I fulfilled two ambitions by singing at Gloucester this last weekend with Priory Voices. Firstly, I had never before sung at Gloucester Cathedral. Now I’ve done this, there are only five C of E Cathedrals in England I have yet to perform in: Sheffield (scheduled for October), Birmingham, Leicester, Wakefield and Bradford. Therefore I’ve now sung in all the Cathedrals in the South of England and all the ‘ancient’ ones (those that were Cathedrals before the nineteenth century, half of the total). There’s no particular reason why I should have waited so long for Gloucester, except that the city centre is relatively barren compared with many other cathedral cities, which may make it less appealing to choirs. The cathedral though is one of the very finest. We made good use of the recently refurbished organ, which sounded especially impressive after we’d been rehearsing with an upright piano in the education centre!
Furthermore, I got to sing Howells’ St. Paul’s Service for the first time since I left Cambridge a decade ago. I think this is my favourite Howells setting, and that its long, sweeping vocal lines are more suited to women’s voices than, say, the fussier openings of Coll. Reg. or Gloucester, which I’ve sung many times in the last few years. But this view wasn’t universal among the members of Priory Voices! Anyway, that is another item on my wishlist seen to.
I can’t finish without mentioning the Vierne Messe Solennelle which we sang at the Eucharist. I sang this last year in Bristol Cathedral; we purchased our own copies then and rather than take out a second mortgage and buy a full score I got the vocal score, which is about the size of a postage stamp and doesn’t have the organ part in. (If you’re lucky, you are given a few organ notes to give you your lead, otherwise you just have to count bars and pitch your note from memory). There’s something of the fairground organ about this setting (e.g. the gloriously naff little motif which accompanies Sanctus and Hosannas). As for the choir, I think Vierne thought of it as an additional organ stop – a real Vox Humana if you like. And frequently his idea of developing musical material is to repeat it at a different pitch. But it’s fun to sing in the right building.
Next time, I’ll be posting a report on my weekend singing Swayne et al. in Southwark Cathedral.
As I recall the piano in the Education Centre used to be terrible and there isn’t room to swing a cat, let alone rehearse a choir! Why didn’t they let you use the Chapter House or somewhere in the Cathedral School?