Teachers' choir news

We've begun to practice for our Eastern concert, which will be on April 23,in the same church the Christmas concert was.

So far, we have four traditional Church carols, although in two- or four-voiced variations (one of them is really dull, but the other three are beautiful)- I don't know whether we're going to learn more pieces or use some of the older ones. They sound fairly well already, and that with only three or four rehearsals. *is excited*

Perchance, I might get to sing the contralto solo in at least one of them, or perhaps in two. I'd very much like the chance. I know I can't carry cold water after the soprano and mezzosoprano solists (as we say it over here), as my voice isn't very strong above a certain height, and most pieces do go above that height. But I have the luck that the other contralto singers aren't as good at this stuff as I am, and feeling needed for the parts is really nice.

Singing is the only other sort of art I'm reasonably good at. Not as good as at writing (if I may be so immodest), but fairly good anyway. I never managed to learn to play an instrument well (although I dabbled in playing the piano, the guitar and the blockflöte) because, frankly, I found practicing borign and botehrsome. I don't have that problem with singing. That's something I readily offer my free time for, and a piece really well sung gives me a deep satisfaction.

It's a funny thing how we crawl into the music room, after 5-10 hours of school work, respectively, drained, tired and grumpy, and - after a hour and a half of singing, giggling and utterly stupid jokes - we leave again, fifteen years younger and of high spirits. We're worse than the kids sometimes - a good thing that our music teacher has the patience of a saint, the poor thing - but it makes us really, really happy. And a happy teacher is a better teacher, right?

New acquirements

Second entry today, because I had choir meeting and am still feeling talkative...

I've been talking about cartoons and animated movies lately, right? Okay, I bought Fehérlófia on DVD today. It's an animated movie by Marcell Jankovics - the one chosen one of the 50 best animated movies ever on the Los Angeles Festival for such things a few years ago.

Fehérlófia (meaning the son of the white horse) is the main hero of one of the pagan Hungarian myths of our people's origins. In the form we have inherited it, is just a folk tale. Jankovics, just like with the Magic Hind, made a visual myth of it.

I freely admit that the visual word of Jankovics needs a lot of getting used to. It's an acquired taste, as it is highly disturbing, to put it mildly. It also requires an intimate knowledge of ancient Hungarian myths - which I actually do have - and even so, one doesn't understand half the time what one sees. But it is eerily beautiful, nevertheless, rich in symbols and motives of Hungarian folk art. I particularly liked the sequence of childbirth presented in the form of a blossom opening - while you could see that it was childbirth, all the time.

Take a look for yourself here:
http://www.mediaguide.hu/pannoniafilm/jankovicsm.html
and here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0417757/

I bought another DVD, a historic rock opera by Levente Szörényi and János Bródy, the authors of the famous István, a király. It's sort of a continuation. It doesn't even come close to their first piece - I think they should stop trying to write another opera, their Attila the Hun play is fairly horrible, too - but at least the actors play it well. I guess, you can catch lightning in a bottle only once. But the folk dance sequences are pretty, and the shamans are properly creepy.

I think I'll buy the Attila play, too, despite the music being rather crap. Gyula Vikidál, who plays the main role, is a powerful figure, and it might give me inspiration, at the very least. Besides, there are certain pieces of patriotic art one ought to own, even if they aren't always that grand where the "art" part is considered.