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

I spent last week away with a newly-formed choir rehearsing Rossini's Petite Messe Solonelle. Yoohoo! I always wanted to sing that!

Three days of non-stop singing was absolutely exhausting but such fun. The next two weekends we shall be performing it on all four nights in different places.

It was nice to be picked to be in a choir which calls itself a chamber choir and you had to audition to get in. I hope I find time every night this week to perfect the coloraturas in the fugues, as I get the feeling everyone else is better than me.

Also this week in our own little local choir, rehearsals start again. Our first gig is the "Night of Museums and Culture" (rough translation) in the town, where we are hoping to put on a few secular songs, under the Motto "All you need is Love". This includes a version of "Moon river", "Groovy Kind of Love" and "All you need is Love".

At our first choir practice on Thursday we are splitting into two groups S/A and T/B and I shall have to work with the ladies to get their close harmonies right. That means I shall spend most evenings this week at the piano, singing to myself, in preparation for both events.

I tried to listen to a CD of Rossini's "Gloria Mass" today, but the CD has become faulty.

Brava! Not only picked for the choir but put in charge of the sectional! Enjoy your concerts!

Sorry, misread that. Singing in the chamber choir and directing your own little choir. Well here's to success in both.

The Petite Messe Solonelle is a fun piece to sing, and it doesn't cost too much to put on because it doesn't need an orchestra, just two pianos and a harmonium (chamber organ). With a good pianist, you can get away with one piano and a harmonium.

I've a recording of it featuring Pavarotti as one of the soloists in which the choir sing about a quarter tone flat the whole way through. It's painful. So watch your intonation.

That may be due to the harmonium being tuned to a different frequency. We were rehearsing with a normal 440 Hz piano but were told that the harmonium (and so, hopefully, the piano ) are tuned to a different frequency. (Maybe 420 Hz, but I've forgotten for the minute. It might have been 442 Hz.)

So it will be awkward to find the right notes (especially where the choir doesn't have much to go on. The Sanctus and the Gloria start out of the blue on "A", and even singers without perfect pitch will be able to find a concert pitch "A". Also there are lots of chromatic chord changes where it may prove difficult to keep the pitch.

However, if I was recording it and had contracted someone of Pavarotti's reputation as a soloist, I would have put more effort into getting the choral parts right.

My recording is the King's College choir conducted by Riccardo Muti, with the La Becque sisters on the piano(s). I mostly listen to it in the car, which is rather difficult because of all the pianissimo parts.

I remember that the Christe Eleison is sung a capella. There's always a great relief when the instruments start playing again and you find that you are still singing in tune.

"I've a recording of it featuring Pavarotti as one of the soloists in which the choir sing about a quarter tone flat the whole way through. It's painful. So watch your intonation." [Gnomon]

The recording I have is with Nicolai Gedda as the tenor

[Lucia Popp, Sop; Brigitte Fassbaender, Mezzo Sop; Nicolai Gedda, Tenor; David Briggs, Harmonium; Marielle Labèque, Piano; Katia Labèque, Piano; Dimitri Kavrakos, Bar; Stephen Cleobury, cond; Cambr.King's College Choir]

440/442 should be bearable; such a small difference would be heard as an aspect of timbre.

The human ear can tolerate (automatically correct for) a discrepancy of up to a tenth of a semitone, which 440/442 is just about exactly. After that the pain begins.

Flat tenors are the ban of many a choral group.

bane, not ban.

Typos are another bane.....

I find sopranos going flat more frequently (speaking as a tenor... )

Thanks for that!