I went to an old girls’ event held at Gloucester Cathedral by my old school (which actually wasn’t in Gloucester, or even Gloucestershire). After a guided tour and tea, we heard the choir sing evensong, for which they laid on the Bathwick favourite Stainer in B flat and Parry’s I was glad. Top B flats all round! I learnt something from meeting people; I may forget names and not have a memory for faces, but I do remember what instrument people played!
I had thought about going to hear the Exultate Singers perform Handel’s Dixit Dominus on Saturday and write a review, but I didn’t get there in the end. So I’ll write about Dixit anyway. This was a popular piece in my Cambridge days, and I performed it with three different choirs, once doing one half of the Dominus a dextris tuis duet. I always enjoyed singing it, although it was hard work and I always felt the last movement went on a bit too long, particularly when you suddenly went into B flat minor just as you felt the piece ought to be winding up. I also recall that the Bärenreiter score contained in the first movement one of the all time classic page-turns, at least if you were singing first soprano. But it’s a great piece. One conductor commented in rehearsal that it wasn’t that hard to write good four-part counterpoint, but good five-part counterpoint was an order of magnitude more difficult.