Berberis' World

Saturday, 29th March 2014, Fairfield Halls, Croydon.

2331 days since I first sang this with Lewisham Choral Society – 265 since I sang it with the Really Big Chorus at the Royal Albert Hall, and 168 before I hope to be singing it with Crouch End Festival Chorus – I found myself on stage at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon singing Verdi’s Requiem.

Croydon’s a bit of a dump, and the venue is far too big for a choral society, even one augmented by sixty or so singers from Derbyshire. When we filed on for the performance, I was a bit worried that we’d outnumber the audience but it was a fair turnout in the end, and enthusiastic. I was expecting Pete to turn up, and kept an eye out for him until the last minute, but he didn’t show. (Turned out he had ‘flu. He was also being bitten by children. I’m fairly sure that this is not a vaccination method NICE recommend…)

You would be right in thinking that I like singing this work. It’s either that or I’m a masochist. That last part’s true – I once ran a half marathon – and, in its way, Verdi’s Requiem is quite similar. However, it’s less a marathon than a series of sprints: a choral ‘fartlek’, if you will. The opening ‘Requiem/Kyrie Eleison’ is – literally – a vocal warm-up at 80-88bpm, but Verdi clearly knew nothing about workouts because the ‘Dies Irae’ that follows doubles the pace to 160bpm until Fig. 9, when it drops back to 80bpm until Fig. 16. Admittedly, this drop in pace is not accompanied by a drop in intensity; the 14 bars of actual singing are at a volume and pitch it would be difficult to sustain for many more.

Back to 88bpm at Fig. 18, and a chance to breathe between ‘Di-es i-rae’s until Fig. 21, when you can sense that the mezzo-sop is building up to something. This happens seven bars after Fig. 21, and we jog along with the orchestra until Fig. 22, when the bpm goes back up to 160 until the low intensity of the last 5 bars when we are allowed to sit down.

The soloists then waltz along at 6/8 time (one dotted crochet = 100). There’s probably a website that would allow me to convert this to bpm but I can’t be bothered to look right now. At Fig. 27, the basses thunder in at ff with ‘Rex tremendae’ at a very stately 72bpm into the ‘Salva me’ which may be slow but is very intense… a bit like Callanetics, if I remember rightly. At 3 before Fig. 32 we sit down again, standing at 8 before Fig. 47 with no chance to warm up for the run that is the second ‘Dies Irae’.

At Fig. 50, things slow down to the speed of a tectonic plate: the 60bpm ‘Lacrymosa’, all grace notes and heartache. At 3 before Fig. 53, the altos come in on a B with the phrase ‘parce Deus’ (spare [me], Lord). At this point in the concert, I lost my voice. Not through over-use, thankfully, but it was a choice between singing or a coughing fit. Luckily, the end of part one was only 8 pages away, and I managed a couple of ‘Requiem’s before the end.

We start the second half seated, leaping to our feet with no warm up for the 138bpm ‘Sanctus’. This ends with the sopranos on a top F. Immediately after this, ‘the Agnus Dei’ calms things down to 84bpm, and this should be a slow and peaceful walk. The solo soprano should float in on a top E, with the mezzo an 8ve down. The second they started singing, Dan’s head turned towards them. They were flat, and not by a smidgen but by almost a whole tone. Had I not heard it with my own ears, I’d have said it was impossible, but there it was.

The ‘Lux aeterna’ that follows is a mezzo/tenor/bass effort, and it was at this point that I decided that I knew which soloist had probably been to blame for the earlier tuning issue. The soprano gets all agitated at the start of the ‘Libera Me’ and even though the choir tries to stay calm we end up following suit with another rendition of ‘Dies Irae’. This is followed by the 80bpm ‘Requiem’. But the Verdi Workout isn’t finished. No sooner do our heart rates slow than the soloist is off again and, this time, we have to keep up because at Fig. 100 the pace jumps to a ridiculous 232bpm, where it stays until the Fig. 114, at which point – if you’re not careful – you can fall of the treadmill.

You need supreme breath control for the last page. Thanks to the previous 24 pages, you probably don’t have it. A proper vocal workout.

8th April update: It turns out that both soloists were responsible for the tuning issue. No-one seemed to notice and Dan wasn’t bothered – “live performance”. So I felt like an idiot for mentioning it at the rehearsal today, where I spent two hours going “Me sir! Pick me! Pick me!”