h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'll be singing Brahms's German Requiem on Saturday (21-May) in the National Concert Hall, with my choir. I'd be delighted if any of my friends who happened to be in Dublin came along!

It's a wonderful piece of music, full of consolation for the bereaved, with lots of spine-chilling moments, fugues and what not.

Traveller in Time searching the media
"Any webcast?"

I'm afraid not.

And I messed up the title. It should be "Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras".

"Then all the meat is but fat?"

Sounds like my Mum's Sunday roasts...

B

So you're singing it in German then?

Grass ... une alle Herrlichkeit des Menshen in des Grasses Blumen! Oh, I really love this work! One of my absolute favourites. Won't be in Dublin, but will be thinking of you. (Mind you, this Saturday, we'll be going to see Star Wars Episode III )

Fantastic! Would really love to be there but will be serving drinks to alcoholic supermarket staff in the hotel bar

Might just make it. I sang it in English many decades ago in TCD, under my (not yet then) father-in-law, Joseph Groocock.

Behold all flesh is as the grass
And all the goodliness of man is as the flower of grass
For lo the grass with'reth . . .

I loved Brahms's harmony; it inspired me to try cunning harmonic shifts in the three songs I have put on my home page (see my PS).

I'll be there

Those songs are not at all what I expected, Recumbentman! I love the chimpanzee one.

Azara

Why thankee Azara!

Dear Gnoman,

I shall be flying in on a special virtual jetplane reserved for red headed great grandmothers with a weakness for the Irish!!

More power to your lungs, me dear, so that I can hear you clearly

Christiane

I went to the National Concert Hall last night to hear Gnomon sing the Brahms.

Wonderful stuff. Brahms strikes just the right balance between a treasise on harmony in every piece he writes, and simple direct communication. The choir is the main protagonist in the German Requiem, the baritone soloist having only two or three pieces, and the soprano only one. It seems odd to give them the major applause, and buckets of flowers at the end; the excellent Franzita Whelan sang radiantly but didn't dress up or get a hairdo specially for the occasion, which seemed a worthy choice of action.

Mark Armstrong conducted with great drive and sensitivity, and the choir rose to the tempos with relish. Nothing academic about those fugues. The message came through strong and clear: behold all flesh is as the grass, but hey, that's all right, 'cause listen to this.

A rewarding evening.

Traveller in Time missed the webcast
""

Nice to hear your report, Recumbentman!

o/±

Thanks for the praise, R. We enjoyed singing it, and it sounded very good from where I was standing.

It took me a while to spot you from the balcony. You've lost so much weight, you only seemed to take up half a seat.

I thought the tenors strove manfully, outnumbered almost two to one by basses. Arthur Moyse still among them at the age of 80; as I hope to be, in 2028.

An upcoming treat for Dublin a cappella choir-fanciers: Gaudete sing 'Gibbons to Gershwin' at Airfield House Dundrum on the 12th of June

Euphoria died down? Time for a little slagging?

There *must* be a way of getting Anglophones to pronounce the Os in "Tod, wo ist dein Stachel?" You've got to stretch your jaw a bit.

Otherwise it sounds as if you don't care. Trillian's will sympathise.

I do actually know how to pronounce German. But most of the rest of the choir doesn't. We had enough problems getting them to sing tränen instead of tranen, and verschlungen instead of verschlun-jen.

I'm sorry - I just snorted with laughter at "Gibbons to Gershwin" (I wondered what he'd want with a bunch of chattering monkeys)

I have joined a project choir which will be singing the Youth Mass for the World Youth Day events. There are lots of songs in several languages - one is simply "Thank you" in dozens of languages. Apparently they recorded this at a previous World Youth Day (Toronto or Denver) and on that recording you can't even understand the "Danke schön" - so if our Chinese and Tonga don't come over quite right, we don't really mind.

There was even a diversity of pronunciation of the Polish. According to my Polish lessons, it's pronounced Jin Koo way, but one girl who really knew Polish said it was pronounced Zhin Koo way - perhaps this is a dialect thing. Poland is a huge country.



What is your next project, Gnomon?

We're coming to the end of our choir year now. On Saturday we have our choir party, which includes a Quartet Competition. I'm singing in two diferent quartets. Some poor individual has to choose between a number of badly-sung groups and say something nice about each. They we eat and drink.

There'll be no more singing then until the autumn.