Ora pro nobis pecatoribus

I'm listening to the Chamber Choir's recording of the Nathanial Dett "Ave Maria", the piece that I conducted but this recording is from before I got my hands on it. I can hear myself. And I like that, even though it's never a good thing when one voice rises above or is somehow clearer than the rest, usually it makes the animal of the choir lose it's integrity. Except when it's me :) When it's me, I can still recognize that it shouldn't be happening, that I shouldn't be louder than the other altos, or that I should've softened my vowel a little, but it's comforting because I'm reminded I was there, I made that sound. I was part of the making of that piece that way with that group. Those singers know my name and my voice is on that mp3 and still hanging in that concert hall somewhere. Really moves me.

I had an excellent RAP session with Concert choir today, and an even better session with the Young Men's choir where I actually conducted the rehearsal last minute, but I'm feeling on the quiet side, a little lonely even. I realized tonight in hearing that piece that I miss singing with a choir so badly. I'm very musically involved, right now, but I'm really on the outskirts of these groups, leading warm-ups, organizing music, assistant conducting...I'm dying to open my mouth and be part of a chord.

I don't have much to say at the moment I guess...still listening to recordings from Chamber Choir last year and imagining trying last year over again. Better.

The following text is an excerpt from W.H. Auden's Hymn to St. Cecilia, which Benjamin Britten arranged into the choral piece I'm listening to now (it was next on my playlist after the Ave Maria). It's one of the few choral pieces who's text was dearer to me than the music, and this was my favorite verse. I think it's very strange and very beautiful:

III.

O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,
O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,
Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all
The gaucheness of her adolescent state,
Where Hope within the altogether strange
From every outworn image is released,
And Dread born whole and normal like a beast
Into a world of truths that never change:
Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.
O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,
Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,
Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,
Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
O cry created as the bow of sin Is drawn across our trembling violin.
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.
O law drummed out by hearts against the still
Long winter of our intellectual will.
That what has been may never be again.
O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath
Of convalescents on the shores of death.
O bless the freedom that you never chose.
O trumpets that unguarded children blow
About the fortress of their inner foe.
O wear your tribulation like a rose.
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.