great composers in Chichester

It has taken the Erleigh Cantors a long time to get round to visiting Chichester Cathedral, but we made our debut appearance at the end of July.  It was an intensive weekend with some notable but taxing pieces by major composers.

The main piece that was new to me was Poulenc’s Exultate Deo which starts off in a way reminiscent of Palestrina’s setting of the same text, but rapidly becomes almost percussive in style, with many discrete changes in dynamic level.  Despite looking daunting at first, it soon fell into place in rehearsal.  Perhaps this is what happens with music by a great composer – there’s no feeling that it would not matter much if the notes were slightly different, rather they are the best that they can be, which reduces the temptation to sing something else.

The other new piece was When I survey the wondrous Cross by Edgar Day. This was charmingly retro – although I think it dates from the mid-20th century, it could easily have been written seventy years earlier. It’s quite long and thickly scored. We reprised Gabrieli’s Jubilate Deo from our recent concert. Schütz’ German Magnificat is familiar to me from previous performances, but wasn’t to everybody. I hadn’t done God is gone up by Finzi for ages, and I don’t think I’d ever sung the 2nd soprano part before. Our music also included Howells’ Coll. Reg. Te Deum and Jubilate (the Jubilate being much less familiar to me), Holst’s Nunc Dimittis, Stanford in A and the rather infrequently performed but mostly straightforward Missa Capellae Regalis by Anthony Caesar. Added to all of this were generous amounts of psalmody (including all 6 for the 27th evening!) which we coped with admirably. A packed programme, so it was probably a good thing we didn’t add any introits.

We were well looked after by the Cathedral (good to see that the ‘voice of Chichester’ is still there!), who arranged for us to have Sunday lunch together in a room within the refectory, to help with the tight turnaround. I stayed in George Bell House, a conference centre/B & B run by the Cathedral, which I recommend, not least because it is in the Close! We rehearsed in the lovely song room, which features one of the more eccentric Cathedral fire escape arrangements, rather reminiscent of the door in Being John Malkovich.