A late one

Well, if Claire 2 was apologising for the notes being late this week, I have to apologise for the extreme lateness of this post. No excuse so I'm not going to try!

Well, what's going on in Rudsambeeland I hear you cry! A great rehearsal on Wednesday began with a Jenny-led warm-up. For any Rudsambee members past and present you know you are going to be in for a treat when our resident zany alto takes the lead and Wednesday was no exception as we gargled our way through nursery rhymes- water and Casio keyboards don't mix apparently and fortunately we didn't have to test out this theory, though Claire 2 got dangerously close to spewing water all over our instrument of choice (the keyboard btw is like the one you had when you were a kid...with strange piano sounds and a demo you can dance to and pass off as your own composition-genius!). Perhaps another candidate for the hidden track, Ol.

We began with some more Tormis and moved on to our new Frog song. We were pondering the fate of Rudsambee frogs once again. We definitely need to find a ditty in which the frog is turned back into a handsome prince. Then we tackled our new metaphorical (though in many ways literal) hurdle 'O Bone Jesu'- that's good Jesus, not bony Jesus btw. This is by the Scottish Tallis, Carver and is absolutely rock hard (man, I haven't used that expression since I left junior school). We struggled our way through trying to work out why on earth anyone would throw time changes so liberally throughout a work. Apparently, the original was for nineteen voices. Blimey! Glad we are only doing it in six! We'll battle on with this one as we are doing it at the National Library in the autumn.

Anyways, a good rehearsal all in. As promised to AL (and all others who appreciate the value of beautiful, heart rendering (can anything else 'render'?) music) (Ooo a double parenthesis- did you keep up there?), here is Harry Hill's poignant song, 'The Queen is Pregnant' written just in case this happy event should happen again. It is a victorious song of royalist devotion. Seriously I very nearly fell over when I heard this for the first time- laugh...like a drain!
http://www.harry-hill.tv/audio.html (look bottom left and click)

Until next week...
CSW