It's all in the tempo
I miss many things about singing in the chorus, but every year at about this time I am reminded how glad I am not to have to sing a Christmas concert that concludes with Silent Night. I've never been real thrilled about singing this carol in choral arrangements, since its harmonic simplicity tends to produce an extremely boring bass part; but somewhere around 10 years ago, our conductor apparently fell in love with (or perhaps even devised himself) a particularly soupy arrangement, complete with a key change for the last verse, which involved a soprano solo descant, and... well, you get the idea, I don't want to spoil your dinner. Add to this a lugubriously slow tempo, and you've got my idea of choral hell. (I don't know if this tradition is still in force; I haven't made it to the last couple of Cecilia Christmas concerts.)
Last night,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jwg and I went to the contra dance in Concord (no, this is not a complete non sequitur; bear with me), because CR was calling and the band was a good group and it was an excuse to get out of the house. It was a fun dance, and the band honored the season not only by wearing Santa hats, but by mixing in carols and other seasonal melodies with the usual tunes. (Some of these worked better than others; with a bit of judicious repetition, they were able to get 64 beats out of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, but the phrasing was very odd.)
And then there was the final waltz; as John and I were twirling about the floor in our somewhat unorthodox style, I realized that the band was playing, yes, you guessed it, Silent Night. And I realized that, played at a nice comfortable waltz tempo, it worked pretty well. I wish I'd known about this back when I was still in Cecilia; I might have suggested to Don that he conduct it as a waltz. Well, maybe not.
Last night,
jwg and I went to the contra dance in Concord (no, this is not a complete non sequitur; bear with me), because CR was calling and the band was a good group and it was an excuse to get out of the house. It was a fun dance, and the band honored the season not only by wearing Santa hats, but by mixing in carols and other seasonal melodies with the usual tunes. (Some of these worked better than others; with a bit of judicious repetition, they were able to get 64 beats out of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, but the phrasing was very odd.) And then there was the final waltz; as John and I were twirling about the floor in our somewhat unorthodox style, I realized that the band was playing, yes, you guessed it, Silent Night. And I realized that, played at a nice comfortable waltz tempo, it worked pretty well. I wish I'd known about this back when I was still in Cecilia; I might have suggested to Don that he conduct it as a waltz. Well, maybe not.