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

I've now finished all my singing for the year. We had three concerts over the last few weeks:

Big choir: Messiah for two nights in St Patrick's Cathedral, with orchestra

Small choir: Advent Music in St Patrick's, a cappella. The programme included "Salve Regina" by Howells, and a wonderful arrangement of Praetorius's "Es ist ein Ros" by Sandstrøm. We put the four soloists at the front, and the rest of the choir marched to the back of the cathedral where we provided long, slow, atmospheric "ooh" sounds. Glasses of wine for all afterwards.

Big choir: Christmas carols in the National Concert Hall, including Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols. There was a wonderful brass quintet and a children's choir as well.

With that lot finished, I can now start to enjoy listening to other people sing, so I went to a carol concert yesterday in which my window cleaner was singing. An unusual feature was that the conductor is a professional soprano, so she sang a couple of the solos herself. We had mince pies afterwards.

Tomorrow is daughter El's debut as a conductor - she's conducting the Trinity Music Department choir, the Campanile Consort, in a varied a cappella repertoire, including such difficult works as Parry's "Lord, let me know mine end" and Mäntyjärvi (sp?) Double Double Toil and Trouble. Should be good fun.

how busy you are, and enjoy the other one still to come

Phew. The title of this journal entry had me worried though when I saw it in my convo list

Don't worry, h5, I'll be starting up again in January, learning Haydn's Creation for a performance later in the year.

A New Created World in January.

'The heavens are telling the glory of God...the wonder of his works displays the firmament...' Love it...

There are a number of different English language versions of The Creation. It was written in English, translated into German and set to music, but the intention was that it should always be performable in either English or German, as Haydn wanted to make as much money as possible from it. The guy who translated it into German produced an English version which wasn't quite the same as the original, so that it would fit Haydn's music, but various other people, unaware that the work was originally in English, did completely independent translations into English so there are lots of different versions of the words.

That sentence "The wonder of his works displays the firmament" sounds like English written by a German speaker. It should of course be "The firmament displays the wonder of his works".

All true, and a fair cop. I was quoting the version I learned in school from memory. 'The day that is coming speaks it the day...'</> Ouch.

When we finally heard the whole thing performed, we were in Munich in one of the baroque churches, I'm thinking it was the Theatinerkirche...and in German. It's a beautiful work. And fun to sing - Haydn's idea of creation was, well, bouncy.

It all sounds wonderful. I have always wanted to sing. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no talent whatsoever. Can barely carry a tune. But I do greatly admire those of you who can.