Diva for a day!

On Sunday 21 October St Francis' Choir sang the "Missa festiva" by Gretchaninov and John Ireland's iconic motet "Greater Love Hath No Man". It has been one of my favourites since I came across it when I was first at university and started my career as a chorister singing with the Canterbury Fellowship and the Trinity College Choir, both based in Trinity College Chapel at the University of Melbourne.

It is a dramatic motet for both choir and organ, and has divided choir parts in places, which those of us who are first sopranos always enjoy singing. The text is drawn from Christian texts: and I remember hearing once that it had great resonance for the time it was written, when many young men were making the ultimate sacrifice for their country and laying down their lives for their friends.

Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it.
Love is strong as death.
Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,
that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.
Ye are wash’d, ye are sanctified,
ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus;
ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
that ye should show forth the praises of him
who hath call'd you out of darkness, out of darkness into his marvellous light.
I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, holy,
acceptable unto to God, which is your reasonable service.

The Choir's performance was recorded and has been posted on the Choir’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/St-Francis-Choir/58534273651
and for those without Facebook access, it has also been posted on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/xo2Tfe7C2lw



There are also many recordings (of variable quality) available on YouTube but this one is probably the best (St Paul’s Cathedral Choir, London):
http://youtu.be/rc4RUeKzddg



Further information on John Ireland can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ireland_(composer) and a free version of the musical score is available from http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Greater_love_hath_no_man_(John_Ireland).

In the first part of the motet, there are important short solos for a treble voice and a baritone which 'set the scene' for the remainder of the piece. The treble solo is normally sung beautifully by one of the choir cantors. As she was going to be away for the day, a 'stand-in' had to be arranged. In late April both the cantor and the Choir Director had been absent when we were rehearsing the motet for an earlier performance, and our highly esteemed Assistant Director was taking the rehearsal. As I assessed it to be a "no threat situation" I spontaneously decided to sing the solo part when we got to that point in the rehearsal. The Assistant Director and several other people were quite complimentary about my efforts, which gave me a nice warm inner glow.

When the Director was deciding on an understudy, it did not occur to me that I might be considered, but on the basis of my earlier efforts I was nominated by the Assistant Director and the Director encouragingly suggested "see how you go". Things went OK in the rehearsal run-through, and once again I was relieved to receive positive feedback from a number of people. Thus began several days of anxiety leading up to Sunday's performance.

Although I was able to run over the notes on a keyboard to check my pitch intonation, as always a believer in the Boy Scout motto of "be prepared", when I arrived home from work on Friday I set about checking my CD collection to see if I had a copy of the motet that I could use for practice purposes. When this proved fruitless, I then checked YouTube and the iTunes Store. What I was really looking for was a recording where the two organ cues for the solo phrases were clearly audible. I listened to most of the YouTube recordings, but in the end settled for an absolute bargain on iTunes - a $7.49 album of 40 tracks of English church music recorded by King's College Cambridge - "England, My England". This enabled me to rehearse the solo at my convenience, which I did many times prior to the performance on Sunday. I knew I would be nervous, so I rehearsed the notes enough that they would come automatically (even to the point of boredom at one stage!). A Neonatal Paediatric Fellow once referred to this type of memory as being "brain stem" - so automatic that you did not really have to think about it. I think I alternated between terror, nervous apprehension and trying to be upbeat that this was an exciting opportunity to do a good job. There was an interval of decades since I had last sung this particular solo and this would in fact be my solo debut in my long history with St Francis' Choir!

I did not sleep much on Saturday night and there was plenty of nervous anxiety on Sunday morning. The Assistant Director kindly gave me a 'run through' prior to the rehearsal, and the rehearsal went without incident and there was lots of support and encouragement and kind words from other Choir members, including compliments on my 'pure treble tone'. I did feel a lot calmer when we got into the church and got through most of the service without significant nerves. However, these began to resurface as the appointed time drew near. Somehow I 'held it all together' and sang the solo without noticing any obvious errors on my part, even managing to watch the Director for the entries. I was desperately hoping that it had sounded OK to others, and was relieved to hear that it had, including from both the Director and the Assistant Director. The latter, whose opinion I greatly respect, even suggested that perhaps I could do other solos in the future! It was a great relief when it was all over, but I think it took me a few days to recover from the nervous exertion!

I think my somewhat extreme form of performance anxiety was the reason that I stopped putting myself forward for small solos. It is a physically unpleasant sensation and oh so distracting and all-encompassing. I try to do all the right things to get on top of it, but this is quite challenging.

It has always been a matter of great wonderment to me that people such as myself can be so anxious about solo performances (whether in music or exams or medicine) whilst other people just ooze confidence and don't give it a second thought. I have always wished that I could be like that! There are reasons (which I will not go into here) why my confidence has been eroded over time until I guess it has become a habit to be lacking in confidence, but I long to be different. Perhaps singing this solo will prove to be one small step on the way, and I am very grateful to all the people who believed in me.