The new choir room at Wells Cathedral wasn’t quite ready when the Erleigh Cantors visited to sing Evensong, so we used the Undercroft to rehearse. Actually I don’t think I’ve ever rehearsed there; the Bath Camerata Good Friday events haven’t used it, and the only time I sang a service here before, with Priory Voices, I was just there on the afternoon and we only rehearsed upstairs. I can see why they’re keen to have a better rehearsal space.
We sang Jackson’s Canticles in G, which were very thoroughly drilled into me at Cambridge. The anthem was Seek him that maketh the seven stars by Jonathan Dove, which I hadn’t sung before. I was swapped around between 1st/2nd soprano which kept me on my toes (another singer had fallen ill at a late stage so we were one down). The vocal lines were pretty straightforward in themselves (apart from one rhythmically complex passage), the interest coming when voices were combined with the organ part to create an effect that was more than the sum of voices and organ individually.
Our responses were the Spicer second set (anyone know the first set? To our knowledge they are unpublished). It was a pity that in a place as committed to psalmody as Wells we were only assigned half of the day’s psalms. Why is it that women are thought to be able to cope with the full day’s psalms as choirgirls (we had two former girl choristers) but when they grow up the opportunities to sing them vanish almost completely?
There’s a lot happening right now so expect postings about James MacMillan’s new opera and the Bath Mozartfest.