Thursday, 22 September 2011

You sing like chickens!

I had to go to London after work for a chorus rehearsal. We are singing Mahler's 8th at the Royal Festival Hall in early October. I'd missed last week due to my fractured foot and wasn't sure I could even get there in my handicapped state. I forgot my house key and slammed the door with my crutch still inside so had to walk on my heel to get around.

The London underground was packed -- people were pushing into me, and I was freaking out, thinking someone was going to step on my poor broken foot.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STAY AWAY, I would say loudly in my head to anyone who pushed into me. DON'T STEP ON MY FOOT.

I finally got to rehearsals but was late. That scared me because the German chorus master is such a shouter and notices everything. He used to blast us by name but enough people complained that he's stopped doing that. When someone didn't sing properly last night, he yelled: "Oh if only I could say names! i could tell you who just wrecked that note."

We all sang as best we could but Mahler 8 is hard -- requires two full choruses and jumps all over the place for singers. At one point, the chorus master shouted:

"You are all singing like chickens!" Then to emphasize, he said:

SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK

2 comments:

Steve Borthwick said...

Perhaps you should all shout "ja wohl, mein Fuhrer" back in unison, see if the man has a sense of humour..

Virginia said...

quoting "Monkey Island":

"You are all singing like chickens!"
"How appropriate. You direct like a poultry farmer."