Our performance of the War Requiem was given jointly with the Gloucester Choral Society, and our first performance was in Gloucester Cathedral with Cathedral choristers in the boys choir. I’ll save my reflections on the piece itself for later. The scene was set for me on the day of a rehearsal earlier in the week; I was on a walk near Bath and we passed through a churchyard where one grave was covered in poppy wreaths. A closer look revealed that it was the final resting place of Harry Patch, the last surviving combatant in the First World War.
This was the first time (I think) I’d ever performed with an orchestra of the calibre of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, who were appreciated by the large audience. Gloucester Cathedral itself is a beautiful place but imbued with a deep sense of tragedy of a different sort from that found in the Requiem because of the prominence of memorials to women who died in childbirth. I’d been warned about the cold striking through the floor, resulting in numbness from the feet upwards, rather like Socrates after he drank the hemlock.
The Gloucester people were a friendly and helpful bunch. We were allowed to wait in a handsome suite of rooms which the public don’t normally see, and there was a chance to mix over drinks afterwards in the Chapter House. It’s good to do a concert programme twice, because the first performance at least lacks that sense of anti-climax that you can feel afterwards, and you can also feel encouraged that anything that wasn’t quite right in the first outing might be perfect in the second.
Review from Seen and Heard here.