This one too, is one we tried out in high school but I didn't actually get to sing in concert until Westminster. Only years later have I noticed that my high school choir director put some pretty challenging stuff in front of us; lots of polyphonic works and old Renaissance stuff. I think it's because he was largely left to his own devices.


In geek news, I heard a few good things about the Battlestar Galactica board game from a post by gillan. I decided that I'd seek it out. Then, I made the mistake of watching a few episodes online to get into the spirit of the game. My long dormant love of space opera/conspiracy drama was activated and suddenly I want to watch all the episodes of the show and make any and all available friends play this game. So, thanks Brett. It took me 7 years to overcome the space opera bug after Star Wars was ruined, and now I'm right back in. Hooray. Sigh.

This one takes me back. I first worked with this piece in high school. Our director was feeling out the choir at the start of the semester, to see what we could handle. Though we only gave this piece a few try-outs it stuck immediately as one of my favorites. Just hearing the part at 22 seconds, when the full chorus harmony hits still gets me, even after having heard this one maybe hundreds of times.

This one is also an actual Renaissance work by Thomas Luis de Victoria rather than a modern re-imagining.

Here's another English composer rewriting an old classic. Ralph Vaughn-Williams "Wassail Song." Wassailing is one of those great old words. Carousing without the seedy undertones. Eat, drink, sing, and be merry.

That high pitched sound is crappy audio encoding. Sadly, this is the best video of the song I could find.


As a side note, I've posted a few religious works so far but there's no subversive intent here. The concept of a "war on Christmas" was invented by a neo-nazi, so I don't buy into it. If you hear God in this music, that's your thing and you're welcome. I'm just here to point out that medieval style polyphony sounds good.

Benjamin Britten is another of my faves. His modern choral works ran throughout my school days from the first Chapel Choir class my freshman year. He was also a lover of the old tunes of medieval Europe and loved to reset texts in Middle English. Here's a choice selection from the "Ceremony of Carols."



The only thing better than a Middle English Christmas carol is one being redone by a twentieth century composer.

It's also fun to see the faces the kids make, wringing as much pathos from 1'15 as is possible.

I think somewhere around 1950 they stopped making good Christmas music. And even then, I feel we were in decline for about 2 or 3 centuries. If there's one thing I'm a snob about it's my Christmas music. So, go listen to some modern pop diva butcher "Let it Snow" and then come back here and watch this.


See, that's what I'm talking about! Crazy turn-of-the-century British man rewriting Elizabethan carols.

I don't hate other Christmas music. Along with Benjamin Britten's "Ceremony of Carols" I've also sung some great jazz arrangements of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and the Westminster Singers traditional "Twas the Night Before Christmas." I'm just saying, is it too much to sneak in an occasional "Hodie Christus Natus Est" among the others?

If this makes me a crotchety old man, it makes me a 500 year old crotchety old man.

Yesterday was the concert for the Greater Trenton Choral Society, led by Chris Loeffler. It was a good show. Not my best, not by a long shot, but it feels good to have the accomplishment. My throat is a bit raw and my voice is lower today from pushing too hard. We had a good space to sing in and I got to liking the sound of my voice bouncing off the walls, so my piano markings became mezzo-forte and it grew from there.

In addition to the program of Americana choral music, I got to do 3 Ned Rorem songs solo. He's become one of my favorite composers of American lieder as he writes tuneful stuff with the modality and harmonic exoticism I like. I got those songs under my belt in about 3 weeks too, so that's a benefit.

Leff has already begun thinking about the fall program but first we need to get our summer recruitment drive going. Some of the existing members seem to want lighter fare, but Leff is hoping we can get enough new blood to try something like Mendelsohn's "Elijah." I'd enjoy that.