I thought I knew my psalter pretty well, but Ps. 144 seems to have passed me by altogether as I had no memory of the words at all. The Erleigh Cantors sang it at Sunday evensong in Bristol Cathedral (it did at least make up for the miserly handful of verses we got on the Saturday).
This was a demanding weekend and I was fortunate in being very familiar with most of the trickier pieces. I had Finzi’s Lo, the Full, Final Sacrifice very thoroughly drilled into me as an Oxford student, and learnt Walton’s Chichester Service and Berkeley’s The Lord is my Shepherd later at Cambridge. I have sung Vierne’s Messe Solennelle (surely the most mis-spelt setting in the repertoire) enough times from the cut-down edition to know what is in the unprinted bars, and even Howells’ Responses (generally agreed to be the hardest set in widespread use) don’t hold the terrors for me now that they once did, as I’ve now performed them with several different groups.
There were some new pieces though, in the shape of two short movements from Rex gloriae (O nata lux and Laetentur caeli) by Mathias, to go with the Mathias anthem I sang earlier this year in the same place with many of the same people. We didn’t go back into Tudor times this weekend, but included some Blow (his canticles in G, and Salvator Mundi as an introit) and Greene (Lord let me know mine end)
Because the Cathedral was hosting graduation ceremonies, we sang our Communion service not from the usual nave stalls but from the middle of a large bank of westward-facing seating, which made us feel a bit as if we were standing in for a choral society! This was my third visit to sing in Bristol Cathedral this year, and it always feels odd to sing so near where I work. It was also rather sad to observe that the harbourside area is a victim of the downturn, with some eating places having shut and other newly-built premises standing empty.