The Bath Cantata Group has for years rehearsed near my home, and since a change of conductor a few years ago, I’ve taken more interest in its concerts. When I heard they were doing The Kingdom, I made some enquiries about being able to sing. It seemed such a shame to have learnt it for Three Choirs (it took more effort than any of the other music I had to learn) and not do it again.
It was also the first time I’d sung in St John’s Catholic Church in Bath. I could easily have done this before but haven’t (the Chantry Singers were scaled down when they performed there, and although I was invited to sing in an occasional choir there by the conductor, he didn’t know what voice I sang! It is a rather awkward venue for a large choir – the chancel is not wide and you have to dodge statues of popes and other paraphernalia. We joined forces with the Oakfield Choir of Frome and it was particularly enjoyable to hear the strong sound of the tenors and basses.
I picked up where I’d left off in 2016 and the interpretation wasn’t so very different from then – actually I suspect there isn’t room for a very wide range of interpretation in this work. The Kingdom is in some ways a less progressive work tha Gerontius, with its ‘number’ structure. It seems to go out of its way to hide Elgar’s Catholic background – you’d never guess the soprano soloist was the Virgin Mary from the words that she sings. The ending, showing the new Church united in prayer, is understated, so much so that it almost seems to be asking the question ‘Where did it all go wrong?’
There’s talk of The Apostles in future and I’d be really keen to sing that as it is so rarely performed (the number of soloists makes it expensive). But I wouldn’t have the advantage this time of having sung it before!