I was back in Gloucester towards the end of October, not to rejoin Gloucester Choral Society (that comes later) but for a weekend of services with the Erleigh Cantors. Our programme had been adapted because the main organ was unavailable (goodbye Langlais Messe Solennelle, hello Richard Rodney Bennett’s unaccompanied Missa Brevis). One welcome (to me) difference from previous visits was that we rehearsed in the Chapter House not the education centre, although this meant having to share it with the congregation over coffee after the Eucharist.
‘All the trumpets sounded for him, on the other side’ John Bunyan window, Tyndale Baptist Church, Bristol
We had a full programme including introits. Saturday’s evensong partly reconstructed one of my all-time favourite evensong broadcasts, with the same combination of Holst’s Nunc Dimittis and Vaughan Williams’ (can’t get away from him) Valiant-for-Truth. We paired the Holst with a Magnificat by Gabrieli (new to me) and our introit was Libera nos by Sheppard, from a period which I’m increasingly enjoying exploring despite the demanding range of the music.
The Richard Rodney Bennett, written for Canterbury Cathedral, proved to be trickier than I expected (given that I associate him with relatively light music) with lengthy movements unsupported by organ and frequent time changes. The other piece which dominated rehearsal time was Howells’ Responses, sufficiently hard that few Cathedral choirs sing them. We had sung them before, but not for over a decade so there was a learning curve for many relative newcomers.
At Sunday evensong the anthem was new to me: Andrew Carter’s Christ is the morning star, rather unusually a setting of words by St Bede (I can’t think of any others). The difficult passages tended to repeat, so it wasn’t too hard to learn. For the sake of completeness I’ll add that the introit was Grieg’s Ave maris stella (which I last sang a year ago just outside in Cloister Garth), and canticles Dyson in D. Our motet at the Eucharist was Messiaen’s O Sacrum Convivium. I will be back in Gloucester soon for Messiah rehearsals.