Il Bianco e dolce cigno is significantly harder than anything we've tried to date, but we made a good attempt on it.
We started with the rather intimidating process of checking our ranges, one by one, to determine who should be singing which part. We'll try again in six months or a year to see if our ranges have increased with practice. Thanks Anna, Caterine, Eleanor and William de Cameron for giving this a go! (William de Wyke and Catalina - we should try this when you are well).
Thanks, Caterine, for offering your house, since William and Catalina were not able to be our hosts today. We had a most productive session.
Done in the usual way, as our warm-up.
Eleanor's first time on this piece. We tried all three verses, quite successfully, and for the first time. Anna, Caterine and Eleanor on the top line, William de Cameron and Katherina on the second.
We managed a little singing as we finished sewing skirts, and even a new piece.
Laudemus Virginem, My love hath vowed, Contrapunto Bestiale alla mente.
St John's was full of music this year, both casual teaching and jamming, and rehearsed performances. Some of the pieces are listed below. Feel free to add more, if you can.
By Adriano Banchieri, for five voices (2 sopranos, alto, tenor, bass). The first and last sections are "falala"s, and in the middle each line imitates a different animal.
We're using the sheet-music in the Big Lochac Snogbook (page 22).
Greg, Christine and Katherina have been playing trios, with whatever instruments we had to hand. That meant Christine on a flute on the top line, Greg on trumpet on the middle line (transposing as he went - we didn't have a B-flat version of the music for him), and Katherina on the bottom line on either flute or tenor recorder.
All the pieces we tried were from Twenty-one Pieces Transcribed by Erich Katz, 1400-1630 (in Katherine's red folder labelled "Ren trios").
We played:
Amongst the performances at the Bloth this year were:
Summary of what we've sung each week, from July 2012. The entries aren't complete until November 2012. New days go at the top of the table, new songs in alphabetical order.
