The Scratch® Riga Romance, October 2017
This musical details leaflet serves as your entranceticket torehearsals and performance.Please keep it with your scores,and be ready to show it when requested.
This may seem unnecessarily bureaucratic,but gate-crashers have been known!
Musical details for participants
This leaflet is issued by Scratch Concerts Ltd for members of The Really Big Chorus and contains details of all musical matters plus a concise, music-specific timetable. This is in addition to the detailed travel/hotel brochure prepared for you by Specialised Travel Ltd. Please bring both sets of information with you, and keep them handy for reference.
General matters
- Always carry a photocopy of the ID page of your passport
- Please give some thought to your luggage and whether you can manage it on your own. Staff from Specialised Travel and Concerts from Scratch will assist where possible, but we cannot help everyone.
- Always bring a pencil to rehearsals!
- Please bring your own water to rehearsals. Details of what is permitted on stage during the performance will be announced during the rehearsals.
- Seating layout during rehearsal and performance - it is up to the conductor to decide how he wants the choir to be arranged, to ensure the right balance and good sightlines. Please accept graciously, if you are asked to move!
Music Schedule
This should be read in conjunction with the more detailed travel notes from Specialised Travel
Thursday 5 October
18h00Piano rehearsal with Brian Kay and Andrew Parnell in the main hall of the University of Latvia, Raiņa bulvāris 19 (first floor)
This is a 10-15 minute walk from the hotels
If you wish to walk in a group from your hotel, guides will be leaving from the Grand Palace at 17h25 and the Radisson and Mercure hotels at 17h30.
19h30Rehearsal ends (there will be a short break in the middle)
Friday 6 October
09h00Piano rehearsal with Brian Kay and Andrew Parnell in the University of Latvia
12h00Rehearsal ends
Saturday 7 October
14h00General rehearsal with Brian Kay, Andrew Parnell, the Riga Festival Orchestra and soloists (Nardus Williams, Katie Coventry, Guy Elliott and Henry Neill) in Riga Dom, Herdera laukums 6
This is a 15-20 minute walk from the Mercure and Radisson Blu hotels, and 2 minutes from the Grand Palace
If you wish to walk in a group, guides will be leaving the Radisson and Mercure hotels at 13h15.
17h00Rehearsal ends (there will be a 15-minute break in the middle)
You will then have time to go back to your hotels, change into your concert dress and make your way back to the cathedral.There will be a locked room at the cathedral where you will be able to leave valuables and coats/shoes etc. during the performance.
18h50
Seated and ready to perform
19h00
Concert starts
Concert order will be Andrew Parnell’s organ solo (13 minutes), Sing!, then Nelson Mass (no interval)
20h00
Concert ends (approx.)
Where we are performing
Riga Dom (Riga Cathedral)
Herdera laukums 6
Access to Rehearsals and Performance
We are concerned about gate crashers and so you must have this leaflet with you at all timesand be ready to show it on request at rehearsals and performance. Concert tickets for non-singers accompanying TRBC members will be provided free of charge and distributed at the first rehearsal, but seats will not be numbered, so non-singers should aim to get to the cathedralingood time (the concert begins at 19h00). Non-singers are also welcome at all the rehearsals.
Tickets will also be available to purchase from the cathedral box office – price €9. All proceeds will go to the Cathedral Restoration Fund.
What to wear
The venue could be a bit chilly at this time of year, so dress in layers, with things to keep your wrists and ankles warm—the general rehearsal is three hours with a break, and for much of that you will be sitting fairly still (so make sure your singing is full of energy, as you will keep warmer that way!). Concert dress is smart long-sleeved black tops for ladies and long black skirts or smart evening trousers. You’re welcome to wear some sparkly jewellery, but please don’t come covered in sequins, or with diamonds which will dazzle the audience. Again, layers are advised. Gentlemen should wear dinner jackets or dark suits with a black bow-tie, and a waistcoat if you like; what you wear beneath your white shirt is up to you!TRBC polo-shirts are not to be worn as concert dress.
Vocal Scores
You must bring your own scores. We will be using the Novello edition of The Haydn Nelson Mass (Missa in Angustiis). Sing! is published by Oxford University Press (ISBN: 9780193504936).
Very important:We expect you to be conscientious and to learn the music as well as you can beforehand— if you come unprepared, it is very discourteous to your fellow singers, most of whom will have taken the trouble to do their homework.Detailed chorus notes are included below. Spare scores will not be available in Riga.
Please bring a black folder with you for your vocal scores
Event organized by Scratch Concerts Ltd, PO Box 4211, BATH, BA1 0HJ
Tour operated by Specialised Travel Ltd, 12-15 Hanger Green, London W5 3EL
Notes for marking up your scores
SING! (David Willcocks)
This looks easy, but needs careful preparation, like everything else, particularly where the harmonies change (bars 41-49). If you can find a recording of the Widor Toccata (there are plenty available – CD or YouTube) it will be well worth listening to this wonderful organ work and singing along to it with your copy. This will greatly help the tonality. In the final bars (76-the end) divide 1st and 2nd in the usual way.
NELSON MASS (Haydn)
Kyrie:Always put the -i of eleison on the last quaver before –son.
Page 3, bottom line, TUTTI, not solo, below the soprano solo.
Page 5, bottom line, 2nd bar, sops: 4 equal semiquavers on the last beat –
2 on -e and 2 on –i.
Page 6, middle line, bar 2: all sing a crotchet on –son then a quaver breath.
Page 6, bottom line, bar 2: sops sing the same underlay as the others – starting eleison on the top A, everyone having taken a breath.
Page 11, middle line, bars 2, 3 and 4 all breathe after eleison each time.
Page 13, bottom line, bar 2: sops change to –son and hold for seven beats.
Gloria:Page 15, top line, bar 3: all cross out the piano mark and stay forte.
Page 17, top line bar 3 and middle line bar 2, all put –mus on the last quaver.
Page 18, top line: last note of laudamus, benedicimus and adoramus just a quaver.
Page 31, middle line, 3rd bar: altos sing a D (like everyone else) on the last note.
Credo:Page 37, bottom line, sops, starting bar 2: the underlay should be:
b and c sharp on –ni, then d and d sharp on –po, then 3rd bar, -ten on the mimim, then –tem on the e, -fac on the d, then as printed. Altos, tenors and basses do the same in their turn.
Page 41, middle line, bar 2: sops sing –coe of coelis starting in the 2nd bar and holding for two bars before changing to –lis. Altos sing –coe in the 3rd bar and –lis in bars 4 and 5. Tenors sing –coe in the 2nd and 3rd bars and –lis on the 4th and 5th. Basses sing –coe on bars 3 and 4 and –lis in the 5th bar.
Page 43, middle line, bar 2 sops: equal quavers on –sanc of sancto.
Page 47, middle line, bar 1: all: shorten the minim to a crotchet.
Page 48, top line, bar 1, all: first note just a quaver. In the second bar, altos: the note on non should be on the first beat, not the third and held for a minim.
Page 55, top line, bar 3, tenors: put the –men on the last beat and start the next bar with the –a of amen. Sops put the –men of amen on the last two quavers of the top line and a fresh –a of amen on the first beat of line 2. Sops and tenors do the same on the top line of page 56.
Page 58, bottom line, bars 3 and 4, tenors and basses: the last two quavers of bar 3 should be the –ria of Gloria then –tu of –tua on the last bar of the page.
Page 59, middle line, bars 1 and 2: altos and basses: sing sunt on the last beat of bar 1 and then coeli on the first two notes of bar 2.
Dona nobis pacem, all voices: never breathe after dona nobis when it’s followed by pacem.
Page 78, top line, bar 2, sops & altos:dona, nobis NOT pacem, dona
Page 81, bottom line, bar 2 tenors: the same as above.
Page 83, bottom line, bar 3 altos: -cem on 1st beat, then pacem.