Long-term readers of this blog will know of my ambition to perform in all 42 Church of England Cathedrals, and that since I sang in Leicester in June only two remain. I seized the opportunity to join a ‘come and sing’ performance of the Messiah in one of these, Wakefield.
We were accompanied by the Cathedral organ (a rather temperamental beast tuning-wise, if some of the notices warning not to leave certain doors near it open were to be believed). Our conductor was the Cathedral organist, Tom Moore. Most of us were Messiah veterans; I put up my hand after a moment’s thought when those who’d sung the work more than ten times were invited to identify themselves.
In fact this performance was only of parts 1 and 2. We lost And he shall purify from part 1, but otherwise the cuts were pretty standard ones, and we did get some numbers such as Lift up your heads and The Lord gave the word which are often missing. We coped with some pretty brisk tempi, with tenors and basses helped by some reinforcement from the Cathedral choir. As seems usual in Northern come-and-sings, refreshments were laid on for us for a modest cost between rehearsal and performance.
So only Bradford Cathedral remains. I shall concentrate my energies on finding a suitable event there to attach myself to.