The Cathedral Chamber Choir spent Low Sunday weekend at a new venue for us, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. I’d sung there once before, a huge combined NW choral societies’ performance of Gerontius. I remember two things from that: one was that you couldn’t find a better demonstration that sound travels much slower than light, as the semi-chorus had to be re-positioned several times before they were able to keep toghether with the orchestra. The other was that we carefully seated ourselves somewhere with a sightline (vital for the reason I have just given), only to find a row of tall members of the RLPO chorus, who had been excused the morning rehearsal, appearing after lunch and blocking our view completely. I spent the concert swaying from side to side to get a fleeting glimpse of the conductor.
Back to Low Sunday 2012. We sang the Saturday evensong in the Lady Chapel – itself larger than most churches. We filled this relatively intimate space with Byrd’s Sing joyfully, V-W’s O taste and see and for a bit more beef, Stanford in B flat.
On the Sunday we were in the ‘Big Space’ for which we had one of the Cathedral’s approved organists. I know the requirement to use an organist on this list puts some choirs off coming to Liverpool, but without it a lot of rehearsal time could easily get used up on getting the ensemble together. Our Mass setting was Mozart’s in F K192, which I think I may have done before, but if so remembered nothing from it. Evensong featured Howells’ Gloucester canticles and a second helping of Stanford, Ye choirs of new Jerusalem which we used to bawl out on Easter Day at Little St. Mary’s. This being Liverpool, we only had rather miserable scraps of psalmody to sing. I had a look at their chant book and it seemed to have a very limited variety of chants, so clearly psalms aren’t a very high priority.
I got some time to look around the building and found a window near the West end depicting a selection of church musicians. There can’t be many representations of John Goss and F.A.G. Ouseley in stained glass.
Really not very sensible of the RLPO people to block your view like that. Unless their dress code was very different from yours they should have arranged themselves so that everyone had a sight line. It’s essential in that building.