Just overheard in the prom queue that the choir only had 20 mins with Abbado before the day.
Instead, someone who knew Abbado's conducting backwards coached them in exactly how the Maestro would indicate things.
Tommo
Seems reasonable to me - the choral movement isn't all that long so 20 minutes would be time for a run, a bit of chat, a passage or two and then another run, and then presumably the general on top of that. It's certainly normal for a choir to be prepared mostly by the chorus master. That's what they get to take a bow for after all...
Indeed. In all the 855 times I sang that *(&#$*&%ing movement as a chorister, I can't remember ever having much more than about 15 minutes of rehearsal time. We'd drive up to New York or to Boston or to Philadelphia or wherever, wait for hours in some holding room, trot out on stage, bimm and bamm for 4 minutes, hear Maestro so and so say something or other, leave stage, and then get instructions about when to stand/sit from our conductor.
