Links to listen to and background information about the concert from Leon

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There are many wonderful pieces of music for Double Choir, including these absolutely brilliant pieces by Vivaldi… 

 

If you type “Vivaldi Vespers Ex Cathedra” into YouTube or Spotify, you’ll find a CD of theirs that I sang on (in the baritone/bass section of the choir) back in 1996/7. Spotify link here    New: You Tube Link here but beware it includes a piece we are not singing!

 

Please note: The first track takes a while to start because Jeff Skidmore recorded the bell ringing at the Birmingham Oratory (on the Hagley Road in Birmingham) before the short plainchant at the beginning, so turn the volume up! It’s called:

 

“Domine ad adjuvandum me” - RV593

 

The other pieces are:

 

“Beatus Vir” - RV597 (its on the same CD, tracks 4 to 12)

 

“Magnificat” - RV610 (tracks 22 to 30)

 

Tracks 13 to 21 “Stabat Mater” feature the Counter Tenor as he was then, Nigel Short. A friend of mine who also sang with The King Singers and now directs his own professional choir, Tenebrae. Other singing friends of mine on this CD are Carolyn Sampson (Soprano), Diana Moore (Contralto) and Paul Agnew (Tenor)

 

RV593 and RV597 will make up the first half of our concert. Both are pieces for two choirs. 

After the interval, we’ll join forces (instruments and voices) to perform RV610 and then Zelenka’s “Miserere” ZWV57.

 

If you type Jan Dismas Zelenka - Miserere - 1 into YouTube (2’20” long) you can follow its first movement. 

The whole thing is available by typing in Jan Dismas Zelenka - Miserere, ZWV57 (14’45” long).

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You’ve now got all of the choral vocal music (if you attended on January 12th), so please find time to sit and listen and follow your voice parts in the music. It’ll then help you when we starting our rehearsals in the new.

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My next communication to you will be a new rehearsal schedule and, as always, we’ll start in early January with the hardest movement first, which for this concert is without doubt Movement 2 of the Zelenka Miserere. Scroll down for some rehearsal tracks for this movement!

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While we’re on Ex Cathedra, if you type De Profundis De Lalande Ex Cathedra into YouTube or click on this link, you’ll hear one of my solos from back then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAYfINxwDco

 

So there you have it.

Best wishes,

Leon