Leonardo Takes Flight

Yes, indeedy. We did it. We sang THE song. In public. And mostly OK, too, though coming in to land was a bit bumpy. I suppose a small amount of turbulence was to be expected and a little wobble on a maiden flight is not to be wondered at. We did not crash and burn.

A good concert it was. St Giles was well attended – perhaps not quite such a large audience as at Christmas but pretty good all the same and much better than I expected when I peeked over the banisters a few minutes before we went on. At that point the numbers looked distinctly disappointing but there must have been a sudden surge in arrivals (cutting it fine, people) between my peeking and our entrance.

We had arranged to gather at the cathedral at around 3.30 in order to get practising by 4 o’clock. Most people arrived in a timely fashion and we were able to fold all the programmes and shift a row of chairs before the first few stragglers wandered in. The latest latecomers appeared after we’d begun the rehearsal; except, that is, for Tamsin who got caught at work (this seems monumentally unfair on a Sunday) and only turned up just in time to get changed for the concert. This tardiness had Kay in a bit of a spin in fear, as she was, of having to manage parts of Leonardo all on her lonesome.

Our rehearsal was witnessed, as usual in St Giles, by many of the touristic visitors who seem, each time, to imagine that a shambling, variously garbed group of stopping-and-starting singers amounts to a full-blown concert performance in Scotlandshire. They make themselves comfy in the seats directly in front of us and watch and listen while we warm-up, sing a few bars of this and a few bars of that and then a few more bars of something else over and over again. We did actually ‘sing’ Desh beginning to end which earned us enthusiastic applause. This is unusual in a practice situation but most welcome. Hearing Arno sing his solo in Fog Elna Khel in that amazing acoustic was quite extraordinary. Once Ollie had convinced him to sing out as loudly as he could it was rivettingly beautiful. I thought I saw Salman Rushdie in the ‘audience’ but I may well have been mistaken (if it wasn’t him he has a true doppleganger, though, which must have been uncomfortable for said double for a while some years ago, eh?) – I don’t see his name in the Book Festival programme so maybe my imagination was off on one. After we’d rehearsed for an hour or so Anne made her routine announcement inviting people to return for the actual performance and we trundled off to drink the tea and eat the biscuits kindly supplied by the cathedral ladies. The tea is not strong and my biscuit was a little on the soggy side but we are always hugely grateful for the ministrations of these ladies – I hope they stay to listen to us (and enjoy it too).
I had to hurry back upstairs (we have our break in the undercroft) to grab my bottle of water which I’d left behind and as I did so I noticed the arrival of another choir – they were making their way out of a side room all dressed in white t-shirts printed in red with the legend Something-or-Other Community Choir. My heart skipped a beat... had we got the wrong day? Were we, unbeknownst to us, sharing our concert with (gasp, panic) a community choir???? I hurried downstairs to make enquiries. No one else had seen them. Eventually Anne appeared. She had seen them. They were American and she presumed they had permission to sing there, which is what they were doing. We had a moment of wickedness – it has to be admitted. Their repertoire was, after all, not quite the thing. They were enthusiastic but, in all honesty, not likely to encourage people to hang around for long. Was this going to be allowed to impact upon our audience numbers? Certainly if the friends I thought may be coming to listen to Rudsambee for the first time turned up while this lot were singing they’d be likely to turn right round and make their escape while the going was good. Anne offered to go up and chase the Americans away at five thirty, giving us a clear half hour to accumulate an audience unaffected by hearing a... hm, less than perfect rendition of Panus Angelicus and other assorted only-sing-them-if-you-really-can numbers, which is what she did – very subtly by catching the conductor’s eye and then looking significantly at her watch (I believe she may even have tapped it). They finished as required and our audience arrived unmolested.

Sorry. That was not nice.

That pesky word has slipped in again – but I think it was necessary this time, don’t you?

So – the actual concert. As I’ve said already. It was good. It was fun. Everything went very well. Ollie’s face was full of pleasure and pride on several occasions, which is lovely to see. We were all grinning like idiots at the end of Fog, it having been gorgeous to listen to and to sing – not sure I can include Arno in that ‘all’ as he is too self-effacing to have taken such pleasure in his own performance. All the soloists were magnificent, actually: Rachael, Anna Lauren, Luke, Harriet, Chris, Arno, Robin, Sebastian, Kay (if I have forgotten to mention someone I apologise profusely) – great stuff, mes amies. And then there was Leonardo. A success, I think. The audience seemed to appreciate the complexity of it and, if they noticed the slight disintegration at the end (the tenors’ fault, said Jenny [what disintegration??]. They always speed up. They require brakes. Or maybe they should simply WATCH OLIVER), they didn’t hold back on the applause because of it. I know I went wrong at one point. I also know I wasn’t the only one to do so. But I really don’t think it was anything but a triumph – even if we sang it slightly better in rehearsal – the clashy chords and the beautiful ones sounded fantastic in that venue and now I think we’ll look forward to singing it again. Often, please, to make the months of work on it worth while. Thanks to Andrew for his drumming (he swapped jobs with Chris who took on the tambourine and did it well) – he didn’t get much chance to practise but no one would have known it.

I met up with a friend afterwards. She knows her music and she was full of praise. She particularly loved Contre Qui, Rose which I am not fond of and was happy to consider dropping from the programme (though it was never really an option). She said it was so beautiful that it moved her to tears. Perhaps I shall have to reconsider my attitude towards this one. All the feedback I got was really, really positive so I think I can claim that even if, as can happen, we didn’t always finish a song in the same key we started it in, we were brilliant!
There was no rehearsal last night as Ol is trying to finish his Masters portfolio (the things he thinks are important, I ask you!) [he's done now. No more student director!] so that’s all for now.

See ya.