Like this one time, at bandcamp... :D

Ég hef verið að hlusta á diskinn með upptökunni frá seinni tónleikum Háskólakórsins og Ungfóníu, þar sem við fluttum Messu í C eftir Ludwig Van Beethoven. Þó ég segi sjálfur frá er þetta hreinn unaður á að hlýða. Verkið er stókostleg og við hjómum æðislega.
Ríkharður Ö. Pálsson gaf okkur 4 og 1/2 stjörnu af fimm í Mogganum um daginn og er ekki úr vegi að birta dóminn hér:

Vanmetin stórsnilld

Ungfónían „Allir gerðu hér betur en hægt átti að vera, og sjaldan þessu vant mátti heyra unga karleinsöngvara er stóðu alti og sópran fyllilega á sporði.“
Haydn: Sinfónía nr. 100 í G. Beethoven: Messa í C Op. 86. Rannveig Káradóttir sópran, Sibylle Köll alt, Hlöðver Sigurðsson tenór, Valdimar Hilmarsson bassi, Háskólakórinn og Sinfóníuhljómsveit unga fólksins. Stjórnandi: Gunnsteinn Ólafsson. Þriðjudaginn 27. nóvember kl. 20.

FJÖLMENN aðsókn var að seinni af tvennum tónleikum Háskólakórsins og „Ungfóníu“ á þriðjudag. Þriggja ára gömul hljómsveitin (39 manna, þar af 22 strengir) var sem fyrr mestmegnis skipuð lengra komnum tónlistarnemum af höfuðborgarsvæðinu. Hún myndaði í seinni hluta heilsteypt jafnvægi við 57 manna kórinn, er sömuleiðis var í þokkalegu jöfnu innbyrðis raddvægi (20-14-10-13) þrátt fyrir landlæga tenóraeklu. E.t.v. þurr tölfræði, en samt viss forsenda fyrir fullnýtingu þeirra hæfileika sem úr er að spila, enda ófá döpur dæmi um hið gagnstæða í hérlendu fámenni.
Það gerir þó vitaskuld ekki allan gæfumun á útkomu. Vanda þarf val í söng- og hljóðfæraraddir, og ekki sízt þarf stjórnandinn að vera starfi sínu vaxinn – sérstaklega þegar ekki nýtur þrautþjálfaðra atvinnumanna. Hvort tveggja heyrðist manni skila sér hér, hvernig sem annars var farið að restinni, enda spyr enginn um aðferðir. A.m.k. var auðheyrt að Gunnsteini Ólafssyni tókst að ná hinu bezta úr sínu fólki – auðvitað að viðbættri þeirri innbyggðu hvatningu sem fólst í viðfangsefnum kvöldsins.
Það var nefnilega ekki spurning að vínarklassísku meistaraverkin tvö höfðuðu engu síður til flytjenda en áheyrenda. „Her“-sinfónía Haydns (1793) úr 12 verka bálki Lundúna-sinfónía hans kom glettilega vel út í snyrtilegum flutningi Ungfós, ekki sízt lunkin gamansemin í lokaþættinum. Sumpart kannski hóflegu hraðavali að þakka, sem féll jafn vel að miklum hljómburði Langholtskirkju og að núverandi færni flytjenda og lýsti kunáttusamlegu skynbragði á list hins mögulega.
Algerum tólfum kastaði þó hin enn stórkostlega vanmetna snilldarmessa Beethovens frá 1807 handa Nikulási II Eszterházy. Það er varla ofmælt að þessi að líkindum áhrifamesta allra trúarjátninga í tónum eftir Bach hafi haldið hlustendum á tánum frá byrjun til enda í leiftrandi innlifuðum flutningi kórs, hljómsveitar og einsöngvara. Allir gerðu hér betur en hægt átti að vera, og sjaldan þessu vant mátti heyra unga karleinsöngvara er stóðu alti og sópran fyllilega á sporði. Ef ekki gott betur.
Ríkarður Ö. Pálsson


Til gamans læt ég líka fljóta hér skemmtilegt próf, tekið af facebook, þar sem maður getur kannað hvort maður hafi verið of lengi í kór:

Name: you know you've been in choir too long when...
Type: Entertainment & Arts - Fine Arts
Description: You know you’ve been in choir too long when….

1.a group of you and your friends are hanging out and the gossip of the day is about what the director did or how rehearsal went

2.you can sing numerous songs in different languages without a flaw but you have no idea what you’re saying

3.When someone is singing sharp or flat you are about to pull your hair out

4.You don’t think it’s strange to be walking to class and break out into 4 part harmony with your choir friends

5.You don’t know how to describe the feeling you get when the paper you’re holding starts to vibrate or you hear the music bounce off the back wall of the auditorium and come back to you

6.You enjoy going to all-county and all-district even though it involves spending your Friday and Saturday at a highschool singing for about 15 hours

7.you cringe when people sing their ‘r’s

8.you know that dolce is NOT talking about a drink at
starbucks and that largo does NOT mean large

9.“self-serve”, “no self”, and “get the neck” all mean something to you. as does "fry-time" or "get fried"

10. tenors saying "stick it up" and making high pitched noises are an everyday event.

11.Chewing gum and talking are two of the biggest sins that you can commit

12.Cell phones are also evil

13.You have heard, and agree with, the analogy of:

Altos love Basses
Basses love Altos
Sopranos love solos
Tenors love themselves

14.You realize that choir boys are not truly gay (most of them), they just like touching each other…. way too much

15.you know that do, re, mi, did NOT come from the Sound of Music!!

16.you can do solfege in your sleep

17.you know there are places you cannot, under any circumstance breathe

18.you know that Festival does not mean we’re going to party

19.you've seen the Newsies so many times you can quote it

20.you wonder what many people in your choir would be like if they never joined

21. boys dressing up in tight colorful clothes and doing choreography that is not considered very "manly" for the sake of a spring concert is quite normal

21. (in honor of mark and cam)- it's your senior year and last choir class but instead of going to lunch and celebrating- you reminisce and sit in your freshman year seats for the whole time.

22.(dedicated to darby) you actually have nightmares about your director...and admit it

23. you know that "tenor time" is not a good thing

24. you director wears high heels everyday to school without a complaint but after one flu shot she will tell us about the constant pangs in her arm... for more then 3 months.

25. you actually join this group


Og að lokum, lýsing á röddunum, tekið af sömu síðu:

THE SOPRANOS are the ones who sing the highest, and because of this they think they rule the world. They have longer hair, fancier jewelry, and swishier skirts than anyone else, and they consider themselves insulted if they are not allowed to go at least to a high F in every movement of any given piece. When they reach the high notes, they hold them for at least half again as long as the composer and/or conductor requires, and then complain that their throats are killing them and that the composer and conductor are sadists. Sopranos have varied attitudes toward the other sections of the chorus, though they consider all of them inferior. Altos are to sopranos rather like second violins to first violins - nice to harmonize with, but not really necessary. All sopranos have a secret feeling that the altos could drop out and the piece would sound essentially the same, and they don't understand why anybody would sing in that range in the first place - it's so boring. Tenors, on the other hand, can be very nice to have around; besides their flirtation possibilities (it is a well-known fact that sopranos never flirt with basses), sopranos like to sing duets with tenors because all the tenors are doing is working very hard to sing in a low-to-medium soprano range, while the sopranos are up there in the stratosphere showing off. To sopranos, basses are the scum of the earth - they sing too damn loud, are useless to tune to because they're down in that low, low range - and there has to be something wrong with anyone who sings in the F clef, anyway.

THE ALTOS are the salt of the earth - in their opinion, at least. Altos are unassuming people, who would wear jeans to concerts if they were allowed to. Altos are in a unique position in the chorus in that they are unable to complain about having to sing either very high or very low, and they know that all the other sections think their parts are pitifully easy. But the altos know otherwise. They know that while the sopranos are screeching away on a high A, they are being forced to sing elaborate passages full of sharps and flats and tricks of rhythm, and nobody is noticing because the sopranos are singing too loud (and the basses usually are too). Altos get a deep, secret pleasure out of conspiring together to tune the sopranos flat. Altos have an innate distrust of tenors, because the tenors sing in almost the same range and think they sound better. They like the basses, and enjoy singing duets with them - the basses just sound like a rumble anyway, and it's the only time the altos can really be heard. Altos' other complaint is that there are always too many of them and so they never get to sing really loud.

THE TENORS are spoiled. That's all there is to it. For one thing, there are never enough of them, and choir directors would rather sell their souls than let a halfway decent tenor quit, while they're always ready to unload a few altos at half price. And then, for some reason, the few tenors there are are always really good - it's one of those annoying facts of life.. So it's no wonder that tenors always get swollen heads - after all, who else can make sopranos swoon? The one thing that can make tenors insecure is the accusation (usually by the basses) that anyone singing that high couldn't possibly be a real man.. In their usual perverse fashion, the tenors never acknowledge this, but just complain louder about the composer being a sadist and making them sing so damn high. Tenors have a love-hate relationship with the conductor, too, because the conductor is always telling them to sing louder because there are so few of them. No conductor in recorded history has ever asked for less tenor in a forte passage. Tenors feel threatened in some way by all the other sections - the sopranos because they can hit those incredibly high notes; the altos because they have no trouble singing the notes the tenors kill themselves for; and the basses because, although they can't sing anything above an E, they sing it loud enough to drown the tenors out. Of course, the tenors would rather die than admit any of this. It is a little-known fact that tenors move their eyebrows more than anyone else while singing.

THE BASSES sing the lowest of anybody. This basically explains everything. They are stolid, dependable people, and have more facial hair than anybody else. The basses feel perpetually unappreciated, but they have a deep conviction that they are actually the most important part (a view endorsed by musicologists, but certainly not by sopranos or tenors), despite the fact that they have the most boring part of anybody and often sing the same note (or in endless fifths) for an entire page. They compensate for this by singing as loudly as they can get away with - most basses are tuba players at heart. Basses are the only section that can regularly complain about how low their part is, and they make horrible faces when trying to hit very low notes. Basses are charitable people, but their charity does not extend so far as tenors, whom they consider effete poseurs. Basses hate tuning the tenors more than almost anything else. Basses like altos - except when they have duets and the altos get the good part. As for the sopranos, they are simply in an alternate universe which the basses don't understand at all. They can't imagine why anybody would ever want to sing that high and sound that bad when they make mistakes. When a bass makes a mistake, the other three parts will cover him, and he can continue on his merry way, knowing that sometime, somehow, he will end up at the root of the chord.


.... jamm, við erum best. :)