I hereby declare this weekend Snoot Out of the Music weekend. I intend to spend considerable time singing along to my chorus recordings without the music open on my lap.
I don’t really need to do this with the Ravel, and I can’t get anywhere near it with the Holst yet, but I’m far enough along with the Duruflé and the Chilcott that it’s worth forcing myself to do some memorization. A lot of the things I kick myself over in rehearsal would go away if I could watch our conductor instead of the score. And it’s not like I don’t already know the words to the Requiem Mass!
Oh, and the Ravel? Still hate it. Still think Ravel should have stuck to faking being a Spaniard. Very glad we’re only doing it once; twenty minutes of humiliation, and then it’s over. We are told that we’re already leaps and bounds ahead of the last time this chorus tackled this piece, when the pitch was all over the place and the chorus got almost a full measure ahead of the orchestra in the fast 3/4 section.
I guess I can live with “sucking less than last time” on a piece I adamantly dislike.
