I returned to the concert platform with Gloucester Choral Society in a performance of Haydn’s Creation. This is a piece that comes round every few years, and I’ve done it with a variety of groups. My records tell me that I once took part in a ‘Come and Sing’ of it with John Marsh in St Mary Redcliffe, something I have no memory of at all.
Adam and Eve some time after the events in The Creation. (Cloister window, Gloucester Cathedral)
It was a good piece with which to resume concert performances. Normally I find the almost unrelieved cheerfulness rather wearing, but a feelgood piece was what was needed right now. Remembering what happened last time when I looked up a nanosecond before my entry in a less familiar movement, I made extra sure of the notes this time.
We were accompanied by Jonathan Hope on the organ (the way I first got to know The Creation), who dreamt up all sorts of appropriate sound effects to illustrate the text. (My only regret was that he didn’t use one of the buzzier French-style stops for the cloud of insects.)
We had quite a gap between rehearsal and performance, filled by a visit to the Hungry Bean Café (which also provided a place to change!) and going to evensong with a visiting choir. Next day the Bath Abbey Chamber Choir was in action again at a morning Eucharist (Darke in F + anthems) and we had a rather Gloucester-themed evensong at Christ Church including Sanders responses and Sumsion in G.