Well, I gave it my all today at church as I often do. Went over and retuned the harpsichord for the second time in 24 hours. Rehearsed with the bass player and guitarist. Then with the violinist and cellist. Then with singers and the strings. Prelude was the Bach violin sonata which is probably not by him but is really quite cool in a miniature/baroque-gallant sort of way. The composer wrote a very interesting right hand for the harpsichord. It was actually very musical.
We did two difficult hymn tunes today both by the Anglican Peter Cutts. Didn’t see this coming until last night as I prepared the hymns. The texts were pretty cool (“All who love and serve your city” by Erik Routley … Cutts tune: Baribos … I think that’s the name….. and “Nothing Distress You” adapted from St. Theresa of Avila… that tune was called MANY MANSIONS). I took the choir through the tunes and played them a tad under tempo and the cong actually sang.
After the organ postlude from the Orgelbuchlein, I introduced the choir to Arvo Part’s Ode II which I want to sing on Advent IV. I played them a recording and gave them a little pep talk about the different nature of music that doesn’t move the same way in time as most of the music they sing.
I had the rehearsal pretty planned and took them through all of the Advent anthems. Next week I will introduce Xmas anthems.
After rehearsal I kind of blew it. One choir member objected to the words of the Arvo Part and wondered if we could them in performance. I reacted all over the place. Fuck fuck fuck.
The words pray directly to Mary to “save us.” By this time on Sunday I don’t have any faith left anyway and apparently no non-anxious presence (echo of my tiny daughter saying in the past: You’re not NON-ANXIOUS. You’re NEVER non-anxious).
Probably shouldn’t have shouted about wanting to do something at my church besides “bland, white, middle of the road, Holland” stuff. Yep. Shouldn’t have done that.
I did apologize to the person who didn’t want to pray to Mary musically. But by that time, the choir has skiddoodled.
Oy.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I’m affraid this is a Jenkins trait. Being anxious that is. I would not worry so much about it. Look for play pic’s on face book soon.
Davidj