Singing solos

Last week the mass setting at the eucharist was Mendelssohn's deutsche Liturgie for unaccompanied double choir. There's a brief passage in the Gloria where four soloists sing against the rest of the choir, with yours truly taking care of the solo tenor, something I was asked to do back in late June.

Fast forward to last Thursday's rehearsal, when for some reason I was asked to sing the tenor solo in Stanford's Te Deum, an even shorter passage. I didn't mind really, but you'd have thought someone else could have done it. Then I ended up leading the responses as well, which was a bit of a challenge as we'd not rehearsed them and I'd barely had a glimpse at the collect, so it was all a bit off the cuff.

That said, I could do with a rest from solo work. Next Sunday we're doing Mozart's Coronation mass with full orchestra and someone else is doing the tenor part - but I'm still a little concerned, as the tenor in question dropped out of doing the same in Schubert's Mass in G major last year and I stepped in, so you never know ...