First Day of Spring - Summer Dreaming

Ah me...just been taken back 40 years or more: Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, courtsey of 'Carsick' FM. Memories of a school production of Shakespeare's play when I was in my early teens: flowing robes (white sheets) ;  rags in my hair every night to achieve that Grecian ringlet effect (not so much fun having to walk past the nearby boys' school with Violet Elizabeth style curls!)No speaking part for me thank goodness: I was one of several Grecian ladies whose sole purpose was to glide  on at intervals and drape themselves in  tasteful manner over a flight of steps (more sheets fixed over wooden boxes). There was a mild frisson of excitement  at one point when the girl who played Puck trod on a drawing pin mid-speech yet continued - dripping blood - with one foot stuck backstage whilst we tried to unstick  her. Laughs  as always at Peter Quince,  Bottom and his cronies, Titania, Oberon and the lovers,  relief at the happy ending. Above all - that magical sense of anticipation - of long Summer days, of promise and happy times ahead; that sense of common purpose when a project comes together after so much blood, sweat and tears. I've a hazy memory on one day of us  rushing  outside - still in our costumes - straight after the curtain call to line up outside the school to cheer on a visiting dignitary: (Princess Anne? Duchess of Kent?). I can't recall who exactly, it's all part of a dreamy haze now.

Such a long time ago - but however grey the day,  it only takes the opening bars of the overture for me to know that   Summer is  on the way.

Musick Hath Charms

So, after our little 'interruption,' yesterday, I'm back to what I'd intended to blog about: yes, my first singing session of the new term. My weekly 'work- out,' and banisher of the 'blues,' which I've waxed lyrical about on numerous occasions on my various blogs. Here are a couple of clips of the piece I'm learning: Should He Upbraid, words by Shakespeare, music by Henry Rowley Bishop. Neither of these are me, as you'll have guessed; but oh, to have a voice like theirs'! Well, maybe minus the hiss and crackle. The first singer, Frieda Hempel (1885-1955) probably sang from the same music  edition as the one I've borrowed; ancient, minus its covers and missing the last twenty pages or so. It reminds me so much of the scores I remember seeing at my grandmother, aunt and uncle's house as a child (the latter taught music and was also organist at a local church, and Grannie herself was a fairly accomplished pianist). She must have inherited much of her music from her parents (who owned a music shop). In my mind's eye I can picture the scene: aspidistras, waistcoats, handlebar moustaches and the whole family gathered round the piano of an evening. Wonderful.

My own efforts tend more towards the Sage The Owl and Parsley The Lion school of song. But I don't half have fun along the way!