to that laser straight tone on the disonances.
THIS IS GONNA BE SOOO GOOD Y'ALL!
Maestro Francis seemed pretty pleased with our level of preparation, and really, so am I. And I'm relieved all the tempi seem to be in the ballpark that we rehearsed them, so there were no EEEEEK moments. Apart from our final entrance, which most of us missed because we weren't sure what bar we were starting at, but that just means we'll be counting like crazy to make sure we don't trip on the final hurdle.
In other news... well that's about all. I got home, I watched a little bit of a new home remodeling show on HGTV, then went to bed, read bits of the New Yorker, and slept. Although I did wake up this morning with a wet spot under my arm because a certain doggo decided to curl up next to me before cleaning her paws for fifteen minutes. At least she was gentle enough not to wake me up until she hopped off the bed, so thanks for that, Clara, I guess?
Today, I ran for and successfully caught the bus, which is a particular triumph because the bus schedule has changed so that it no longer comes as frequently (thanks, finals week and summer session). I am working on my modest to-do lists and waiting for more exam print jobs to hit my inbox. I need to finish out my to-do pile by the end of the week and do a couple of things to make sure food and coffee appear at the faculty meeting while I'm out on Friday.
Tonight is for cleaning. I hope to swim beforehand, but if the pool is clogged with recalcitrant recreational swimmers who don't want to give up the pool to the lap swimmers, as was the case last night (or so I noticed on walkies prior to rehearsal), I might not bother. Although I am stubborn enough to insist on being able to lap swim if I have the energy to swim in addition to, dust, vacuum, and clean bathrooms and possibly also laundry and cooking. I have a few errandy things to do prior to my family's visit, but mostly I am just bouncing with anticipation. The last time I saw all of them together was an all-too-short weekend in Chicago last summer, and this will be another all-too-short weekend on my home turf, but I suspect taking it easy, eating tasty food, and playing in the ocean (plus my concert on Saturday, squee!) will be on the agenda. Nobody has to do fancy entertaining or cook a huge meal, unlike most holidays. And as long as the guest room has clean sheets and towels, the bathrooms aren't actively disgusting, and the house doesn't look like a tornado went through it, I don't think my brother and his GF will be offended.
OK. Gonna get some more scheduling done and maybe obtain some lunch. Unforutnately, it's one of the three months in 2019 wherein the mortgage payment departs my checking account before my biweekly paycheck hits it, and as a result I'm rawther low on funds until my paycheck hits tomorrow. At least I had a check from the cathedral to silence the account balance alerts. Doot doot dee doo.
Rigth. Food. Work. Perhaps research the blog post I've been procrastinating.
Could use a nap. Won't get one. Alas. At least the fog blowing in from the ocean is pretty, even though it requires me to wear a coat until I walk the 150 feet or so to get into the sunshine. San Diego = Microclimates R' Us.
Smooches to All!
Mun42
Have I talked about this piece at all? So Mozart wrote what is now referred to as his Great Mass in C minor for his wife, but he never finished it (it's missing the end of the Credo and the Agnus Dei). However, even incomplete, it's one of his most famous choral works, up there in popularity with his (also fragmentary) Requiem. Our very first concert with the Mainly Mozart festival was the Great Mass in C minor five years ago, and it was an amazing thing to be part of.
Why do I bring up the C minor Mass? Because Mozart was later commissioned by a schmancy music society in Vienna to write a choral-orchestral work, so Mozart pulled out the incomplete C minor Mass, removed the Latin mass text, added Saverio Mattei's Italian psalm translations, wrote a couple of new arias and a cadenza for the final movement, and BOOM: we have Davide Penitente, a 45-minute cantata with Italian text and oodles of drama. For reasons likely related to the weirdness of singing psalm-inspired Italian, it's an unusually underperformed bit of Mozart's oeuvre, so it's extra-cool that Mainly Mozart hired us to sing it this year.
Maestro Francis arrived at last night's rehearsal as JR was warming us up on the final (blisteringly fast) chorus. He took the podium with a smile and said, "That sounded jolly good! Almost like you've sung this piece before! Though I think your Latin has got worse."
*giggles*
He gave us a talking-to about how necessary it is to bring the drama to this piece. We are collectively King David, repentant after finding out God is kinda annoyed with him for getting Bathsheba, a married woman, up the duff, and then deliberately getting her husband Uriah killed at war. So there's lots of wailing and moaning and wearing musical sackcloth, but also moments of hope and joy. And then we sang. And it was good.
One of the big things Maestro did was dial back our vibrato. Some is good, because Italian. But so much of the drama in the music comes from suspensions and resolutions thereof, and semitone disonances don't really come through when both parts are wobbling liek whoa. So swaths of the slow movement and the final movement are almost entirely senza vibrato (aka straight tone, wot the Anglicans love). This is, of course, right up my vocal alley. However, I've been practicing it with vibrats for almost a month, so I'm glad we have 2 more rehearsals of getting used to that laser straight tone on the disonances.
THIS IS GONNA BE SOOO GOOD Y'ALL!
Maestro Francis seemed pretty pleased with our level of preparation, and really, so am I. And I'm relieved all the tempi seem to be in the ballpark that we rehearsed them, so there were no EEEEEK moments. Apart from our final entrance, which most of us missed because we weren't sure what bar we were starting at, but that just means we'll be counting like crazy to make sure we don't trip on the final hurdle.
In other news... well that's about all. I got home, I watched a little bit of a new home remodeling show on HGTV, then went to bed, read bits of the New Yorker, and slept. Although I did wake up this morning with a wet spot under my arm because a certain doggo decided to curl up next to me before cleaning her paws for fifteen minutes. At least she was gentle enough not to wake me up until she hopped off the bed, so thanks for that, Clara, I guess?
Today, I ran for and successfully caught the bus, which is a particular triumph because the bus schedule has changed so that it no longer comes as frequently (thanks, finals week and summer session). I am working on my modest to-do lists and waiting for more exam print jobs to hit my inbox. I need to finish out my to-do pile by the end of the week and do a couple of things to make sure food and coffee appear at the faculty meeting while I'm out on Friday.
Tonight is for cleaning. I hope to swim beforehand, but if the pool is clogged with recalcitrant recreational swimmers who don't want to give up the pool to the lap swimmers, as was the case last night (or so I noticed on walkies prior to rehearsal), I might not bother. Although I am stubborn enough to insist on being able to lap swim if I have the energy to swim in addition to, dust, vacuum, and clean bathrooms and possibly also laundry and cooking. I have a few errandy things to do prior to my family's visit, but mostly I am just bouncing with anticipation. The last time I saw all of them together was an all-too-short weekend in Chicago last summer, and this will be another all-too-short weekend on my home turf, but I suspect taking it easy, eating tasty food, and playing in the ocean (plus my concert on Saturday, squee!) will be on the agenda. Nobody has to do fancy entertaining or cook a huge meal, unlike most holidays. And as long as the guest room has clean sheets and towels, the bathrooms aren't actively disgusting, and the house doesn't look like a tornado went through it, I don't think my brother and his GF will be offended.
OK. Gonna get some more scheduling done and maybe obtain some lunch. Unforutnately, it's one of the three months in 2019 wherein the mortgage payment departs my checking account before my biweekly paycheck hits it, and as a result I'm rawther low on funds until my paycheck hits tomorrow. At least I had a check from the cathedral to silence the account balance alerts. Doot doot dee doo.
Rigth. Food. Work. Perhaps research the blog post I've been procrastinating.
Could use a nap. Won't get one. Alas. At least the fog blowing in from the ocean is pretty, even though it requires me to wear a coat until I walk the 150 feet or so to get into the sunshine. San Diego = Microclimates R' Us.
Smooches to All!
Mun42
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