Description
Instrumental quartet based on my choral piece “The Choir in the Rain” which is a sequence of limericks written and set to music by the composer imagining the scene if a choir were made to sing in the rain, complete with colds, coughs, sneezes and fever.
Original limericks:
(Introductory words: pitter patter pom etc)
Our conductor was trying to train
our choir to sing in the rain
the music got wet
and to our great regret
we finally had to refrain
So all of us went back indoors
and we sang from our poor dripping scores
but the audience cheered
as we persevered
and demanded sev’ral encores
It was then that we all started sneezing
the basses were coughing and wheezing
The altos in harm’ny
sniffed not very calmly
but the audience thought we were teasing
The Sopranos then noticed their dresses
were shrinking and causing distresses
the buttons they popped
and the tenors they hopped
as those buttons shot right past their faces
It seemed that the choir was dissolving
and the room started slowly revolving
we’d all caught a cough
it near carrried us off
as the fever we’d got was evolving
We finally reached the last ditty
in that chilly and rain sodden city
oh we’re told that in Spain
it just rains on the plain
but here it soaks both plain and pretty