tenebrae et alleluia

[cahn]

This Holy Week was less taxing time-wise than previous Holy Weeks I've done with the Catholic church I sing at. Due to the current admin of the church, we didn't sing Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, although we had rehearsal Thursday night anyway. And they've made the Holy Saturday service rather shorter than it was the first year I sang with these guys (2 1/4 hrs instead of 3).

But the choir is much weaker than it was when I started with them several years ago, and the soprano-soloist DK was absent for Holy Saturday, the combination of which meant that I felt much more anxious about the whole thing than I did the other years I've done this, even though there was less music and more practice time. I did get to sing all the first soprano descants solo because DK wasn't there, which I enjoyed, except for the one song where the second sopranos failed utterly and I couldn't help them because I was singing the descant solo. (The nascent choir-director soul in me goes into conniptions when something goes wrong and I cannot help.)

Today not only DK was there, but Director's son came and sang tenor YAY. I cannot EXPRESS, except through CAPITAL LETTERS, how much better it was to have ACTUAL TENOR lines. Augh. And we had an "orchestra" of two violins, a cello, timpani, and two trumpets, and it was marvelous. (I should also remark here that DK wasn't present at rehearsal two weeks ago with the instruments, so I got to sing the big solo Benedictus with the strings in rehearsal (though she did it today), and it was THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER.) And DK and Director's son and Director and I sang a quartet, and the choir sang a Haydn mass. And we got to sit in the choir loft so we could actually hear one another sing! And we sang Cherubini and the Hallelujah Chorus and it was all actually really fun when I wasn't being anxious something would go horribly wrong because the choir was so weak. (Nothing did, today. It turns out that DK and Director's Son and Director and I together make a pretty good foundation for the rest of the choir.)

Also, I still totally love the Catholic church's pomp and theater of Holy Week. We don't do anything like this in my church (Easter is the only bit that we even acknowledge), which may be why I think it's so neat.

Alleluia!

Comments

[thistleingrey]

and I couldn't help them because I was singing the descant solo

Heh, alas.

[philomytha]

Happy Easter!
We had our annual Easter miracle at the Vigil Mass (2 1/2 hours this year, and because Easter's so late it started at 9pm) whereby Philomythulus, beguiled by lots and lots of singing and being allowed to hold a lit candle for most of the time, sat still and silent for the entire service. Well, apart from a few pardonable bits of shouting during the homily, but given that his bedtime is 8pm, and most weeks I have to take him out for at least half of Mass due to excessive uproar, it's pretty amazing.

I still don't claim to understand why our organist thinks that an admittedly nice arrangement of 'Joy to the World' is the best choice of motet for Easter, though.

[cahn]

Hee. I knooooow, I start sounding really snotty when I talk about choral singing :) (I think it may be an occupational hazard...)

[cahn]

Oh, that is amazing and wonderful, yay! (E is the opposite: she is usually relatively well-behaved at morning service, and we have never got her to last through an hour service-past-her-bedtime.)

Um. I guess... you could... think of the words of "Joy to the World" as referring to Easter? ...if you had never been exposed to any sort of Christmas culture at all...?

Happy Easter! :)

[thistleingrey]

It goes with being able to sing sop 1, by stereotype. :) I do empathize with the bind of doing responsible thing A and thus being unable to do responsible thing B....

[ase]

Whew! Glad the choir's contributions to the Sunday service came together. (And that I get to hear about music, yay.)

[cahn]

Hee. D always teases me about being a stereotypically snobby first soprano or a passive-aggressive second soprano :) (Altos, of course, are Just Awesome. *alto fistbump*)

[cahn]

:) Glad you like hearing me ramble on about music :)

[thistleingrey]

*fistbump* Except for when altos get bored and covet tenor lines, I guess! :)) I confess to entertaining myself sometimes by humming to keep adjacent male singers in mixed formation on key--and when one group sang Duruflé's Requiem, the director actually let a few tenors and altos boost the too-small bari/bass section on the beginning of "Libera me." Fun, and more meddling than awesome....