Lassus – or is it?

For Candlemas last week we sang a Mass setting new to me: Lassus’ Mon cœur se recommande à vous. I’ve sung surprisingly little by Lassus – I’m not really sure why not – and it’s arguable that I still haven’t sung very much, since this setting is also attributed to Eccard. Whoever wrote it had a liking for taking the sopranos back up for some high notes just when you think a phrase is going to come down and end. Also new to me was Victoria’s setting of the Nunc Dimittis.

On Saturday I went to hear the visiting choir at the Abbey – one of the RSCM choirs conducted by David Ogden. For reasons I won’t go into here, I had with me a rocking horse, which was a model member of the congregation as it stayed put throughout. Which is more than can be said for most of those at the back of Bath Abbey – about forty people came and went during the service (the rest of the congregation near the front was completely stable). Perhaps this was because it wasn’t clear outside the Abbey that a service was taking place (what happened to the noticeboard that used to be placed outside when there was a visiting choir? This time the service wasn’t mentioned on the Abbey music list on display either) and there was also some confusion about what time the service was.

I’ve enquired about the ‘Chorus Angelorum’ which will be singing at a forthcoming performances of the St. Matthew Passion. [update – I shall now be singing in this] If you aren’t in the right choirs you don’t get to hear about one-offs like this and have to take the initiative in asking whether singers are needed.

First posting with the upgraded software from Movable Type and it’s lovely to have an official spam filter which I can adjust, rather than my own home-made one which I had to use before.