Vibrato

Today

Driving into Wells today I listened with pleasure to a recording of Stanford's "Justorum Animae". I've sung it many times but one occasion was the most memorable.

In My Day

I think it must have been 1993. My neighbour decided that she wanted to have a fancy dress New Year's party. One day in November she trotted over to discuss it with us. "What should the theme be?". We tried a number of ideas without coming up with a solution. Eventually I had a brainwave. "Why don't you have a pre-party party to decide this? Invite people who live in walking distance down to yours one night and we'll soon sort it out!"

Carolyn agreed and a couple of weeks later about a dozen or so of us gathered at her house one Saturday night.

Very quickly we decided on the theme: comic strip characters. Now what? the night was young! I regret to have to report that the rest of the evening degenerated into drinking games, at which I had rather less experience than some of my younger neighbours

At some point in the early hours I left amid tearful farewells and found my way home next door.

Now, normally, all that would have happened is that I would have passed out and woken up with a corker the next day and spent Sunday getting over it. However, some weeks earlier, I'd agreed to help out the choir at St John's Church, Glastonbury in the morning service. Rehearsal was at 8.30, the service at 10.00.

How I got out of bed is now lost to my memory, but I did and drove (I'm pretty sure I was still well over the limit) the fifteen miles to Glastonbury. Among other things we were singing Justorum Animae in which the top soprano has a very lovely sustained top G.

I did my best, I really did, but I was trembling from lack of sleep and excess alcohol and gave the only performance of my life with a vibrato. A wobbling, uncertain vibrato, when what I had been hired for was my pure top notes.

They haven't asked me back since...