The Sixteen

May 13, 2010

I had really good intentions, yet again, to go running this morning. Instead, I opted for some in-flat exercises. There’s nothing like some old fashioned push-ups and sit-ups. I was feeling pretty tired but I needed something to get the blood going. It was business as usual in the morning. I always wake up much earlier than most of my fellow students. I don’t like to fight for showers or cooking space in the kitchen (sharing one kitchen with 14 guys gets tricky sometimes). Waking up early gives my mornings the right kind of leisurely touch to start off my day. Enough about that. We had another session of rehearsals for this weekend at Oxford. I was feeling pretty lousy after our last rehearsal. It’s been difficult to really put it together. What’s more is that, as the director of my group, I haven’t really had time to work on my own part, so I’m hoping my sight reading skills will be in full force when we go to rehearse and perform with the chapel choir of Wadham College at Oxford. Rehearsal went SO much better this morning. Despite my previous forlorn feeling, somehow things really came together on some fairly difficult music. After rehearsal, we took the tube to one of the pier stations where we hopped onto a commuter boat to Greenwich. The boat ride would have been much more fun if it didn’t stop so often. Just when we’d get going along we’d make another stop to let people off and take on a few more. I was surprised how much traffic there was on the Thames though. Greenwich is really lovely. The main attractions there are in this geographical order moving from the boat pier inland: the famous Cutty Sark clipper ship (which was one of the fastest ships on the sea even after invention of steam ships), a maritime museum and the Royal Observatory which is the location of the Prime Meridian and one of the first astronomical observatories. Michelle and I spent our free time together in Greenwich. The Cutty Sark was under some renovations and I figure that there is more than one place to see a maritime museum, so we decided to go to the Royal Observatory. To get there was a nice walk through the town and then through a park, up a hill and finally to the observatory. The park was beautiful and from the top of the hill was the most gorgeous view of the park, Greenwich, the Thames and further in the distance, the financial district of London. There was a little garden at the Royal Observatory that we enjoyed walking through. The flowers were all in bloom and a real delight to the senses. We weren’t that impressed with the Prime Meridian. It’s a line in the ground. Not too big a deal. But, we took pictures of us standing on both sides of the world because it’s the touristy thing to do. The exhibits at the observatory really caught our attention. We spent a lot of time looking through the exhibits on stars and astronomy. Michelle got really excited about a second edition copy of Newton's book Principia Mathematica. It was said to be bound with leather from Newton's own chair! We also saw the oldest object on earth, a meteor that was 4.5 billion years old! They let you touch it! The original observatory there, called the Octagon Room, is the only interior designed by Sir Christopher Wren still in existence. It was pretty neat to see that. I also really liked the horology (study of time) exhibit with lots of neat naval clocks. After our explorations were through, we went to sit in on the rehearsal The Sixteen of Harry Christophers in the chapel at the Old Royal Naval College. The campus of the college was straight out of a movie. Beautiful cross-cross cut lawns that were perfectly trimmed, perfect gravel walkways running between incredible buildings all designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Harry Christophers came up to us before the rehearsal to speak to us about the group. It was neat to hear what he had to say about his work. It was interesting because one of his practical suggestions about programming was to NOT program more than thirty minutes of polyphonic music and yet we were about to sit through an hour and a half program of nothing but polyphony of the renaissance. I agree with his advice but realize that he doesn’t exactly need to take it himself because of his unique audience base. The rehearsal was fun to watch. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear much of what he was saying to the group. A few of the singers in the groups I recognized from other groups we’ve seen. A lot of these professional choral singers really get around to make a living. It’s pretty incredible. After the rehearsal we had a little bit of time before the concert. We found a bite to eat and enjoyed the charm that is Greenwich for a bit and we also took some model shots of Michelle who was feeling particularly saucy. The concert was incredible. The chapel where it was held was absolutely glorious. The acoustics were perfect for the sound. I think I might prefer the overall sound of The Sixteen to the Tallis Scholars simply because of the composition of the choir. The Sixteen was composed of 5 sometimes 6 sopranos and 12 men. The men covered the bass, tenor and counter-tenor parts in place of altos. It made for a very interesting blend. Because of its composition it seemed to give the sopranos more freedom to release their voices and sing so freely without holding back but without pushing too. This was only possible because of the counter-balance coming from so large a group of men. The performance was incredible but not perfect. It’s interesting what happens when a music ensemble comes so near to perfection. The closer you get to perfection the more noticeable the mistakes are, not that there were many with this group. Their program consisted entirely of Byrd, Tallis, and Shepherd. Wonderful music! After the concert we took a train back to the city.