The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #151790 Message #3548664
Posted By: GUEST,leeneia
13-Aug-13 - 02:24 PM
Thread Name: and him in the London Oxford Cambridge triangle!
Subject: RE: Origins: and him in the Londn Oxfrd Cam triangle!
Well, we did it, and it was well received. I had a fan club of three, and they all said they were glad they came.
There were 21 singers, seven of them sopranos, and most of them trained. At times I felt it didn't matter what I did, but I did my best anyway.
At the last moment, our beloved pianist was replaced by a string orchestra of maybe 8 people. After the precision of the piano, singing with them was like singing with a giant accordion. Also, we had only three tenors, and all three of them were singing their utmost right in my ears. What with the added pressures, I found myself singing, 'who doth' whether I wanted to or not.
The strings particularly wanted the Credo speeded up. Of course, this is the piece with the most special effects and the most unfamiliar Latin. But I have a tool for dealing with things like that. It's a pencil. When it gets too complicated, I write 'don't sing' on certain passages. A vertical line tells me when it's safe to resume. When practicing, the Credo dismayed me at first, but it turned out to be great to sing. Esp. with the pencil in play.
Our director was young, kind, very patient, and red-haired. To say thank you, I made her a necklace of sparkly glass beads colored turquoise and copper. Occasionally the copper-colored beads flash purple. You couldn't ask for better colors for a redhead. She liked it so much, she put it right on and wore it for the concert. It flashed rays of light beautifully in the dim light of the sanctuary.
After the physicists explain how the madly whizzing droplets left over from a storm make the organized form of the rainbow, they can try to figure out why beads flash more in soft light than in brilliant light.
I wore my biggest, brightest, nouveau riche* CZ earrings. I was channeling Elly Ameling, the Dutch soprano. We saw her perform once, wearing a lovely, light blue formal dress and diamond earrings which flashed light all over the municipal auditorium. Being Dutch, she was no doubt proud of the diamond cutters of Amsterdam. I thought if it worked for her, it might work for me.