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By the time we got to the point of having two rehearsals left before the performance, I was seriously worried, and so was Petra.
“I hope they’ve made some serious forward strides this week,” she said before she left for work that morning. “There’s only so much we can get done in rehearsals without them practising at home.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” I said, but by that point she was halfway out the door.
Privately, however, I wasn’t so sure. And that unease stayed with me all day, all throughout the mountains of ironing that had accumulated, all throughout the preparation for tonight’s dinner (which I slung in the slow cooker), all throughout the journey down the hill to the school that evening. Our personal and professional reputations depended on the choir’s performance. If they screwed it up, who knew what might happen?
Perhaps they could tell we were both on edge tonight, because even the warm-up was horrific. It seemed that they were doing everything we’d always told them not to do: standing unevenly on their legs; singing from the throat; failing to pronounce their consonants in one of the more wordy exercises. I found myself stopping and correcting them countless times, and so the warm-up took five minutes longer than it should. That five minutes was valuable singing time lost.
“Okay, let’s transfer all that we’ve learned to Ave Maria, shall we?” I told them, and there was a flurry of shuffled papers as half of the choir produced their music.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on,” Petra said, and they all looked up at her. “Why are you using your music? We told you last week that this was one of the pieces we expected off-copy this week.”
Nobody spoke, instead simply exchanging glances with each other. I tried to take a deep breath, which caught in my throat, and tried not to make it obvious.
“I take it that most of you haven’t learnt it, then,” I said. “Well, goodness me. Here’s what we’ll have to do, then. We’ll sing it through twice. Those of you who haven’t learnt it, use your music the first time. But the second time around, I want to see every single one of your faces. No music. This isn’t a complicated piece, and we’ve been at it for months. Copies out, then.”
Once everyone was settled, and those who needed them had their copies in front of them, I turned to Petra and beat out a bar with my arms so she could get the tempo. The introduction was short, but half of the choir missed their entrance, even though it was completely in unison, and I’d brought them in. We went back to the beginning and started again, and this time they did get it right. It was rocky, but they made it through the short piece, even if they failed to come off with me at the end. I commented on this so they’d know for next time, then tried not to sigh. “Okay, music away, we’re going off copy.”
And the song fell apart. Never mind that they’d just sung it through fine. The way that a choir often worked was that when a handful of them were uncertain, the rest of their section would second-guess themselves. If all three sections were afflicted by this, the song would be a car crash. And that was what happened now. I dragged them through the first verse and chorus, intending to stop at the end of the latter. But as if Petra and I had connected thoughts, she slammed her hands down on the keys and shouted, “For the love of Christ, people!”
You could have heard a pin drop. She stood up, and she was almost trembling with rage.
“This song literally could not be simpler!” she shouted again. “We swapped it out for the hard one to make it easier for you! It’s a verse and a chorus repeated, a bridge that’s mostly in unison, and the same chorus again! What’s so difficult about it? If you’re struggling with this then I dread to think what carnage you’ll make of the Sea Shanty Medley. We couldn’t make it easier for you! We record each part individually on the piano and send it out to you for you to learn! What more can we do?”
Finally she stopped for air. The choir simply stared at her, then – as one – they turned their eyes to me.
After all, I was always the calm one. The safe one. I never got pissed off. I was never highly-strung.
Until today.
Now I could feel my body burning.
“Two weeks!” I shouted, and I could almost feel the energy surge as they all flinched. “After this rehearsal, there is one more until the actual performance! There is no excuse for this shoddy performance this late in the game!”
I forced myself to stop before I could say anything else, and turned to Petra desperately. Normally just the sight of her would calm me down, but she seemed to be almost sparking with suppressed rage which only served to amplify mine. It was as if she’d been waiting for my cue, because she came to stand beside me.
“None of you seem to realise what hinges on our performance,” she said, and I could tell she was trying hardto keep her voice even. “You’re all so blasé about it.”
“You’ve never known a performance to go wrong,” I jumped in. “You’ve never felt the humiliation.” My mind cast back to my failed performance at school. Forty-five years ago, but right now, the mortification filled my veins as fresh as the day it had happened. It served to fuel my anger. “But you will! My God, you will, if you don’t pull your socks up. Put Ave Maria away, and go home and learn it for next week. Let’s have a stab at I Know You Better, which as you know we also expect off-copy, and I don’t want to see any less than one-hundred-percent effort from any of you.”
Not one word was uttered by any of them as they changed songs. I took the opportunity to walk to the door for a breath of air, and Petra followed me. When our backs were turned away from them, she massaged her temples and took a few deep breaths. I just stood there and watched her, not daring to touch her, even to put a calming hand on her back. We’d been on fairly even ground recently, and I didn’t want to ruin it now. After a moment, she shook herself off and walked back to the piano, and I followed her.
“Right.” My voice came out croaky, so I coughed and cleared my throat. “Remember your diction in this one. It’s fast-paced, so we want to hear every consonant crystal clear, otherwise all you’ll hear are vowel sounds. Everyone ready?”
Again, nobody said anything, but I saw a lot of nods. So, feeling like a robot, I turned to Petra once again for her cue.
It was as if we’d put the fear of God into them, because their voices were full of adrenaline. I had to call out “Watch me, watch me!” at one point because they were going so fast that they were getting ahead of my conducting, in a piece where pacing themselves was key. But the notes were correct and the rhythms were pretty much there, and we didn’t have to stop for corrections until the ending, which to be fair to them was quite complicated. We finally sung it through one more time, and they got it right. It wasn’t polished, but it would do.
“Very good!” I said, and shuffled my music. “Let’s do the Sea Shanty Medley. The whole thing, from the top. Cass, are you okay to do the solo?”
“Yeah,” I heard from somewhere in the alto section, and Cass came to stand at the side of the choir, between me and the piano, so she could see me and the choir could see her. In the actual event, she’d have a microphone and would be standing in the front row, but for now it would help the choir to be able to see both her and me. She shot me a sidelong glance. Was she scared of me?
Anxiety suddenly flooded me. This was one of the most technically tricky pieces we’d ever done, and I had arranged it. If the easy little Ave Maria had flopped, how on Earth was this one going to turn out?
But I was pleasantly surprised. For the most part, everyone seemed to know what they were doing. The piano wasn’t needed for this song, so once she’d given everybody their starting notes, Petra got up and walked around the hall, gauging the balance of the harmonies. It was all very well us being able to hear it while we were working with them, but we were standing a few feet in front of them. The audience would be further away. There had been a time when she’d have broken into a dance to make the singers laugh during one of the upbeat sections, but that wasn’t today.
“We need more alto,” Petra said at the end, turning to the lowest section. “Most of the songs are fine, but the alto line is lacking in Leave Her Johnny. The other two sections get the flash and dash in that one – you’re the bass line, and you’re supporting them up there. Without it, it doesn’t sound very authentic. More like a school choir arrangement, if you see what I mean.”
