{"id":13541,"date":"2011-04-22T07:21:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T23:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=13541"},"modified":"2011-04-23T15:04:15","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T07:04:15","slug":"simply-love-choral-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2011\/04\/22\/simply-love-choral-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Simply love choral music :)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the season for the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Central Judging for Choirs for secondary schools again. Just the other day, I went to support my ex-choir at Singapore of the Arts (SOTA) School where the judging was held. Actually, the support was a nice way of masking the fact that I missed their singing despite all the heartaches and stress I went through while I was their teacher in-charge.<\/p>\n<p>One of their two set pieces, The Snow by Elgar, touched many hearts. There was a time not too long ago that saw youth choirs performing technically challenging pieces which were mostly not easy on the ears. One often ended up appreciating the prowess of the singers and sophistication of the choral arrangement rather than the music itself. Hence, it was a refreshing change when The Snow was sung at the SYF. The other set piece, Essassa by Ko Matsushita, was probably one of the most difficult pieces for a youth choir to master as it was rated a 5 from a difficulty scale of 1-5. This composition is in 5 parts and <a title=\"Essassa\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EilnOofFhRw\">here&#8217;s<\/a> an audio recording of the choir performing it.<\/p>\n<p>I was happy for the choir when they were given the award they deserved at the end of the day. Here&#8217;s an audio recording of <a title=\"The Snow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4CNZIvdJ3ZI\">The Snow<\/a> they sang. (The sound quality would be better with good speakers or earphones.) Lyrics of the song below. Enjoy :)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #333399;\">The Snow<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O snow, which sinks so light,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Brown earth is hid from sight,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O soul, be thou as white as snow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O snow, which falls so slow,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Dear earth quite warm below;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O heart, so keep thy glow,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Beneath the snow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O snow, in thy soft grave<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Sad\u00a0flowers the winter brave;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O heart, so soothe and save,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">As does the snow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">The snow must melt, must go,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Fast, fast\u00a0as water flow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Not thus, my soul, O sow<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Thy gifts to fade like snow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O snow, thou art white no more,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Thy sparkling too, is o\u2019er;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O soul, be as before,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Was bright the snow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Then as the snow all pure,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">O heart be, but endure,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Through all the years full sure,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Not as the snow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">(C. Alice Elgar)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the season for the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Central Judging for Choirs for secondary schools again. Just the other day, I went to support my ex-choir at Singapore of the Arts (SOTA) School where the judging was held. Actually,<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-read-more\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2011\/04\/22\/simply-love-choral-music\/\">Read More<span class=\"cleanwp-sr-only\">  Simply love choral music :)<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-music","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-11-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}