#colstonhall @bristolchoral
I have come round a bit to Beethoven 9 since I last sang it, quite a few years ago. It was the first piece I ever sang with a full orchestra, a performance in Oxford Town Hall when I was at school, and I performed it a couple of times when I was a student. Perhaps I’m no longer freaked out by the sight of a page with nothing but top A’s on it, but the work no longer seems a great strain to sing, provided I pace myself carefully. I don’t think it will ever be my favourite Beethoven symphony though.
The Bristol Ensemble (so that’s where the Emerald Ensemble went!) conducted by David Ogden, made a very good case for the work, with a beautifully layered sound and some wonderfully controlled dynamic changes. I was particularly impressed with their brass section, whose statement of the theme of the last movement was, appropriately, a joy to listen to. The Bristol Choral Society were joined by members of the City of Bristol Choir and Exultate Singers. We sang from scores that began part way through the last movement, and I was rather surprised how many in the choir didn’t know the whole symphony well enough to tell when the orchestra had reached the beginning of the printed vocal score.
Earlier in the evening we heard a work celebrating a city, Rhapsody in Blue, with plenty for that brass section and some virtuosity from Freddy Kempf, and as a great contrast, Bardesey Sound by Bernard Kane, an atmospheric tone-poem depicting a treacherous stretch of water off the Lleyn peninsula in NW Wales.