St Cecilia’s Day at church was marked (I think the schedule was unintentional though) with a concert by the Bath Community Big Band, in which a couple of choir members play. I’m not an expert in this area but I enjoyed the part of the concert that I was able to get to, applauded at the right places (I think) and even recognised quite a lot of the tunes.
At the weekend we got tickets to Bath Minerva Choir’s all-Purcell concert at St Swithin’s Church, thanks to a connexion with the sponsor.
The first half of the concert contained 3 familiar verse anthems: Rejoice in the Lord alway (sung at our wedding), Jehovah quam multi sunt hostes mei (last encountered when I sang it at the Proms) and O sing unto the Lord. In between these was a suite from Abdelazer for string orchestra. Some years ago I was told that a London-based musicologist specialising in this area believed that some of the incidental music published under Purcell’s name was in fact written by his pupils or co-workers, and I’d be interested to hear further evidence or opinions about this. Certainly the quality of pieces in this suite seemed to vary. After the interval was the ode Hail Bright Cecilia, a piece which I sang once for Judy Martin in my Cambridge days.
We thought Simon Ponsford, a counter-tenor from Westminster Abbey, was the pick of the soloists. The choir seemed to be enjoying themselves and it doesn’t appear to have been an arduous programme for them to prepare. The orchestra was Canzona, not to be confused with local choir CanZona.