syf

first, i need to clarify! i'm not the author of the choir syf commentary series, as many of you are, it seems, misled... >.<

am just a contributor, that's all...

here's a poem, by e e cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

side note: not very easy to understand the poem on first reading, right? like what is 'lifted from the no of all nothing' ??? lol. e e cummings should use more punctuation :P

anyway, my personal thoughts about syf. 

the whole thing is very iffy. how do you compare between choirs that choose difficult pieces, and others that choose easier pieces?

let's say, you got this lrsm student playing a lrsm piece almost flawless, if slightly clinical. and then you got a grade 7 student (there's a WORLD of difference between grade 7 and lrsm.) bungling up his piece at parts - maybe the runs were unclear and had lots of slipped notes, and the loud sections were too harsh - but he showed some musicality. and he trashes about on his seat like how rachmaninov would probably (i don't know??) have played the piano.

who is better? 

maybe my ears were playing tricks on me today, maybe i'm too picky, but i think today's syf was generally no good. practically all the choirs did rather badly at at least one of their songs. usually the set piece and the slow choice piece.

 

of note is the set piece, it's so badly done by most choirs. i don't get what is happening to parts of the song: no clarity in moving towards cadential points, changes in sections and texture are not highlighted in sound. not to mention, out of tune. go listen to a good chinese orchestra.

personally, i felt some of the best performances which i watched (missed the 3rd quarter of the day) was cjc's pok pok and vjc's my love dwelt in a northern land. although it (pokpok) is a totally overused song. tuning is almost spot on, they were very tidy and coordinated (oh, go listen to youtube versions of this song. almost all choirs messed up the high d-g note sops phrase, but not cjc). and every single phrase and section was done in musical context, ie. coherent, logical sounding. that should be what a good rendition is. 

vjc's elgar was very clear. although i personally don't think the song is a good choice for a competition piece (it's rather boring; all my friends didn't like the song), but the choir managed to squeeze out every bit of emotion there could be in that song. the forlorn, wishful thoughts of a lover who reminiscences of the past. i thought it was actually very good. and it shows vjc can do more than just pyrotechnics, it can sound quite clear, too. 

then there's (as usual) a dispute regarding the first above-mentioned case. sigh!

whatever it is, i'm still so happy for the beautiful sounds i heard, even more especially the recording on saturday. i have played your recording of the choice pieces on my itunes on loop for ever as i typed this entry :) but you never know, maybe when the hall is filled with people, who seemed to get increasingly restless and noisy after each choir has performed, what the judges heard was totally different from what was intended? whatever the case, hm.

oh well, i hope you'll get over it faster! in the end, what i remember of my batch (apart from our own shocking gold) was how miraculously good we sounded only on the day of (another, separate) competition. we didn't disappoint ourselves because we thought we did sound good, good on an absolute scale.

and most of us, very old alumni, are still meeting up frequently for gatherings :) 

my comments do have some weight and sense, right? i was a music student and chorister after all, i could have very well enrolled in a music college (had i tried). haha!