Good progress on the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle

"Forest Light" by Killian Shoenberger

I wrote on Sunday about La Chandeleur; this time of year is always an easy one for remembering special days.  Groundhog Day isn't significant, except that it coincides with the birthday of my paternal grandmother Rita, who passed away in 2012.  I can't believe that it's already been almost seven years since she left us.  The special birthdays continue in February: the 4th of September is the birthday of my youngest sister, Emily... and that is followed by the birthday of our middle sister, Heather, on the 5th (Happy Birthday, H!) which also coincides with the birthday of our late paternal grandfather Delbert, who passed away in 2005.  There are more extended family birthdays around this time: My aunt Barb Gillespie has hers on January 29th, and on the 23rd of February both my cousin David Hudson and my Aunt Lorraine Costello share a birthday as well.

It's interesting but as I get older the patterns of the year get more and more deeply grooved into my behaviour.  Of course some of that is being a singer, especially one who does a lot of Passion singing, so that my busiest time of the year is usually the month or so leading up to Easter, and I now habitually travel to Canada just after Easter to perform.  Having a wife who is a teacher, and two kids who are in school means that holidays are also nearly always spent together, so that also imposes a kind of pattern on the year.  We aren't rigorously faithful in our church attendance either, but the liturgical year is also a source of patterns.  And of course the changing seasons are things that I find myself more and more attuned to as I get older: having a garden again makes me think more about the passage of the year.

Yesterday I left Osa in Bousval, and took Yoshi with me in the car to go to my early physiotherapy appointment on my right shoulder.  They started with about five-ten minutes of ultrasound, followed by maybe ten-twenty minutes of microwave therapy.  These are similar treatments to those I had on my ankle injury a few months ago, and I understand that they are used to stimulate blood flow, loosen up cold muscles, improve fluid drainage, and soften tissues up for subsequent movement exercises.

Then I held a handle attached by a rope and pulley system to a 2kg weight, and made a repetitive movement to extend my oustretched arm upwards to reach for the sky, and then do a pull-up movement.  The weight allowed me to raise my arm much higher than I have been able to since early October, and then the pull up movement strengthens the shoulder and allows it to fall downwards again.  This lasted maybe 25 minutes, and by the end of it a lot of the tension and muscle guarding that has been plaguing me for months started to subside.  It really felt marvellous!  So I am looking forward to the next session tomorrow morning.  If all goes well I should manage to finish the treatment in three weeks, and hopefully won't need a cortisone shot.

After my physiotherapy I went home to feed the chickens and check in on the cats, then went back out to Bousval to throw the ball for the dogs, feed the fires, check the furnace for fuel and then warm up and sing.

I didn't start with the Vaughan Williams yesterday but thought I'd revisit something that is coming up on the 9th of March: the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle.  I last sang this in 2016, and as I recall I coached it quite heavily with an Italian Rossini specialist that I had met at La Monnaie.  I was all alone in Bousval and so warmed up and let it rip.  Surprisingly a lot of it is all still there in my muscle memory, and some of the sections that I remembered being quite difficult to sing have now somehow become a bit easier, probably because my technique is continuing to evolve.

It is interesting to think about repeating patterns: I looked up a blog entry from the last time I sang Rossini.  I also talk in that post about the Passion Season, and there is a large section about staying and house-sitting in Bousval!  It's fun to look at the photos from less than three years ago, especially those of the boys, and realise how quickly they have grown over the last three years.  Also I realise that I was just at the beginning of my practice of running at that time, and had just run my first 8km.  I confess that in the cold weather I am back down to that distance on normal days, and only occasionally get in a longer 15km run.  But I hope that there will be opportunities to run longer distances when the weather gets warmer.

Today I'm meeting with a friend from church; we are brainstorming some ideas for a short video presentation on the St. Andrew's Church of Scotland in Brussels, to be used on the church website as an introductory document, and also to be shown to any prospective ministerial candidates...

Happy Tuesday (and again Happy birthdays to Emily and Heather)...