Elgar Festival Chorus - Rehearsal 1
My sincere thanks to all of you who came along to the first rehearsal of our 2026 Black Knight project! We are already achieving a lovely corporate feel to the sound, and I look forward to working with you towards the gala concert at this year’s festival! I hope you will find these notes useful so that we can continually build on the success of each rehearsal.
The Vocal Score: Every Elgar score is packed with precise indications on how to perform his music. Our aim in these rehearsals is to follow and execute these as faithfully as possible. I believe that the chorus part is an extension of the orchestra and to that end I will be encouraging you to think of yourselves as being part of the brass, woodwind and string sections.
Two notable examples of this are Bar 68 “Drums and trumpets echo loudly’ and Bars 104 – 113 ‘the play of spears, Fell all the cavaliers’
The text is a very busy one and clarity of this, alongside the orchestral colouring I am asking you to consider make this piece very exciting indeed!
Housekeeping: Below are all the markings I have given out on the first movement. Please make sure they are added to your part so that we don’t have to use up valuable rehearsal time going over and over them. There are a couple of these that I have reconsidered since last Saturday so please make a special note if it affects your part.
Scene 1 – Pages 1 to 20
Bar 12/13 – please take a quaver out of ‘Gladness’ when it comes in your part’
Letter A (Bar 16) – please lose the tie on ‘ness’ of ‘Gladness’
Bars 24 & 31 – Sops & Altos have Elgarian staccatos. These are significantly heavier than the usual approach to this kind of marking.
Bar 33 – Tenors please take out a quaver from ‘sadness’
Bar 41 – Everyone takes out a quaver from ‘Gladness’
Bar 48 – Everyone takes a crochet out of ‘King’
Letter C (Bars 50 to 55) – Turn your page and have the opening two bars of the next section committed to memory so there can be no doubt as to the choir’s commitment to the new tempo.
Bar 62 – Sop 2 takes a quaver out of ‘break’ – the firsts carry over on ‘Spring’
Bar 63 – Basses take a quaver out of ‘break’
Bar 64/65 – Sop 2 carries over from ‘Spring’ to ‘Spring’.
Figure F (Bars 85 to 103) – all parts take a quaver out of the word ‘spears’ each time it occurs. Then ‘’Fell all the Cavaliers’ is Legato.
Bar 97 carry over between ‘..liers’ and ‘Before’ Altos and Basses
Bar 100 crochet out of ‘Son’ Basses
Bar 101 quaver out of ‘son’ Sops
Bar 106 – ATB no breath between ‘cavaliers’ and ‘the’
Figure H (113) – Quaver out of ‘son’ for all parts.
Figure I (Bars 123 to 140) –
Sop/Alto – Bar 128 quaver out of ‘Feast’ (Sops) and ‘Gladness’ (Altos)
Bar 129 quaver out of ‘Pentecost’ (Altos)
Bar 132 carry over between ‘Pentecost’ and ‘the’ Sops
Bar 134 quaver out of ‘Gladness’ for Sop & Alto
Tenor/Bass – Bar 126 carry over from ‘Gladness’ to ‘twas’ (Basses)
Bar 127 carry over from ‘Pentecost’ to ‘the’ – Tenor and Bass
Bar 128 quaver out of ‘Gladness’ Tenor and Bass
Bar 129 carry over from ‘Pentecost’ to ‘the’ Tenor and Bass
Bar 130 quaver out of ‘Gladness’ Tenors
Bar 131 quaver out of Gladness’ Basses
Bar 133 quaver out of ‘Gladness’ – Tenor and Bass
Bar 135 quaver out of ‘fields’ Tenor and Bass
At Bar 141 – All parts turn now so that you are fully ready for the tempo change at Figure J (Bar 144)
Bar 151 quaver out of ‘ness’ Sops
Bar 161 crochet out of ‘sadness’ Tenors
Bar 163 quaver out of ‘Pentecost’ Tenors
Bar 175 quaver out of ‘off’ – SATB
I heartily recommend a listen to the excellent recording of this piece by Richard Hickoks on Chandos records. It is readily available on all the usual streaming services.
Thanks again for your hard work last Saturday and I look forward to our next encounter on Saturday. February 7thwhen we will be diving headlong into the 2nd movement.
Stephen