Sarah has arrived safely in England. She texted that she was home and preparing to sit on her new sofa. Her departure yesterday was slightly unusual in that she did not seem as upset as she left. Not sure why this was, but it was a bit easier on Eileen and me and maybe that was part of her motivation. At any rate, I’m glad she’s home safe.

The service yesterday, the choir’s last for the season. was a flurry of activity. Eileen and I arrived early. We spotted my violinist walking to church and offered her a ride. Amy was especially impressed with Eileen’s Mini. I had a half hour to work with my violinist and cellist before the choir arrived. We spent a good deal of time on the postlude which was my own composition. The cello and the violin were playing an obbligato in octaves for most of this piece. This melodic line was actually my only composing, since I played the hymn melody myself on the piano while the strings had the fun part. I was glad that Eileen got a chance to hear this piece in the choir room because, of course, when we performed it the church was buzzing with people leaving the room.

I had toyed with inviting my two sopranos to come early as well. I did so because both of them have a tendency to arrive late or sometimes just not show up. I resisted. One of them came early. This felt a bit healthier mentally to me than me asking them to come early. The other came late and was in tears for most of the morning.

Eileen said earlier that she didn’t think this ending to the season was unusual for its zaniness. This puts the onus on me since it has felt a bit weirder than usual to me. Maybe it’s age, but with my priest out of commission for all of the Easter Season (which ended yesterday with Pentecost) and with a majority of choir members doing some acting out during this period, it’s hard for me not to see it as a tough ending to the season.

I kept my promise to myself to be the person in the room in the best mood. Mostly I just think, “fuck it,” and keep moving.

In such a small choir, it’s very noticeable when people misbehave. Yesterday I had about 12 choristers for the service. I can think of 3 who arrived late for the pregame. 2 of these managed not to find the music for the day that I put on each chorister’s chair and slowed down the rehearsal further as I made sure they had a copy of the psalm or whatever.

The music itself went pretty well. The piano trio performed well. The two pieces by CPE Bach we performed for the prelude and the beginning of communion are two that I particularly like. The choir sounded pretty good especially considering we were missing half of the sopranos and one bass. The sopranos did a good job despite one of them weeping throughout.

So now I recuperate. I have lots of new music to study and catalog since my package of used music came in the mail. After we got home from taking Sarah to the airport I made a play list of the Masses by Dufy, Obrecht and Ockeghem based on the Caput excerpt I mentioned yesterday.

Bukofzer has an extensive study of these pieces and their historical significance which is considerable. I dipped into it yesterday while listening to the Dufay. Nice stuff and a good way to begin my break from the choir.