The main season for going to sing in Cathedrals is coming up; it looks like my next outing will be Lincoln at the end of the month. I am now on the books of half-a-dozen choirs that go on Cathedral visits and receive at least twice as many invitations as I can accept. So how do I choose between them?
a) Obviously, I have to be available to sing. This means that the choirs that are slowest in letting me know what they plan doing have less chance of getting hold of me. (This doesn’t mean, though, that I’m never able to sign up at very short notice.)
b) Also obviously, it’s more worthwhile performing music to a high standard. I’m not going to attempt any sort of ranking here of the choirs I sing in.
c) I am still waiting for an opportunity to sing in Birmingham, Leicester, Bradford or Wakefield Cathedrals, and a chance to do this will override almost anything else! But I’m also interested in other venues new to me, or revisiting a favourite (e.g. one with a fine acoustic, in a pleasant place or with especially welcoming clergy/staff).
d) I enjoy singing repertoire that’s new to me, even if it isn’t challenging in itself. Conversely, I get a bit bored if I know all the music performed very well. And like everyone, I have favourite pieces/composers which will make a fixture more appealing.
e) I’ve come across singers who will only sign up if there’s a substantial solo on offer in their voice. I’m not so fussy (for one thing, it assumes that you are likely to be offered the solo in question). But, other things being equal, I’m more likely to sing for a group which has offered me solos in the past. The rest of this post should make clear that other things usually aren’t equal.
f) On a residential tour (as opposed to a single service or a weekend within commuting distance of home) it’s important to enjoy the company of the others as you see a lot of them outside the choir stalls as well as in. In practice, the company always seems to be congenial.
g) I can think of two tours (both some years ago now) when almost all available time was used for rehearsing simply because the choir was there, resulting in 4-hour rehearsals in the morning and in one case another of at least 2 hours in the evening, in addition to time in the stalls. This over-rehearsal resulted in drab performances and in one case I’d lost my voice after a few days. Conversely, under-rehearsal, particularly of flagship services such as the Sunday eucharist and evensong, can be very frustrating because you know you can do so much better.
Singing the hymn ‘Good Christian men, rejoice and sing!’ for the fourth time in nine days makes me reflect on the relatively small number of Easter hymns, some of which would be doggerel if you took the Alleluias away. This ‘queen of seasons’ doesn’t do so well for anthems considering its importance; there are at least as many good ones for Ascensiontide which contains only one Sunday.