New pattern: Folia Crescent

The first pattern in my new La Folia Collection is out! It's a sweet, simple one-skein shawl called Folia Crescent. This one was very quick to knit, straightforward and not requiring much attention after the first repeat or two. Watching the lace emerge kept things interesting, and of course knitting with such beautiful yarn is always a pleasure.

Features:

• a leafy lace panel surrounded by squishy garter stitch
• easy-to-wear crescent shape
• a garter-tab cast on and an i-cord bind off
• suitable for beginner lace knitters
• stitch markers keep track of the lace section so you don't have to
• a one skein project in fingering-weight yarn
• perfect for that precious single skein of sock yarn
• one size, easily enlarged by working extra repeats
• pattern includes full written instructions and hybrid charted + written instructions

I used one skein of Merri Creek Sock yarn from local dyer and colour genius Miss Click Clack. The colour is called 'Ambergris', and it's an absolutely stunning glowing gold. The beauty of a small (6 row) lace repeat in this shawl is that you can keep knitting and use up almost all of your yarn. I'd recommend putting a lifeline in first before doing extra repeats, just in case!

The remaining two patterns in the collection, a drapy cowl and a large triangular shawl, will be released in mid-September and late September, respectively. They feature the same leafy lace and garter stitch combo, put together in different ways to suit the different shapes of the cowl and shawl.

You can see all the details and download the pattern via Ravelry, Loveknitting, Etsy, or Craftsy. An ebook with all three La Folia patterns is also available - the cowl and triangular shawl patterns will be added to the ebook as they are released.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I chose the name La Folia for this collection partly because folia means 'leaves' in Latin (just right for a botanical lace design), and because it's the name of a famous musical form based on a standard bass line. You can read about the history of the Folia bass line here, and find the sheet music for various versions here.

More than 150 composers have used variations on the La Folia theme in their music, including Corelli, Vivaldi, Marais, J.S. Bach, Handel, Liszt, and  Rachmaninoff. There are all kinds of riches to be found by searching for 'La Folia' on Youtube! Here are a few that stood out to me.

A performance of Vivaldi's variations on "La Follia" (RV 63) with Baroque dancers:

A Folia in the Spanish style performed by the viola da gamba player Jordi Savall:

And the Australian group Latitude 37 recording their own set of variations on La Folia:

New pattern: Amarilli

I have something especially pretty to share with you today! This floaty, lacy shawl is Amarilli, part of the Wool People 10 collection and my second design published in collaboration with Brooklyn Tweed.

You can see the whole collection in the beautiful Lookbook. As well as a few more lace scarves and shawls, there are some very cosy-looking cabled jerseys (I especially love Marylebone).

Below are a couple of backyard photos of Amarilli, which we took late last year before sending it off to Brooklyn Tweed. I've been keeping this one a secret for quite a while!

Amarilli is knit in Brooklyn Tweed's new laceweight yarn, Plains. It's a laceweight with a lot of character and springiness, which gives a slightly rustic feel to the shawl. I used the colour 'Ranier', a calm blue-grey-with-a-hint-of-green that reminds me of lichen.

My starting point for this design was a 'bell lace' pattern from one of Barbara Walker's stitch dictionaries. I charted it out, tweaked it to fit a triangular shape, and added a border in keeping with the lace pattern. The design difficulty was in making the edges and border of the shape work with the stitch pattern - it took me a while to find a tidy and elegant solution!

Features:

• all-over floral lace pattern which becomes nicely intuitive
• knit and purl stitches only on wrong-side rows
• top-down triangular construction with garter-tab cast on
• requires 2 skeins of Plains by Brooklyn Tweed (or 750yds of laceweight yarn)
• suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways
• one size: 60" wingspan, 30" along spine
• both charted and written instructions.

I named this shawl Amarilli because the lace motifs look like flowering bulbs - think amaryllis, lily, or crocus - but I also had a famous early Baroque song in mind, 'Amarilli, mia bella' by Giulio Caccini (published in Le Nuove Musiche, 1602). It's a very common song for young sopranos to learn - if you know someone who has had formal singing lessons, chances are they know it!

You can hear the song here:

And here is a different take on it, a much more decorated version published by Johann Nauwach in 1623:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can purchase the pattern for the Amarilli shawl from Ravelry, or from the Brooklyn Tweed website.

It's Bach season!

It's March, and for those of us in choir-land that means the countdown to Holy Week has begun. As well as our St John Passion performance on Good Friday, my choir at the Scots' Church is doing a few Bach cantatas spaced throughout the year. We did one last Sunday - the first half of BWV 147, 'Hertz und Mund und Tat und Leben' - and it was really lovely to sing. The opening chorus was fast and exciting with its trumpet solos, and the final chorale was just beautiful. Definitely worth getting up at 7am on a Sunday. ;)

There's a video of us singing & playing the final chorale here on Facebook, courtesy of our organist Ria. The tune is best known as "Jesu, joy of man's desiring" - you might recognise it when you hear it. I remember coming across a piano arrangement at Nana's house many years ago and playing it on the dodgy old piano...

This is a video of the whole cantata, performed by The Sixteen:

I'm glad it won't be my first time singing the St John Passion this year, there aren't many weeks left now to brush up on my German (not to mention all of the notes). I'm also glad we have more than one special rehearsal scheduled this time in addition to the Sunday morning run-throughs.

One of my favourite Bach interpreters, John Butt and his Dunedin Consort, have recorded a liturgical reconstruction of the St John Passion. Here's a short intro video with some rehearsal clips:

After filling my head with all of this music, I'm going to be super-primed for a very, very exciting trip... This April I'll be heading off on my first trip to Europe with Willie and Julian! I really can't believe it's actually happening. We'll start with a visit to Berlin where Chloe and Celena live, and spend three weeks exploring a few different cities including Florence, Rome, and Amsterdam, with short stops in Leipzig and Munich. It was incredibly hard to narrow down our list of places to visit, but I prioritised the places with the art and architecture I most want to see (as a consequence of my years of studying music and art history and Latin).

In Leipzig I plan to visit the Bach Museum, the Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, a museum of musical instruments, and a music bookshop. And hopefully a coffeehouse or two!

More on the trip later. For now I need to work on my German and Italian (both beginner-level, alas) and do some more plotting and planning...

New pattern: Fretboard

This one's been a while in the making! Fretboard is a cabled and textured scarf which I designed last winter, as a present for Willie's brother Julian. He's an amazing bass guitar player, so I decided to knit him a scarf which looks like the fretboard of a bass. It has cabled 'strings', garter stitch 'frets', and a simple ribbed background. The frets start out widely spaced, and shift closer together as the scarf grows.

Features:

• simple cables and a knit-and-purl texture 
• fully reversible - identical on both sides
• two versions: for DK-weight and fingering-weight yarn
• adjustable length, to suit the wearer's height
• optional tubular cast-on and bind-off for beautifully-finished ends
• both charted and written instructions, so you can follow your preferred type.

The pattern includes two versions of the scarf: one in DK-weight yarn with four cables/strings (for bass guitar and ukulele lovers), and one in fingering-weight yarn with six cables/strings (for guitar and viola da gamba lovers).

Julian's scarf is the DK-weight version, knit in WOOLganic 8ply, a certified organic Australian merino (6 balls of the colour 'Charbon'). My scarf is the fingering-weight version, in Malabrigo Sock (2 skeins of 'Botticelli Red'):

A line-up of fretted string instruments (no prizes for guessing my favourite!)

 

Julian and Chloe's band Booty Pageant released an EP (mini album) last week. If you're interested in checking them out, you can listen and download here.

Busy

Today we're off to New Zealand for Willie's mum's 60th birthday celebrations - there's a big party planned, and 'The Sibling Band' will be providing some of the music. Hence we've been spending a fair percentage of our evenings at band practice recently...

I've been using the inevitable waiting-around time during practices to work on a couple of knitting projects: a simple shawl with mesh-lace sections, and a striped-and-textured hat.

Hat in progress, feat. Madelinetosh DK and Vintage Purls Max

The remainder of the shawl will be my travel knitting, as it's nice and mindless. But I managed to finish the hat at last night's practice! I even wove in all the ends, using a tiny cymbal as a pin-dish. ;)

I'm looking forward to seeing some NZ countryside again, especially as the route from Auckland down to Taranaki is going to be mostly new to me. Hopefully I'll get some good photos to share. I'm also excited about getting to see some old friends at the party and in Auckland. Yay!

A good Good Friday

Last night was my big Bach concert! My choir and a fantastic Baroque orchestra performed the St. John Passion. As a first-timer, I had to put in a lot of practice to make sure I had my head around all the rhythms and my tongue around all the rapid-fire German. And it really paid off - on the night I wasn't nervous, and I really enjoyed the whole experience.

Willie, Julian, Chloe, and Hamish came along to hear us,and Willie took a couple of photos:

The Scots' Church is really pretty.

A chorus in full flight! I'm near the middle. :)

At home afterwards, enjoying a well-earned hot cross bun.

Here are a couple of my favourite choruses, performed by The Monteverdi Choir. The first is one of the fast, tricky choruses, and the second is the final chorus (which I adore)...

If you're a Bach nerd like me, you might want to poke around the All of Bach site, which will eventually house free videos of all 1080 of Bach's surviving compositions, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society. Bach's other great Passion setting, the St. Matthew, is the newest addition.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Bucket-list Bach

Disclaimer: I don't actually have a bucket list. But if I did, performing Bach's large-scale choral works would definitely be on it.

In a few weeks the Scots' Choir will be singing Bach's St. John Passion, which is massively exciting for me, as well as scary! I have a lot of music to learn, and a lot of German pronunciation to perfect. As I did in the lead-up to Messiah last year, I'll be listening to lots of different recordings as well as practicing on my own with the piano. Wish me luck!

Here's the opening chorus, 'Herr, unser Herrscher', performed at a cracking pace by the Academy of Ancient Music:

Hallelujah!

Our Messiah performance on Saturday was a success, and heaps of fun if a bit nerve-wracking at times! Willie came along to listen, with Chloe and Celena and two friends. They brought me a bunch of flowers, which was lovely - one's first Messiah is a big deal, after all. ;)

A lot of the choruses rattled along at a cracking pace, which is exhilarating but also scary if you're not totally confident with your part. The period-instrument orchestra was excellent, and added a lot of sparkle and depth to the music. 
I loved Chloe's comment that the choir sounded "tight" - coming from a rock musician, that's a great compliment.

Here's one of my favourite choruses, the final "Worthy is the Lamb" and "Amen". These guys take it slower than we did, but it still sounds fantastic...

I'm nearly ready for Christmas! Jam Drops, Salted Toffee Almonds, and the all-important Pavlova have been baked. My mini-solo for Christmas morning choir has been practised (a verse of a carol called "Past three o'clock"). Tonight we'll wrap presents and put up a few decorations. And tomorrow afternoon, we'll go to Chloe and Celena's house for an "Orphan Christmas" featuring a vast vegetarian feast, cocktails, a performance by Booty Pageant, and a Slip 'n' Slide. ;)

Merry Christmas all!

Turnin' Tricks

A couple of months ago I helped out on a 48 Hour Film, which was totally amazing and exhausting and hilarious. My post about the experience is here: A 48-hour adventure.

We were among the four films nominated for 'Best Musical Score' from this year's batch of Melbourne films (although we didn't win), and our music team actually won a prize from a film-making school!

The film is up on Youtube now, so enjoy! Keep an eye out for me, Willie, Julian, and Chloe (aka 'the band'). Celena is starring (and rapping)...

A bounty of books

A few exciting packages have arrived lately, because I've been buying books!

I ordered a shiny new copy of June Hemmons Hiatt's The Principles of Knitting, which I've been hankering after for ages. It's very in-depth, and will obviously take me quite a while to absorb. I really like having actual reference books around! The internet is a fount of all knowledge, yes, but often I just want to grab a familiar book when I need information on a technique...

Suitably attired!

I also found these second-hand knitting books going cheap on Ebay: Montse Stanley's Knitting Your Own Designs for a Perfect Fit, and Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs. I have plenty to learn about garment construction, and I find stitch patterns endlessly fascinating. I'm still on the lookout for Barbara Walker's other stitch dictionaries.

They're older books, but most of the information is still useful and current.
I want to learn more about knitted garment construction as I think I might like to try designing a sweater sometime. And in the meantime, I'll be better equipped to tweak other people's designs fit me properly. :)

A peek inside...

And last but not least, I ordered my own score of Handel's Messiah. I've joined a new choir (at the Scots' Church in the central city), and we'll be performing it this December. The new choir is going well so far - there are plenty of good singers, and we've done some interesting music. I feel like I'm diving into the 'other half' of the choral repertoire, i.e. the Protestant side of things. Good thing I like Bach. ;)

I think I'm the only choir-geek in the English-speaking world who's never been in a Messiah performance, so this will be interesting! I know two of the choruses already (and the soprano solos of course), so that's a start. I just need this damn cold to go away so I can start learning my parts...

"Hallelujah", etc etc...

A 48-hour adventure

This past weekend was completely insane. Hours of intense concentration alternating with hours of waiting, not enough sleep, fast meals, quick costume changes, and a very ill-timed migraine... yes, I was involved in a 48 Hour Film Project! It's a kind of film-making endurance event, where your team finds out on the Friday evening what genre you'll be doing (drawn at random), and you're given a set line of dialogue, prop, and character to include in your 4-7 minute film. You then have until the Sunday evening to write the script, film it, add music and sound effects, edit it, and get two digital copies to headquarters before the deadline.

Celena had put together a fantastic team of film students, musicians and assorted skilful folk. The music team (the three Lewises and me) had expected to be needed only on the Saturday to put together some background music and whatever else was needed. However, the genre we drew was 'Musical'.
So once we all got over our shock and dismay, the writers started writing and the composers started composing...

The music team set up a 'lair' in a bedroom at our team's base. Laptops and keyboards and instruments were everywhere! I recorded some vocals for one of the musical numbers, plus a drawn-out high-C for a sound effect. Chloe's amazing new microphone was a huge help:

A most excellent microphone

 

Chloe and Willie composing amidst the chaos

I hadn't expected to actually appear on camera, but I did! We were filmed playing our instruments for the film's intro, and we appear in another couple of scenes as well. I was a bit freaked out at first, but got over it pretty quick. :)

Being filmed for the intro (photo by Celena)

I've now seen the finished film, and it's both fun and funny - yay! There are definitely a few things we would have tweaked if we'd had more time, but on the whole it's a damn good effort.

I can't wait to go and see all the films on the big screen in two weeks time. We're pretty confident we have a shot at some of the prizes. Fingers crossed! ;)

Free pattern: On the Record

I made a batch of these crocheted record coasters as a house-warming present for Chloe and Celena, who have recently moved into a new flat:

 

They're quick and easy, require only small amounts of yarn, and they're reversible too! I used the half-double crochet stitch for most of the rounds, because I like the ridges it creates (perfect for a record). Each coaster is about 4.5" wide, which is big enough for a large mug. If you want smaller coasters, omit Round 5 in the instructions.
 
If you're new to crochet or would like a refresher, there are some good tutorials out there. I like the detailed photo-tutorials at the Attic24 blog (e.g. Flat Circle), the clear diagrams at How to Read a Crochet Pattern, and the beginners' series Crochet School. As for actual books (gasp), my favourite is Debbie Stoller's The Happy Hooker.

Photos of each stage in this pattern can be found on my Ravelry project page: House-warming coasters.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the Record 
by Amy van de Laar

This pattern uses US crochet terms for slip-stitch, dc, hdc, and sc.
A simple conversion chart for UK terms: Crochet Stitch Comparison Chart.   

Materials: 

• DK or worsted-weight yarn in black plus one or more contrasting colours. I used Morris Norway 8ply in 'Black', and Bendigo Classic 8ply in 'Silver', 'Cherry Red', and 'Tasman Blue'. You will need about 16 yards of black for each coaster, and smaller amounts of the contrast colour(s).
• a 4mm crochet hook,
• a needle for weaving in ends.

Pattern: 

Round 1 (Colour A): Make a slip-knot, chain 4, and join with a slip-stitch to start of chain. Ch2, and work 11 dc (double crochet) into the centre of the ring. Join to the top of the initial ch2 with a slip-stitch, and fasten off Colour A.

Round 2 (Colour B): Join Colour B, ch2, and work 1hdc (half-double crochet) into same place. Work 2hdc into each stitch of the previous round. Join to top of initial ch2 with a slip-stitch, and fasten off Colour B.

Round 3 (Black): Turn to other side of coaster, and join Black. Ch2, 1 hdc into same place. *1hdc in next stitch, then 2hdc in next stitch,* repeat from * to * until 1 stitch remains, 1hdc in final stitch. Join to top of initial ch2 with a slip-stitch.

Round 4: Ch2, 1hdc into same place. *1hdc, 1hdc, 2hdc,* repeat until 1 stitch remains, hdc in final stitch. Note: the 2hdc will fall between the 2hdc of the previous round. Join to top of initial ch2 with a slip-stitch.

Round 5: Ch2, 1hdc into same place. *1hdc, 1hdc, 1hdc, 2hdc,* repeat until 1 stitch remains, 1hdc. Join to top of initial ch2 with a slip-stitch.

Round 6: Ch1, 1sc (single crochet) into same place. Sc into each stitch of the previous round. Join to first sc with a slip-stitch.

Fasten off yarn, weave in ends, and block to help them lie flat.

A side

B side

© Amy van de Laar 2014.

Consorting with viols

I had a rare treat last night - I got to sing with a consort of viols! A bit like this one, except wearing jeans and woolly jumpers:

Willie and I are staying with the Olivers, who are old-school early music enthusiasts. They play various string and wind instruments including viols, renaissance flutes, a shawm, a rebec, a psaltery, and virginals. They host a viol consort on Monday nights, and Robert invited me to sing some consort songs with them.

Elizabethan consort songs involve a singer plus a viol consort (hence the name), and they're quite challenging because the musical style is dense and complex - each player's musical phrases often overlap with the other players', which can make it tricky to find your place again if you get lost. The secret is to just keep counting!

William Byrd (c.1540-1623)

The songs we had a go at are all by William Byrd, and they are absolutely beautiful. I love that the voice part is really just another instrument - many of these works can be performed just as easily by all singers, or all instruments, or a mixture. The texts are melancholy (and in some cases moralistic), and I enjoyed making the most of the words once I'd got the hang of the notes. I'd like to learn Elizabethan pronunciation at some stage, to make the rhymes and word-play work as they should.

Here are recordings of three of the songs (I couldn't find any online for 'Blame I confess' or 'O that we woeful wretches could')...

'Ye sacred Muses' (1585) - a lament on the death of Thomas Tallis

'O Lord, how vain are all our frail delights' - with text by Philip Sidney

'Weeping full sore' - a 5-part madrigal from Songs of Sundrie Natures

My precious

It took me a ridiculously long time, but I have my very own piano at last!

The time was finally right, now that we no longer live in a student flat, or a leaky mouldy cottage, or literally up a hundred steps. :p

Our online searches led us to an apprentice piano tuner who happened to be restoring an old German piano, and was willing to sell it for a very reasonable price. Apparently the piano had been water-damaged and completely unplayable, but after restoration it looks and sounds lovely. It has a nice 'round' tone and nice clear bass notes, and it's louder than the English pianos I've played in the past. There's still a little bit of sanding and beeswax-polishing left to do, which I'll tackle myself.

Click to enlarge!

I spy four spots where the candle-holders were attached...

Lots of nice Art Nouveau-style decoration :)

It's been a long wait - since I moved away to uni in early 1999, I've been relying on an electric keyboard, which has been fine for getting me through singing practice and (back in the day) uni assignments. But for playing piano music I need the real thing, inconvenient though that is...

I did my Grade 8 piano exam during my break year before uni, and my playing has been getting steadily rustier ever since, although I'm sure the decline has been slowed by holiday piano-binges at Mum & Dad's. Hopefully now I can get some of my fluency back. I actually practised scales today! Voluntarily! 'Teenage Me' would be astounded. ;)

My aim is to play every day, so I'll need to acquire some more sheet music to keep it interesting. State Library ahoy!

Music to wrap presents by

This is my first Christmas in a long time with no choir to sing with. I'm used to a big build-up of practices and carols concerts, culminating in Midnight Mass (I always skive off on Christmas morning). One of the special things about Midnight Mass at St Mary's was the fun of blasting out carols like 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' from the choir loft, together with a trio of trumpets and the organ...

I love a lot of the special music for this time of year, so I've tried to make do with listening to recordings and singing on my own. I found an absolute treasure-trove of downloadable free scores at the Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) site - they have six pages worth of Music for the Advent, Christmas and Epiphany seasons, including traditional carols as well as choral music from the 14th century to the present.

One new discovery is Charpentier's 'Salve puerule':

And here's an old favourite, Bach's Christmas Oratorio:

And this is a lovely concert/documentary hybrid - a special Christmas episode of the BBC series Sacred Music (featuring The Sixteen), 'A Choral Christmas':

I recognised several pieces I've sung over the years, including Victoria's amazing 'O Magnum Mysterium', and the 15thC carol 'There is no Rose of such Virtue'.

Merry Christmas, folks! Enjoy your holiday. :)

A little flying music

This time tomorrow I'll be on the plane!

I'm not scared of flying, luckily, but I don't like airports one bit. I just keep thinking of all the different things that could go wrong to make me miss my connecting flight, lose my luggage, etc etc. Hopefully as I get more practice with international travel I'll be less stressed about it.

I'm packing a range of amusements in my carry-on bag to keep me occupied, as it'll be a whole day of travel. So far I've rounded up a book (Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird), my kindle, some knitting, and my mp3 player.

A few days ago I loaded some new music onto my mp3 player that will make nice comforting/familiar/distracting travel music. I went for Beethoven piano sonatas, which I used to really enjoy playing back when I was still in practice. I'm looking forward to dusting off my old tomes of sonatas in Whakatane.

This is my 'official favourite' bit of Beethoven: the finale of Sonata No. 32. It's a long series of variations on the initial simple theme, and there are some lovely surprises along the way - starlike trills and other beautiful moments, but also a section around the 7min mark that sounds suspiciously like jazz, a hundred years early! Enjoy...

For your viewing pleasure

First, an excellent new documentary about Bach's life and music. Really interesting, and some lovely snippets of music. It's an hour and a half long! I'm in Bach-nerd heaven.

...And here's something completely different: for an old friend's wedding present, Chloe made a very tongue-in-cheek rap video. Willie helped out with some of the dancing and filming, and I did general gofering. It was pretty much the most hilarious experience ever.
Here's a link to the video: Ra's Wedding Rap

Educational ear candy

If you're at all interested in music history, the BBC's 'Sacred Music' (2008) is an excellent documentary series, and it's all available on YouTube. It's nicely in-depth, and best of all, the musical examples are sung by The Sixteen, an awesome and very experienced early music choir.

The first series covers Medieval chant and organum through to Bach's cantatas and passions. It's great to watch for the music alone! There's also a second series which covers later music, which is on my to-watch list.
We're really enjoying our documentaries at the moment. :)

Episode 1: The Gothic Revolution

Episode 2: Palestrina and the Popes

Episode 3: Byrd & Tallis: Singing the Lord's song in a strange land

Episode 4: Bach and the Lutheran Legacy

Tenebrae

This Easter is a bit different from my usual mad choir overload! For once I don't have a full four days of choir in a row leading up to Easter - just the one. I guess this is because the Cathedral Singers isn't the main choir of St Pat's, so the choirboys will be doing the bulk of the work instead. It's nice because I get time off when everyone else does, but it's also a shame because Holy Week music is my favourite in the church year.

Tonight we're singing Tenebrae for Good Friday. We'll be doing some of the familiar Tenebrae motets by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), and the chant Vexilla regis. I know these well from my years in St Mary's choir.

Here are two of the Victoria motets, O vos omnes and Caligaverunt:

For comparison, here are two rather different settings of the same texts by Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613):

Because I can't resist, here are a couple of Baroque pieces for Holy Week. The famous eight-part Crucifixus by Antonio Lotti (1667-1740), which I had the pleasure of singing with the Tudor Consort a couple of years ago:

And the Première Leçon from Leçons de Ténèbres, Office du Vendredi Saint by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704):

Have a great Easter weekend, everyone!

Earworm

I woke up with this in my head this morning.

It's one of my favourite Handel arias - 'Scherza infida' from the opera Ariodante (1735), first performed by Giovanni Carestini. There's a synopsis here (although for some reason it's listed as a tenor aria). As you'd expect from a highly-emotional showpiece aria, it's wonderfully over-the-top! Here Magdalena Kožená acts it beautifully - powerfully expressive yet understated in terms of embellishments. I definitely have a bit of a vocal crush on her...

There are some free scores here, but I'm not thrilled with them. I think another trip to the State Library is in order.

Here's another take on the same aria, by Philippe Jaroussky. I love what he does with the second half! I think the key with singing this sort of music is to take things almost too far, whichever approach you choose. ;)