I'm in the middle of a long week-end of concerts -- well, two, to be honest, but we usually do only one! and so it feels rather intense. This year we are singing, in addition to some of the wonderful carols from the first volume of "Carols for Choirs", the "Gloria" by Francis Poulenc. I wasn't so sure about this piece when we sang it some years ago, but it's growing on me. I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to church music -- sometimes, the more ancient it is, the better! Well, that's a sweeping generalization, but modern stuff usually leaves me rather cold. But after six or eight weeks of rehearsals, the Poulenc has gotten fun to sing -- difficult, though, not like, say "Messiah", which is not only possibly my favorite piece ever to sing, out of a very extensive field, but wonderfully sensible. The Poulenc has some very strange leaps and progressions that puzzle when you are picking them out on the piano, but come together in a surprisingly cinematic way. In fact, I find myself humming snatches of it and "scoring" movies in my head -- one theme in the "Agnus Dei" sounds rather like a 1930s horror movie, frightening and poignant at the same time, the "Domine Deus Unigenite" is quite rollicking, even "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", and the last movement, with its dreamy "tu solus altissimus," seems to belong in a bittersweet 1960s French romance, all rainy umbrellas and Parisian melancholy.
We also have unusually early calls this year -- had almost an hour this afternoon between the end of rehearsal and the beginning of the concert -- and so I've gotten quite far on the second Spey Valley sock, almost down to the heel already ....
