There are by my reckoning few major composers whose music I’ve never performed in public. Many of them are Eastern European, and I was able to fill one glaring gap last weekend by singing some Janacek with the Chandos Singers. The piece in question was his unfinished Mass setting. I have a recording of this with Westminster Cathedral Choir, but we used a different reconstruction which among other things put it in E rather than E flat. It may not count as an important work, but many turns of phrase are distinctive and telling and Janacek is as attentive to matching words to rhythm in Latin as in Czech.
Fux is a lesser composer whose music I’d never performed either till last Saturday. We also sang a wodge of Tallis motets (that was bound to happen to me sooner or later this year – will I get to sing Spem in Alium before the year is out?), and motets by Vivaldi and Monteverdi, ending with a novelty item which set composers’ names to a movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria.
On Monday I went to an enjoyable concert by the Exultate Singers in Bristol, with a general ‘jazz’ theme and including pieces I’d sung with the choir as well as pieces I’d sung with other groups and others new to me. But I realise that however well it is performed I am always going to fail to appreciate the music of Delius.
Re Tallis Spem in Alium – The English Arts Chorale is doing it as a Come and Sing on 24 September http://www.musictrust.co.uk/eac/eac.html. (I don’t know anything about the group, I saw a listing on http://www.choirs.org.uk and might go myself.)
Noted. I can’t sing in this one because I’m not free on that date. Ideally I’d like to be in a performance where I sang soprano and had a line to myself – this has only been the case in one of the three performances I’ve sung in.
See my next post for further thoughts on this piece.