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Halle:  Day Two  Day One is here

The alarm rang at 8:30 and I wasn’t really in a fit state to go up, but had no choice as our choir was rehearsing at 10, our own little Swedish program for the “Near and Far” choir concert that night.

Swedes like to say that they aren’t very social, but put a group of them in amongst a larger group of non-Swedes and they will cling to each other.  As a result, our group was getting very familiar with each other, which is all well and good if you’re feeling up to it.  I put on a brave face and pretended I wasn’t dizzy taking that first photo of the pipe organ.

The rehearsal went well, nothing unusual.  They’d chosen four folk songs that are the sort of thing everyone else has heard all their lives and I had no clue about, comparable to never having heard Danny Boy or America the Beautiful or something similar.  Even the song we’d butchered at the statue the night before now sounded like everyone knew what they were doing.

After rehearsal we were supposed to set out on a guided tour of the city, but this was delayed by an impromptu choir meeting during which the organizers handed out blue shawls with our logo on them that they’d decided we would wear during the concert that evening.  Yes, aren’t they lovely?  We’re so glad you like them.  If you want to keep them that will be 120SEK.  One of many small surprise expenses that I incurred over the course of the trip, the next being that the guided tour cost 7EUR.  I’m sure everyone had heard before that it would cost money, so I quietly sucked it up and paid.

After apologizing profusely for keeping the tour waiting because of our meeting, we set off.  Our guide was a lovely retired lady who knew all sorts of things about the city, and a great deal about architecture.  We started with the church we’d been rehearsing in, then headed to the Market Square and the Marktkirche there, with its incredibly detailed pulpit and pipe organ inaugurated by Bach.  Our guide talked about how Stasi agents would lurk inside the church and listen to people talking, but they weren’t allowed to do anything while in the church.  (Then a woman at least twice my age asked what she meant by DDR and The Change and the facepalms echoed off the lovely Gothic roof.)

Onward we went, to Händel’s birthplace, a rather nice, but plain house, very unassuming.  Only 15% of the buildings in Halle were destroyed due to bombing and most of those were probably misses intended for Leipzig, so there’s a great deal of history there.  We went to the Moriztburg Castle and our guide talked about how it was ruined during the Thirty Years’ War, leading the Swedes to sort of shuffle their feet and avoid everyone’s gazes.  It houses an art museum now, and when they needed an extension they simply built alongside the ruins, rather than trying to do anything with them.

After the tour I got coffee with a couple of people from one of the Irish choirs.  They’d never been to Halle before either so we sat and talked until it was time to go to the next rehearsal.  I stopped along the way and managed to mime headache to a pharmacist well enough to get me something for it, after fighting it for the better part of the day.

Rehearsal went well.  This time it was with the orchestra, and the only major problem was the trumpet soloists inability to adapt to the changes the conductor wanted.  Rehearsing with an orchestra for the first time is always a humbling experience, and this was even more so.  The conductor has a different sort of relationship with the orchestra; he leans down closer, works to extract more subtlety from them.  The choir tends to be treated like a blunt instrument capable of only a limited amount of nuance; a choir of 400 even more so.

After rehearsal I found some traditional German food (pizza and coffee) and went back to the hotel to relax.  I think that was when I bought the wifi.  I had a bit of a lie down and then it was time for our concert.

I wish I’d gotten pictures of the Japanese choir.  They were adorable, and such camera hogs, making peace signs and waving and sitting in each others’ laps whenever anyone pointed a camera at them.  Their program was lovely too, a sort of medley through the seasons.  We did well, redeemed ourselves after the incident in front of the statue (you make think I bring it up often but that is nothing compared to how much the others in the Swedish choir talked about it) but I think the stars of the evening was a choir composed of singers from all over Germany: think All County of All State, but All Germany.  They did a worship program, and incredibly well with a spectacular soprano soloist.

Then, naturally, the pub, sometime around 10pm.  I mistreat my body a great deal on these sorts of trips, so by this point I was starving.  The food came quickly and everyone was in excellent spirits.  It didn’t take long for the singing to start, and I managed to get all the remaining Swedes moved closer to the piano.  Anton knew a bunch of Abba songs, but it got old quickly when it turned out that the Irish choirs knew the words better than the Swedes, so they switched to other things.  Danny Boy, When The Saints Go Marching In, and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot were staples of all three evening.  Someone started Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah but then forgot the words to the end of the third verse, and I hopped in so loudly well that one of the Irish basses was talking about it the next day.  Also, apparently, I am the key to them pulling off California Dreamin’ a cappella, but I’ll believe that when they say it sober.

Bed: 2 in the morning.