Much singing

I am pretty sure that I heard a nightingale singing yesterday evening, in the middle of the city, in the middle of winter. This is clearly impossible: Nightingales are migratory, they winter in Africa; they are also very shy, avoiding urban areas.

On the other hand, the place where I heard it sing almost qualifies as wilderness: a fenced-off park area surrounding a large artificial pond, with plenty of thick undergrowth and magnificent old plane trees. Were a nightingale to wish to sing in Stuttgart, this would be a pretty good spot.

Migratoriness appears to be learned behaviour, which can be unlearned. The last time I was in Toronto in winter, the city was full of allegedly migratory summer songbirds which should not have been there. The overabundance of food outweighed the miserable cold, so they didn't migrate. Perhaps my nightingale also decided to tough it out?

I shall buy that little microphone add-on for my iPod and try to record the putative nightingale. Watch this space for further developments.

This happened as I was walking to a concert performance of Mendelsohn's "Paulus" by another amateur choir, in the Liederhalle (Stuttgart's prime non-stadium concert venue). Without wishing to offend, the choir is of a higher standard than the church choir previously blogged, "amateur" only in the sense that the singers all have non-musical jobs; the choir has auditions and rehearsals and singing lessons and a history dating back to 1847. They hire professionals to sing the solos, the only one I knew last night was the soprano Catriona Smith from the Stuttgarter Oper. (The programme notes suggest that I might have seen her at the Royal Opera in London in the early Nineties, but I don't remember her there.)

The Liederhalle was sold out - for an amateur choir. This is, to me, another example of the charming small-town mentality of Stuttgart: of course we go out in the cold and pay good money to hear our friends sing.

All in all, a wonderful evening.