This year Bristol Choral Society didn’t do Messiah, but put on a programme called ‘An English Christmas’. I was glad of the change as, apart from the anthems we sing in church and bits of carol singing, I don’t get to do any Christmas repertoire these days. In particular, this concert ended with Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols, which somehow I’ve managed never to sing before, though I have heard it countless times, which made it straightforward to learn.
The concert opened with another fantasia, Christmas Day by Holst, unknown to me and I felt rather more contrived than Vaughan Williams’ piece. Both date from the years just before the First World War, a time when a lot of composers were writing rather fruitlessly about ‘peace on earth’ (Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden comes to mind.)
The rest of the first half was the SATB version of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, which I did once in the Pump Room with the Chantry Singers (and later, in part, with Exultate Singers). Another very familiar piece, ingrained now because I did the first seven movements as a set work for O-level Music. The arrangement is careful, though occasionally the tenors and basses are left without much to do, and I’m puzzled that That yongë child is no longer a solo. (As with In Freezing Winter Night, my favourite movement, I feel that this is where Britten is here really writing in his own voice rather than striving to be tuneful.)
We also began the second half with Holst, his arrangement of Psalm 148 which I hadn’t come across before (we didn’t do its partner, psalm 86). Then Finzi’s In Terra Pax. I was one of only a handful in the choir who had sung this before – my chamber-choir background showing up again, I suppose. It’s a piece I can’t sing without remembering the first time I did it, with Janet (RIP) doing the soprano solo.
We were fortunate to have Anne Denholm, harpist to the Prince of Wales, with us again. Our vocal soloists were Gwen Martin and René Bloice-Sanders and orchestral accompaniment was supplied by the Bristol Ensemble. We had a new (to me) arrangement of singers, with tenors and basses brought further forward, with some sopranos and altos behind them.
We don’t have a monopoly on the last usable Saturday before Christmas and were in competition with a number of other carol concerts in Bristol, in particular ‘Carols by Candlelight’ at the Cathedral, which has not happened on the Saturday in previous years.