Fun Stuff > BAND
Let's talk choral music.
Barmymoo:
No, Cooke wouldn't have a discography yet - we're the first to record his music I think! Let me see if I can find something though, we might have recorded something before?
OK, here is a video of him awkwardly talking about a piece we're recording, which is almost audible in the background.
Redball:
Doesn't yet sound promising. My large choir in the 1970s tackled, then thankfully abandoned a piece by Charles Ives. But 20 years later, we groaned as a new director started in on Honegger's King David. It was awful! Then it was grand!
pwhodges:
My microphone has developed a fault, and is going back to the US for repair. I nearly couldn't record Sunday's concert, and in the end the recording needs a lot of work to make it usable (I spent all yesterday evening getting 8 minutes done - the easiest eight minutes, but I'm also getting faster at what I need to do). A pity, as it was particularly good, and also interesting to record because many of the pieces had a spacial element (choir split between the ends of the chapel, soloist in the organ loft).
It was Christmas music, but some little-known settings. Geoffrey Bush's Christmas Cantata was done with piano, oboe and cello accompaniment; it includes a really sweet a capella setting of a poem by Hilaire Belloc. Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on Christmas Carols is well known, but how many know the similar, but less over-blown, work that Holst wrote the year before (called Christmas Day)? Adam lay ybounden has been set as often as any Christmas words - but do you know the setting by John Ireland (or any not by Boris Ord)?
Fortunately, the concert was also well attended; publicity is typically the choir's main failing. I will link bits here as I get them listenable.
Barmymoo:
Paul, I haven't heard any of those things but I shall hunt some out, I need some decent Christmas music to listen to. We sang the Fantasia at the college Christmas concert and it was surprisingly good. I was actually in the orchestra in the end, did I tell you about that fiasco? I sang all the parts in the chorus (including bass) at rehearsals and then ended up playing violin instead.
OK I just found a fairly dire video of a choir singing some of the Bush Cantata, and it wasn't great but I think I would like to buy the CD. If I can find it for under £12 that is...
pwhodges:
There is only one recording of the Bush; it was badly reviewed, and you may prefer mine when it's done in spite of the technical problems - though we also didn't do all the movements (a different selection in our case, sanctioned by the composer).
Here are the pieces I've processed so far:
An English Christmas
I've tried to get some of the effect of the choir being split in the Britten - you can hear the shaky coordination at one point...
The Ireland is artfully simple - you may note that the harmonies are never actually quite the same twice.
The Bush comes over well, I think.
There's an unfortunate mistake near the end of the Holst, but it passes quickly with no lasting impact; the sound is cut off very quickly at the end, because that was the only way I could save the track - of these it had the worst problems, but they are mostly sufficiently covered by the singing. The baritone soloist is in the organ loft at the other end of the chapel.
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