I was glad to revisit Lichfield with the Cathedral Chamber Choir as my last choir trip there, with another choir, was not a happy one and I wanted some fresher memories of the place. The choir room has been moved permanently to a building in the Close as too many choristers fell down the stairs.
No difficulty at the weekend getting a quick lunch, as there was a food festival on with stalls everywhere including on the green at the West end of the Cathedral. I should say, no difficulty if you wanted burgers or hot dogs – if you’d been a vegetarian you would have had to hunt around. I’m not sure the festival generated any extra members of the congregation though. Many of the choir stayed at the George Hotel whose bar does a special line in gin.
As to the music, I don’t think there was anything I’d never sung before, but Great is the Lord by Elgar comes round much less frequently than Give unto the Lord (I’m not sure why) and it was only the second time I’d ever sung it. Familiar pieces included Mozart’s Coronation Mass (solos done full and Benedictus abridged), the Byrd Short Service and James MacMillan’s A New Song. We revisited the very expansive set of responses by our Musical Director, Matthew O’Donovan. I hadn’t done Kelly in C for a few years and it seems to have gone out of fashion as you don’t see it so much on music lists. None of these were too strenuous at ‘Lichfield pitch’.
Meanwhile my husband went to hear the Jubilee Quartet play for the Bath Recital Artists’ Trust in a programme of Haydn, Schubert, Webern (Langsamer Satz) and Janáček (Intimate Letters), in the Masonic Hall. They were billed as all-female, but one was indisposed so there was a man playing; it was hard to tell whether this had affected the interpretations of this young, enthusiastic group.