I know I often push the limits with my choir. As in, "yeah, I know we only have one rehearsal left, and then I'm really counting on the 10-20 minutes that I can get people there before Mass, but I'm trusting that we'll do ok on this song."
and we usually do.
But this Holy Week?
a combination of Easter coming early and literally surprising everyone, Mara taking a conveniently timed vacation 3 weeks ago and completely falling behind a week in everything, the annual problem of Holy Thursday falling on a Thursday and us having to scramble to find a replacement choir rehearsal time, and a variety of circumstances such as people being gone and our parish mission persuading me to cancel yesterday's normal rehearsal leaves me...relying a LOT on what people remember from last year!
and as far as the choir goes, we lost 2 people, and gained one (since last year,) for a grand total of...two less people who would have known the music, and one person who doesn't know any of the music. and to put that into perspective, there are about 7 people signed up right now to sing at the Easter Vigil, and exactly 2 for Easter morning. this shall be interesting.
And what exactly have we rehearsed recently?
some good and useful stuff, but for Thursday-Sunday, none of the Psalms, nor Vidi Aquam, nor the Easter Sequence, nor the Litany of the Saints, and we're going to do the Reproaches from the Sacramentary which will be new this year. Most of the solo stuff will be done by the same people as last year, but at least 2 of the Psalms will need someone new, and I don't really want my one singer who can sight-read to sing all of them! (Someone asked me, "aren't we doing some special piece for Easter?" I don't remember what I said, but I should have included something about, "what, with all three of us who will be up in the choir loft?")
We will rehearse for 2 hours on Tuesday night (on my one night off in the midst of St. Matthew Passion dress rehearsals,) not at all on Thursday before Mass, 45 minutes before Good Friday, about an hour before the Vigil, and we'll be lucky if we get 20 minutes before the a.m. Mass.
so...yeah.
My point in all of this being, I hope I haven't pushed the line a little too much this year...!
but, I mean, hey, trust in God, right? It's all about Him and for His Glory, anyhow!
(meh. but we can't necessarily trust Him when we don't do our jobs well!)
yeah, this post is just begging for reassuring compliments. go ahead...
3 comments:
Reassuring compliment? HA! Get me the brass quintet that I have been trying to arrange since Epiphany and still have no one for, and I'll give you a reassuring compliment :P
Sounds very similar to where I am right now. I was on the verge of a panic attack after choir rehearsal today.
We have one rehearsal left and so much work to do. Oh and the two experienced members of the choir were absent. Everyone else is brand new.
I'll tell you everything will be fine if you tell me the same.
Enjoy St. Matthew, if it hasn’t already happened.
That recit section of Peter’s denial is unbelievable, especially how Bach paints “weinete bitterlich” in the Evangelist part.
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