It's THAT Week Again

This morning at St M's we processed in from the icy air in the Churchyard having had our palm crosses blessed, teeth chattering and shivering in our choir robes we sang "Glory Laud and Honour".

Then followed the usual narrative version of the Gospel read (in some cases ) well but taking its usual lengthy chunk of time.

We had a longish sermon followed by very long intercessions and, by the time we reached the anthem were flagging somewhat.

This year it was the beautiful Hosanna Filio David by the 16th Century Spanish composer Tomas Luis de Victoria.

We have struggled to make this sound as good as it should, occasionally singing it very well but more often rather less well - this morning was one of the latter.

It is difficult to explain why this quite common phenomenon occurs, when to all intents and purposes we know it well and were not even on this occasion too severely depleted in numbers.

Something odd seems to  happen to polyphonic music where the time is all-important, a sort of fracture leading to different timing in unexpected places.  The conductor is beating the normal beat, the choir parts all appear to be correct and yet, suddenly there is this strange lack of harmony.

Perhaps somebody somewhere is throwing the proverbial spanner in the works in case we become too complacent.

I hope this does'nt  auger badly for the remainder of the Easter music.  One can only hope:-)