Byrd is the word

I try to get to choir rehearsal about half an hour early each week, in order to catch up on filing or in case the director has anything he'd like me to help him with. This past Wednesday he had a whopping pile of music to be distributed into the choir members' boxes -- not surprisingly, since Lent is moving along at a fast clip and we'll be needing a ton of music for Holy Week and Easter. I looked at the first piece and saw that it was a particular favorite of mine, perhaps my actual all-time favorite choral work, and I jumped for joy. Really. You can ask him.

It's William Byrd's "Ave Verum Corpus." You can listen to it here.

Aside from the fact that it's just an unutterably beautiful motet, I think it is a memory I associate with the Byrd piece that causes it to fill me, not so much with hope, but with certainty, that this Holy Week and Easter will be solemn and sacred and vivid and glorious. This is what I remember:

While I was at Carleton I sang in the vocal ensemble in the Carleton Pro Musica. There were usually between eight and ten of us, and we rehearsed twice a week in a little practice room in the Music & Drama building. (Aside: The M&D was one of the few places where you could still enter part-way into the underground tunnels that used to connect the buildings to afford students and faculty some shelter from the harsh Minnesota winters.)

We would sing silly warm-up exercises and then work hard on the pieces we were given to learn, with guidance from the group's director as he dropped in, working his way through the different ensembles. Looking back now, I can see that we were spoiled in that a) we had plenty of rehearsal time, and b) we had in common the drive to perfect our performance. In our church choir (which I have sung in for ten years) we are blessed with neither, which I am no longer bitter about -- that's life -- but sometimes it makes me feel disappointed.

So during Spring term of my Freshman year we were given the Byrd "Ave Verum" to work on, and I think it was a favorite with pretty much everybody. I don't remember much about the rehearsals, except that as time went on I put more and more effort into following the tenors' line, which, if I closed my eyes, would make me feel like I was floating on air. One afternoon we all agreed to troop down to the basement to the tunnels so we could rehearse the lovely motet among the tunnels' astonishingly good acoustics.

When we got there, we mixed and mingled and molded ourselves into an inward-facing circle. Someone gave the pitch and we began to sing. I don't know who hit the lights, but almost immediately I felt hands holding each of mine. We sang the whole piece through, in the dark, holding hands, with that lush sound resonating about us. I can't remember another time when I've felt so real, so present, so completely involved in what I was doing.

It's a reminder to me, today, that when I sing, be it the William Byrd or the Patricia Hurlbutt (yes, you read that right, and the composer's name is indicative of what we'd like to do with her anthem) -- I need to be alive, focused, prepared to work as hard as I can to ensure that whatever piece I'm performing is as perfect as possible, and to inspire others to do the same. This is not a small challenge, but it is definitely worthwhile.

A new era

Our choir director and organist at church recently retired, and though I will miss her, I am blown away by her replacement. I think my excitement has something to do with the anthem he chose for his first Sunday with us, "My Dancing Day," a traditional English carol that fit perfectly with the lessons and allowed us to sing with a joy and freedom that I, personally, have not experienced in a long time. It's amazing how the right kind of music can enhance worship, and how music chosen or performed poorly can completely flatten it.

I'm also excited because the new organist found out about the major cataloging project I took on in the music library years ago, way before K was born, and wants me to finish it and presumably take on the role of music librarian. (D had cooked up a database for me to make the music library (SMML) more accessible -- at the time the only access was through a set of notecards that covered about 1/10 of the music we had on file -- and I had gone through the music files one by one and counted, repaired and cataloged them. I had gotten through about 2/3 of the files when I realized that no one was going to actually use the data I was collecting -- so I stopped.) I'm thrilled that our SMML database will finally be put to use, and that our efforts will be appreciated.

Nighttime yarns

K and I have a long-standing tradition of meeting in the middle of the night for songs and stories. I have no patience for singing or storytelling at bedtime; her bedtime is my bedtime too; I need to be sleeping then, my brain doesn't work at that time of the evening.

But tug at my sleeve at 3:30 am, and I'm good to go. Ever since she was an infant, and I sat with her in the rocker, gliding and singing endless hymns (they have so many verses, I thought eventually she'd fall asleep!) we've done this. Such was tonight.

Actually, tonight was a special treat. Tonight I pulled Prince, Princess and Duke out of my, um, ear. The royal ones are a trio of lion cubs I made up on an interminable vacation out West last year, when I wanted K to think of me as "Mama Lion" protecting her cub, rather than the adversarial witch I was becoming for demanding tolerable behavior and refusing to reward atomic meltdowns. The stories were as bland as I could make them -- her reading material of choice at the time was My Little Pony paperbacks -- and the Mama always either rescued her cubs from danger or welcomed them safely home. For good measure, I also made sure that Princess was the brave cub and that Prince and Duke were nervous and a little bit stupid. Perhaps that was unfair of me, but I was trying to fill a deficit, here.

So tonight I told a boring story in which the cubs got lost in the forest and Princess found the way home, after which Mama tucked the three safely into bed and sang them a lullaby, which I also sang to K, and I handed out some cuddles and kisses and turned the bathroom light back on, and I'm quite sure she was asleep before I hit the landing. It pays, sometimes, to be a lousy storyteller.

Yesterday I started and finished a project for K's Christmas which I was not at all sure I was going to be able to do. It was very similar to the receiving blanket project but involved terrycloth, which I've never sewn with. I did have to stop and re-pin one time, and re-adjust from a straight stitch to a zig-zag, but once I made those changes it was pretty much smooth sailing, as I'd chosen the appropriate needle at the outset for dealing with stretchy fabrics.

The finished project, as you can see Curious George enjoying, is a reversible hooded towel/flannel blanket, and I am very pleased with the results. It looks to be warm, absorbent, and oh-so-cuddly so I am going to make one for my nephew as well. I'm thinking that with the leftover terry and flannel I might be able to make matching baby washcloths/hand towels or something like that -- maybe a double thickness of terry bound with the flannel? I'll have to wait until I have some time to experiment.

This project was adapted from Last-Minute Fabric Gifts by Cynthia Treen and Karen Philippi.