Priory Voices (1): Lincoln

I haven’t written about Priory Voices before, but they are going to feature a lot this summer. The choir meets several times a year for a weekend singing in a Cathedral; its members come from all over (though many live or have lived in the North-West) and we rehearse intensively at the place where we’re singing. This works because the conductor chooses singers who can turn out a good performance under this sort of pressure, most of whom will know most of the music already. The music is sent out in advance with a recording so you can mug up on anything unfamiliar.

Unfortunately, my music for last weekend’s visit to Lincoln Cathedral was delayed in the post and only arrived at the last possible minute. In my experience (it was my third visit to sing services there) rehearsal time at this cathedral is always extremely short, and the result was that I had to concentrate very hard for the Howells ‘Coll. Reg.’ morning canticles, which I’d never sung before. I knew more or less how the Te Deum went, because it is often broadcast; but that left the Jubilate, and the rhythms of the Te Deum are also irregular and very easy to mis-count. The other new piece for me was Tallis’ Loquebantur variis linguis.

Saturday evensong was almost entirely music by Sumsion, who is not a favourite of mine. He goes in for long phrases that I find meander about with no great sense of direction. I’ll make a partial exception for a couple of anthems where this becomes a more positive feature because it illustrates the words, as with ‘In exile’ (depicting the lamentation of the exiles) or in Saturday’s anthem ‘They that go down to the sea in ships’ (rolling waves). Another exception, for a different reason, is his Responses (which we also did on Saturday); here the format imposes limitations, so that your Sumsion comes in handy bite-sized chunks. At least I’m promised some items from my wishlist in Priory Voices events later in the year.

The choir’s next outing is at Wells Cathedral next weekend. Astonishingly, I’ve lived in the diocese for some eight years and never sung a service at Wells, only Bath Camerata concerts. I can’t sing the whole weekend, but have been given a special dispensation to join the choir for Sunday evensong.