Today we took a break from our Christmas shopping to make our first attempt at Gush forth my tears, a very pretty Holborne piece, that is more rhythmically challenging that the pieces we've tried as a group so far.
My love hath vowed
A pleasant warm-up, as always.
Gush forth, my tears
Our first attempt (though several of us sang it with Baroness Cicilia's singing group, several years ago). We worked our way through the whole piece, and while we never did it perfectly, we were surprised by how close we got.
We sang it in G, but we're pondering dropping it to F - somewhat easier for basses to sing the lowest line, without causing the tenors trouble; and likewise, somewhat easier for the altos on the upper lines, without distressing the sopranos (which both cover the same range). I'm not sure what the original pitch was - I'll look for a facsimile of the source.
Il Bianco e dolce cigno
We worked on the first page, to "beato". We can consistently get two parts at a time working together. Not quite the standard we achieved at St Caths (where we had a lot of help from visitors who knew it well) but better by far than we managed before that.
We repeated My love hath vowed to finish the session.
Plans for the next few weeks - until Canterbury Faire
Part songs that need more work:
- Il Bianco e dolce cigno
- Gush forth, my tears
- O my heart
Work-songs to learn (at least one, maybe all three)
- Margot labourez les vignes
- C'est la fins
- Stella splendens
Stuff we know pretty well, that we'll practice enough to keep in our repertoire:
- Verbum caro factum est
- My love hath vowed
- Dona nobis pacem
- Laudemus virginem