Looking back and ahead

This week has been dominated by preparation for our Concert Choir concerts coming up tomorrow evening and Saturday afternoon. Ellen and I worked on our music Monday and Tuesday and we had our dress rehearsal at the Latchis theater last evening. I think it went reasonably well, though I am not happy with my own voice - continual  problems with phlegm have really been a problem. So I'll need to warm up well tomorrow!

Right now I'm at the pool while Ellen is at the Mary Poppins Returns movie. I'll pick her up after 6pm.

Sunday we will go to church in Guilford, then drive to Northhampton to see Tamar, and then go to Leverett, MA for a concert that Savanna is in. And Monday, we leave for the west! That means a lot of packing and getting the house ready for a period of 5-6 weeks of not being inhabited. Saturday will be a big "getting ready day" in addition to being a concert day, because there won't be much chance for all that on Sunday.

We'll start our trip in Swarthmore Monday evening and Tuesday, then leave for Bartlett on Wednesday, be with Maggie and Jerry Thursday eve and Friday, and probably leave for Wyoming on Saturday, depending on how they are doing. We are hoping for good weather!

 Our concerts feature a work by Gregorio Allegri, the Miserere mei, Deus: 

By far the best-known and regarded piece of music composed by Allegri is the Miserere mei, Deus, a setting of Vulgate Psalm 50 (= Psalm 51). It is written for two choirs, the one of five and the other of four voices, and has obtained considerable celebrity. One of the choirs sings a simple fauxbordon based on the original plainsong chant for the Tonus peregrinus; the other choir sings a similar fauxbordon with pre-existing elaborations and the use of cadenzas. The Miserere has for many years been sung annually during Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel. Many have cited this work as an example of the stile antico (old style) or prima pratica (first practice). However, its emphasis on polychoral techniques certainly put it out of the range of prima pratica. A more accurate comparison would be to the works of Giovanni Gabrieli. 

The Miserere is one of the most often-recorded examples of late Renaissance music, although it was actually written during the chronological confines of the Baroque era; in this regard it is representative of the music of the Roman School of composers, who were stylistically conservative. The work acquired a considerable reputation for mystery and inaccessibility between the time of its composition and the era of modern recording; the Vatican, wanting to preserve its aura of mystery, forbade copies, threatening any publication or attempted copy with excommunication. They were not prepared, however, for a special visit in 1770 from a 14-year-old named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who, on a trip to Rome with his father, heard it but twice and transcribed it faithfully from memory, thus creating the first known unauthorised copy. However, there is evidence that copies of the work that pre-date Mozart's visit to Rome in 1770 had already been circulating in Europe, and Mozart may have heard the piece performed in London in 1764 or 1765 as well.
  

The other work we're doing is the Mozart Requiem Mass. Thus our concert spans Mozart's life from his transcription of the Allegri at age 14 to the Requiem which he left uncompleted at his death.