A week after Salisbury I was at Leicester Cathedral for a day with the Peterborough Chamber Choir. We sang the two services on Sunday, with the morning one featuring Mozart including his Missa Brevis K65, the earliest Mozart I’ve sung but not trivial for that. The other new music to me was Gerald Brown’s Responses; I wonder whether they were written for a precentor who was lacking in confidence as the versicle parts are entirely on G. The choir responses, by contrast, keep swapping between G major and C minor (and related keys), though not as hard as this might sound.
Leicester is a pleasant building to sing in, but I think it feels less Cathedral-like than any other British Cathedral I’ve been to. It’s also in the middle of some re-ordering, with the Eucharist sung from makeshift choir-stalls at the back, though we were in the quire for evensong. To make up for this, though, there was a newly refurbished and extended building nearby with the song room (and a kitchen for choir use) in – so new that it hadn’t yet been officially opened! And I recommend the home-made cake sold after the morning service.
Leicester was one of only three English Church of England Cathedrals I hadn’t performed in. Now only Bradford and Wakefield remain.