Mrs. Pianoman and I have returned from our Italian adventure. While in Venice, we visited the islands of Murano (glass) and Burano (lace). Unfortunately, we didn't have time to take in the waters at the spa of Merano. Maybe next time!
The Merano sequence is in three parts. The first part is the Mayor and people of Merano singing about how wonderful the place is, and how much they are looking forward to the upcoming Chess tournament. The third part is a reprise of the first part. The second part is the introduction of the brash American Chess grandmaster, Freddie Trumper. Freddies "tone" is good old American rock 'n roll, and that's where a lot of the electric guitar comes in.
But before we get to "Rock Merano", there's a small change that takes place in the ensemble. Bars 164-166 are replicated at measure 190; we're creating bars 190A-D, and cutting m.191. Bar 190C goes into 2/4 time. It looks like this:
Switching to 2/4 time helps to transition from the 6/8 feel into the 4/4 feel of "Rock Merano". Note that this is something that's not in the score at all, but it's here because I prefer a more gradual transition.
The London score that I was using has gaps at m.10 and m.33, and that has music that we want to use. For each of those bars, we're playing what we played in m.2. My guess is that these "extra" bars were removed during the West End production, but I prefer keeping them for musical continuity.
When we get to the "S.R.O" section, we had Freddie and Florence sing the first one, then we added the ensemble for the second one. I liked the idea of Florence joining in on "S.R.O", as this is part of her complete support for Freddie.
Someone in the cast had never heard that term before, as it's not commonly used these days. Actually, it almost never happens in theaters, as it's a total safety violation. For those who don't know: "S.R.O" stands for Standing Room Only Interesting factoid from the page:
Standing tickets are a key feature of the annual London concert season "The Proms", with up to 1350 "Promenaders" buying cheaper tickets to stand in unreserved space in the area and gallery of the Royal Albert Hall.
If you look at YouTube videos of the Promenaders, it reminds me of slam circles and mosh pits ... which is also a version of SRO, I guess!
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