Happy Canada Day, Happy Moving Day!

It's Canada Day across the country today, and Moving Day here in Quebec: chaos that has to be seen to be believed. On the bike ride up to the studio this morning we passed every size and shape of moving vans and trucks, plus people loading their stuff onto bike trailers, or simply walking down the street carrying as many clothes on hangers as they could manage, presumably for a move to a new apartment around the corner.

As for me, I feel pretty much like I've been run over by one of those trucks -- well, not really, but I'm still beat from yesterday, which was our last full choir Sunday of the year. It began at 9:00 am with rehearsal for the 10:00 mass, and wasn't over until 7:30 pm, the end of our annual post-Evensong choir party.

In the morning we sang the Brief Mass by Dan Locklair, a not-so-brief mass setting for double choir by talented contemporary composer who writes pieces that are very interesting and demanding rhythmically, and also vocally challenging, especially if you happen to be a soprano. We sang the Sanctus split into two choirs on either side of the chancel, with the priests in the center at the altar; this the most ancient part of the mass; the words of the Sanctus, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts..." which may go back as far as 200 A.D.; it's said or sung just before the consecration of the bread and wine. Yesterday they were sung on a series of sustained high As, by both soprano sections, but at different times, so the sounds need not only to be in perfect unison, but to match. It's one thing if you're a 1st soprano, but our half of the double choir is made up of three 2nd sopranos -- and that's asking a lot! But afterward the clergy told us that the Sanctus was an amazing moment for them.

At the party, the Dean described this particular afternoon service of Evensong as "completely over the top" and I think we'd all agree; Patrick had chosen a number of "big" English pieces to end the year, including How Beauteous Are the Feet by Charles Villiers Stanford, the Magnificat and NuncDimittis by Francis Jackson, and the lush and grandiose Evening Hymn of Balfour Gardiner. We ended with our traditional last-day hymn, "How Can I Keep from Singing," an early American tune.  If you'd like to listen, I've included links here to a recording of the Evening Hymn sung by the Worcester Cathedral choir, and the magnificant organ postlude, "Play skillfully with a loud noise" (Psalm 33), by one of my favorite composers, Herbert Howells, played here by Hayo Boerema.

We also said goodbye to three of our pros who are moving on to other parts of their careers, including my close friend Cynthia, who's been the 2nd soprano soloist sung with the choir for at least 20 years. It's bittersweet: I'm happy for her that she'll have more time with her family now and be able to sing in other venues; this job requires a huge commitment of time and preparation; it's nerve-wracking and demanding, for not a great deal of remuneration -- so all of us, including the pros, do it for love of music and the challenge of the repertoire. When you sing next to someone every week for years, it's a pretty intimate relationship, and if they are a terrific singer and musician, as she is, you also learn a lot. So I'm extremely grateful to her, and will miss her very much, but she promises to come back as a sub from time to tie, and I'm sure we'll keep in touch.

So, in a way, I guess that's my "moving day" story for 2013 -- not a physical move involving refrigerators and wardrobes, but a definite change from a familiar and comfortable place into something that will be new and different. It makes me think about those two quite different, but related, meanings of the word "moving." When I look back on my musical life, there've been quite a few of those, sometimes involving me moving on to someplace new, sometimes involving the move or loss of a teacher or close friend. I really cherish those relationships with both people and groups, and am so grateful for them; they've had a lot to do with who I am and contain some of my happiest memories.

 

My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth's lamentation,

I hear the sweet, tho' far-off hymn

That hails a new creation;

Thro' all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul—

How can I keep from singing?

Comments

[Tom]

Such a beautiful song. I have a recording of that by Aled Jones, and I think Enya also sang it. Lovely.

[Notborninenglish.wordpress.com]

Yes, we move forward, we move away, sometimes we move in with someone, and we're moved by every single movement in our lives and those of others we care for. Beautiful post and music.

[flask]

i do not know if i have ever mentioned to you ow difficult it is for me sometimes to read your blog.

yours is a lovely voice of calm and faith and music, like i would have spoken before my world collapsed.

in the wake of a traumatic life event i was thrown out of my church, a mainstream liberal congregation. i had been active in two and a half of the church's three and a half functioning choirs, and i had practiced my craft in support of the church.

i am a classical composer, or i was before the crisis of faith, my loss of faith, my loss of voice.

i do not play or sing anymore, or even think i music. i do not pray. neither do i make lovely stained glass style paper medallions to grace hymnals christmas eve nor carve paschal candles nor bring to life intricate collages made of church photographs.

this past sunday i was invited/permitted to be among my old congregation, in a building where there was no order of no trespass to keep me out. i did not know if i cared to go or not, and i knew for certain i was afraid.

but it was part of a process, and important thing.

and how can i keep from singing was the prelude.

i have an arrangement of that song i wrote a long time ago.

i do not know what will happen next. i do not know if i will ever be restored.

but i am listening to your voice, still.

[Roderick Robinson]

No, this isn't the first of my "at your elbow" visits. Those are way down the pike. Rather I'd like to apologise via your blog, on behalf of what I suspect is a large tranche of the British public, to Canadians in general. Yesterday was the first day in office of our new governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, a Canadian. Good luck to him.

Feeling the need to scatter some patronising Canadian stuff about, the BBC revealed also that yesterday was Canada Day. To my shame, I didn't know this. Far worse, though, was the further revelation that "for several years now" Canadians have been in the habit of taking over Trafalgar Square on July 1 and celebrating this festival. We were then accorded about 3½ seconds of video which showed something of this jolly occasion, notably a fairly violent field hockey game (ice, I suppose, being unavailable) for the entertainment of London pedestrians.

But note "for several years now". Yet, never a mention that I can recall in the British media. While chasing a cheese down a steep Gloucestershire hill is filmed year after year. I'm told Canadians have learned to shrug off these snubs; well here's an opportunity for them to get even. There's a Canuck now in charge over here with power to wreck our economy. Re-wreck it perhaps. We'll have no one to blame but ourselves if he does.

[Relatively Retiring]

That's my neighbourhood cathedral you've got there!

[Rachel Barenblat]

I love "How can I keep from singing"...

Happy belated Canada Day!