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Hi everyone,
Those movements we studied last Tuesday are beginning to sound like the real thing! The excitement is infectious, and I'm sure you caught it.
While that is certainly true, we're still dealing with text clarification, which is not surprising considering that Austro-German Latin isn't our native language! Case in point: I am so grateful for the issue that came up within the alto section this week, because it suddenly occurred to me what the real issue is/was. It has to do with the way the composer lays out certain words, in this case eleison.
Eleison can be divided into three syllables (e-lei-son) in which three different pitches and/or groups of notes would be involved, with the second syllable stressed and the two letters involved sliding together: eh-LAY-zon. But that word is also often given four syllables, and therefore four different distinctions: e-le-i-son, with lonely little "i" often not even noticed! It should be eh-LE-I-zon, with both inner syllables stressed!
You know how you can't notice all the interesting things about a neighborhood if you're driving fast? Same thing when we're singing fast passages. It can be easy to miss that crucial syllable "i," therefore clumping the end of the phrase, as had been noticed by at least three altos as they tried to explain the problem they had been hearing. And it doesn't take much of a leap to assume that if lots of altos aren't noticing the single letter "i" (pronounced "ee"!) and regarding it as a single syllable, the same must go for every section of the choir. Singers who've sung this work before, or at least have sung in Latin, will probably not have much problem with this. But for the large number of you who are encountering this concept for the first time, it's a minefield!
For that reason, now that things are coming together nicely so that you're all much more familiar with the piece, it's a good idea to go back through and pronounce everything aloud slowly. Now is the time to correct your unrecognized mispronunciations, before they become stuck. And the sooner we have unanimity of pronunciation, the more progress we can make in other areas of growth.
More examples: Many are forgetting to place the "v" after a "q." I know this is so unusual that it doesn't come naturally. Still, it must be done. Right now, it's notably lacking in the very first movement we sing: "RE-kvee-em"! Trust me from my own experience, every one of us has a blind spot or two where we routinely mispronounce something. I'm still hearing "ih" for the letter "i" from the sopranos, which of course should be—wait for it—"eee"! I know that some of you simply don't hear yourselves. That's why I emphasize personal slow pronunciation, to clean up ingrained mispronunciations. Mozart deserves this time and attention, I'd say! The more we have to stop and repeat in rehearsal, the less time we have for discovering the richness that we have yet to incorporate.
Well, that's the end of this week's lecture on consonants. Next week, look for interesting ideas about vowel uniformity. The excitement never ends.
Your very happy Maestra,
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