Just a quick one.

Twenty minutes.  Go!

This really should have been typed and landed yesterday, but in my defence I was very busy, what with singing in a concert, sorting out white tie for one of my co-soloists (coloist?), eating and generally you know this that the other.  Those of you who have done evening concerts on Saturdays will know how the rehearsal in the middle of the day really puts the whole thing off kilter and takes up way more time than it really ought to.  Also, my major writing project for yesterday was a piece of personal correspondence to Canada.  There's no way I'm posting any verbatim stuff from my letters, even if there may be similar themes present.

This weekend has been particularly good musically, actually!  Friday night's evensong was remarkably strong for the end of the week, with Holst Nunc and 'Hail Gladdening Light'.  This was followed by last night, where I sang as part of a solo quartet in a performance of Mozart's Coronation Mass with Truro Choral Society.  Finally, today is truly the reward for a life that disappoints, reassurance that everything really is okay, even if you're a loser and you constantly wonder why people claim to be your friends, with what I could only describe as the greatest verse anthem of all time, 'See, see the word is incarnate' by Orlando (furioso) Gibbons, the "best finger of the age", Walton's hard-work-but-rewarding Missa Brevis, and the centrepiece of this evening's engagement, 'Blest pair of sirens', Parry and Milton joined in a grand anthem.

I think that 'See, see...' is so good that I almost want to accost people in the street about it.  To take them by the shoulder and shake them into realisation that there is more to life than whatever they do, walking mundane streets through uninspiring lifetimes, that yes, this amazing piece of drama, the whole church year in 5 minutes (more or less), with impressive and meaty solos for all voices.  I was responsible for almost all the alto verse action this morning, which is about as good as an early Christmas present as I'll get (in the middle of November).  'See, see...' is another one of those anthems that's very important to me, as it was something else that I wasn't allowed to do, for whatever arbitrary reason.  Probably because reasons.  To think, that not so long ago I wouldn't even have had half the necessary notes in order to give account, but now have a full and fine compass... There's hope for us all.  The powers of hell were truly shaken this morning.

This is possibly the best part of my life and indeed, lifestyle.  High stress (mostly self-induced, let's be honest), emotional upheaval, argument... Whatever.  It melts away with a weekend of good singing; hard work goes in and great services come out.  Not exactly rocket science.


I'll be back tomorrow with something different again.  My friend runs a food blog (I'll update the links in the sidebar tomorrow as well) which has definitely been no small inspiration to me (and she's just really good), so let's see how week B works out...

Until then.