Still in Cambridge on the Monday, I had the Rare Books Room of the University Library almost to myself while I consulted back numbers of the Letter of the Corpus Association for information about Corpus chapel choir. I am trying to compile an annalistic history of the choir, because members of it tend to know only about three-year periods of its history. My researches answered some questions I’d had, such as when the choir started admitting women (I was aware this was before the College did). I recall copies of music in the Choir library marked up for baritones to sing the treble line an octave down, as happened for several decades when it was an ATB outfit. (It was also then considered acceptable for the congregation to sing along with canticle settings and anthems!)
There were surprises too. Some of the features which Corpus had and Merton at that time didn’t, such as printed music lists and Cathedral weeks in the summer, had been recently introduced by the organ scholar who was there when I arrived. But information about the choir got scarcer the further back in time I went, so my timeline will concentrate on the last 50 years or so.
I also dropped into the College a transcription on CD of the LP the choir – a dozen strong and including me although I was only a part-time member of it that year – made when I was a student. It was recommended by (I think) Choir and Organ which praised the ‘Emma Kirkby-like tone of the sopranos’ (ahem). For some time there was a pile of unsold copies in the porters’ lodge, but it seems none survived to make it into the College archives.
The most interesting titbit about Corpus’ musical life didn’t concern the chapel choir, though. It seems Shostakovich spent an afternoon in Corpus during a visit to England in 1972. He went to the Master’s Lodge and then was treated to a short recital in Chapel by some of the College’s best musicians. Who’d have thought it? I’d love to know more.