A busy weekend of concerts recently. On Saturday night I sang in a concert in Reading with the Erleigh Cantors. The main work was a repeat performance (from Exeter) of Kodály’s Missa Brevis but singing first soprano this time (which makes quite a big difference to the range of the part!). The Mass was complete, including the Ite Missa Est in its organ version, which I think works better than the choral arrangement.
Rutter’s Birthday Madrigals were almost entirely new to me: settings of Elizabethan texts in a mostly jazz style, though the second is in the rather more serious style I’ve found elsewhere in his recent compositions. It’s the only score I can think of with the picture of the score of a different work on the cover!
We also did the early partsongs by Elgar, including My love dwelt in a Northern land (a curious fact about this – in the original poem the beloved was female) and the Spanish Serenade: great fun but unlike anything ever heard on the Iberian peninsula, I think. The programme was completed by something I’d never sung before, Purcell’s I was glad and something I’ve done more times than I can remember, most recently at Marshfield, Mozart’s Laudate Dominum.
On Sunday I was performing in Bathwick with the St. Mary’s Chamber Choir. This time Elgar was represented by As torrents in summer and Purcell by my singing one half of Sound the Trumpet, one of several solo turns by members of the choir. The rest of the programme was madrigals and part-songs, only a few of which I’d done before.
just out of curiosity, did you also sing “O Happy Eyes” among those Elgar partsongs?
Yes, we did (we sang all of the set of four in the Novello book). A piece whose words are hard to sing with a straight face, but maybe that isn’t a drawback.
Nice to have a comment that isn’t spam – I’ve been rather belaboured with it recently.