Hello everyone, I hope you’re all well. This is my first attempt at posting on here, so thank you for your patience as I work it out!
These posts will: give you all a summary of what we did at the most recent rehearsal, helping anyone who missed it to catch up; let you know what we’ll be doing at the next rehearsal in order to prepare at home; and to share useful things that will help with the learning process.
What we did – 14th September
We started with a thorough warm up, getting ourselves used to listening to each other again, thinking about tuning and a blended tone. Then we sang through On Jordan’s Bank, Wachet Auf (thinking about the German text), and the Matin Responsory, learning the odd moment in rough detail. After this we looked at Creator of the Stars of Night. After the break, we went through The Angel Gabriel and This is the truth, which are both fairly simple but we can do a lot of great music with it! Finally, we started work on the Haydn Missa Sancti Nicolai – we begun with the Gloria working diligently on the rhythms and nailing a few of the entrances; we didn’t start on the fugal “Amen” on page 14, though. After talking through the Credo we ended with the Sanctus, where we focussed on the entries at the opening, and creating a lovely blended sound.
To Catch Up: If you missed this rehearsal, please have a listen to the Gloria and Sanctus from Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai, and listen through the other pieces mentioned above.
What we’ll do – 21st September
This week we’ll cover How Lovely Are The Messengers, a reminder of some of the other pieces from the Advent for Choirs book, and then working on the Haydn for the rest of the rehearsal, looking through the Agnus Dei, Kyrie, and the Credo.
Marked Score
Attached is the marked score for this term. I ask that you please put in the markings into your parts. Having things like where to breathe already marked in the score will save so much time in rehearsals. Thank you all for your time with this!
Learning Resources
I’ll be sharing some resources to help you all learn the music this term, speeding up our rehearsal process, and giving you help at home. Firstly, please see the Spotify playlist HERE. It’s got most of our pieces on, so you can hear how it all goes, and sing along to it. More will be shared in the following weeks.
That’s it for now, see you all soon!
Ben
Cumnor Choral Society 