...suddenly having Outlook pop up a reminder that your re-audition for one of the finest choruses in the city if not the country is in just under a week, and you suddenly realize that not only have you not been practicing but you've sung all your good repertoire for this director already and you have to learn something new.

So, off to the Oratorio Anthology. Something in Bach, I think. (I love Bach, and I sing Bach well, and Bach is an absolute genius acknowledged as such by everyone and especially choral musicians, and Bach never stoops to florid showy coloratura work but only does what the music needs but is still devilishly hard. Unless, like me, you've pretty much made a life of singing almost nothing but Bach and you can do the devilishly hard Bach-isms fairly easily whereas Mozart- or Handel-ism would show your lack of rehearsal, not to mention technique, in about three measures...)

I love Youtube. I used to think of it as a completely time-wasting hellpit. (I guess it could be that, if one is not careful.) But after learning the aria last night, I could go to youtube and type it in, and go, "Hmm, let's see what Blomstedt does with that transition," or, "Well, if Bartoli breathes there, no one can give me a hard time about breathing there, right?" (She sings it way slower than I would want to, tho...)

But this is lovely:


I love how the English Horn starts a little too slow and Blomstedt manages with his odd yet very effective conducting technique to get everything right up where he wants it without a single lump.