The Museum of Bath Architecture (formerly the Building of Bath Museum) has occasional concert series. I remember hearing the Paragon Singers (appropriately enough) there some years ago. I was fortunate to be invited to sing with the 10-strong choir of Bellacapella, conducted by Basira Ward, in a programme of sacred music for women’s choir. We were accompanied by fellow Corpuscle and Minerva Choir accompanist Steven Hollas, on the organ retained from the museum’s days as a chapel (why couldn’t St George’s Bristol have retained its organ in the same way?)
There were just two pieces in the programme. First was Rheinberger’s Mass Sincere in memoriam, written in memory of Brahms, though not a Requiem Mass. This was a charming, reflective setting, reminiscent in places of SS Wesley, and less expansive than his unaccompanied double-choir Mass which I’ve sung a few times. I’ve heard music by this most famous Liechtensteiner here before.
Then came possibly the most famous sacred piece for upper voices – Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. I’ve sung this once before, back in Cambridge with the ‘Virago Consort’ (I think it may have been the only concert they ever gave) conducted by Graham Hancock. The solos were spread around various singers: I had the upper part of ‘Quis est homo’.
We sang from the organ gallery looking down across the top of a large model of Bath on to our audience in the body of the chapel. I haven’t done much upper-voices music for a while, in fact not really since the early days of Corpus Angelorum; it was a refreshing change to explore this repertoire, and to give a concert with a small choir.