I missed Bristol Choral Society’s Messiah last year, so my memory needed a bit of refreshing this time. Our orchestra was the Bristol Ensemble, which meant modern pitch, and the high notes went with a bit more zing. We had a lot of competing Messiahs (I knew of three performances in Bath and another one in Bristol in the month before ours), but there were plenty to perform to, both at the Mini Messiah family concert, and the main performance in the evening.
It was a slightly poignant occasion, as it was the last performance under our current Musical Director. When singing from memory it is such a help to have your entries clearly brought in with a glance in your direction, and he is able to do this even for simultaneous entries for sopranos and altos, who stand at opposite ends of the choir for this work!
However, there was some light relief as our jewellery rule was relaxed and we were encouraged to wear ‘a splash of red’ somewhere on our person. Normally we can’t wear anything which might reflect the light, which rules out just about all the jewellery I own. (I wear a pair of earrings with dark stones, and for Requiems a string of antique jet beads.) So out came the crocheted spherical earrings.
I’ll end with a couple of thoughts. The audience of course stood up for the Hallelujah Chorus, and something about the way they always do this in a rather ragged way on cue makes me think of the ‘teddy bear toss’ at Christmas ice hockey matches. And we were told that ‘His yoke is easy’ (which one conductor always called ‘His yoke is blooming difficult’) is the hardest chorus in the piece. Is it? I don’t think I find any chorus harder than all the others, though there are some which are definitely easier than most. Or are the difficulties not to be found in the soprano line?