Last Post (for this year)

I’ve had a wonderfully musical year this year. First there was the searching and yearning for a choir to join.

Then there was finding it, but not being able to join, but going to listen to colleagues’ bands.

Then there was meeting a fellow music lover with similar tastes (i.e. We both like singing!)- She knows lots of stuff, and I know very little, but neither of us ever seems to get bored with waffling on and comparing notes (Ha!) on our favourite things, so it works out pretty well. And we're going to do the Cantigas this spring.

Then there was joining the Coro Entredós, and having a perfectly lovely time, despite my limited Spanish - which is improving, no question about it. I did three of the four winter concerts, which were very enjoyable, and also gave more scope to get to know people individually on journeys to and from venues, and as we all relaxed after each concert.

Then, as I went bouncing about, happy because I was in a choir, and our Cantiga buddy did the same, for the self-same reason, we began to discover the other singers and musicians among colleagues and students, and discoverwhat rocks their boats. So we don't always talk shop in the staffroom. It had to be possible......

And then there was including Spanish carols – villancicos -in our carols-and-mulled-wine-and-mince-pies Christmas sing-song and inviting neighbours and students. Between flu, and flights, not everyone made it, but we had a lot of fun singing favourite carols, and trying to get our mouths around the unfamiliar foreign ones: The Twelve Days of Christmas? Hacía Belén va una burra, rin, rin?

For me, researching villancicos has added a whole new dimension to Christmas here, as I’ve almost-learnt Spanish carols, and read Christmas stories and Latin-American carols, from my gran libro de Navidad. (Yes of course it’s a children’s book!) I canvassed some of my students – adults and children – for the most popular carols, then Googled lyrics and sat with my dictionary to find out what they actually meant. I sang along to compilation CDs to try and get up to speed. And I mean speed! They do like tongue-twister choruses. (Habibi has not left home. Heroic.)

Spanish villancicos aren’t just not-in-English – they have a distinct aesthetic, a much more human – less awe-filled – focus, and a definite preference for waltz time alternating with lively 6/8 (6/12? 17/42?!) rather than good old English 4/4. They also have an entertainingly flexible approach to content and form: if there’s a particularly catchy chorus, or verse, or musical sequence, it pops up all over the place. The songs are fixed, and everyone knows them as well as I know Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, but several are more musical patchwork than whole cloth. This is a good chorus to know:

Pastores, venid,
Pastores, llegad,
que el Rey de los Cielos
ha nacido ya.

And this might come in handy too:

Venid, venid, pastorcillos,
venid, venid a adorar
al Rey de los Cielos
que ha nacido ya.

It’s good: once you’ve learnt a few villancicos, the chances are that you’ll be able to join in with gusto on at least some of any new one you come across! For the record, my favourites so far are Los peces en el río; Campana sobre campana; Fum, fum, fum; and Hacía Belén va una burra, rin, rin – which I hope to be able to sing the chorus of by Christmas 2010….

The music goes on. We joined a group of Irish, Spanish and English people singing carols for charity in Calle Preciados a couple of Sundays before Christmas – mostly well-known American Christmas songs, rather than carols – with Feliz Navidad and Los Peces en el río for a bit of balance. Fun, in a my-throat-can’t-take-much-more-of-this sort of way!

In the weekend before Christmas, choir members did their own concerts and went to each other’s. We went to hear Coro Gaudeamus do Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols at the Prado two Sundays ago; and we’re going to hear Coro Valdeluz in the final Christmas concert next Sunday. And we’re going to see Sweeney Todd, in Spanish, at the Teatro Español.
We’ve got it on DVD. We’ve watched it in English. Next, I’m going to watch it in Spanish with English subtitles, then Spanish, and then, go see the live show. But I shan’t sing along. Promise.