This was naturally enough a great improvement on the two previous years. My musical life (like my non-musical one) contained many events postponed from 2020 and 2021, and so became very busy.
I’ve only done half a dozen overseas choir tours in my life, but two of them were this year. First, the Gloucester Choral Society excursion to the Veneto, including singing in San Marco, the Frari church in Venice, the basilica of St Antony in Padua and Asola Cathedral. In the autumn came a trip to Hannover with Bristol Choral Society to mark the anniversary of Bristol’s twinning with the city.
Actually the music-related highlight may not have been either of these, but being part of spontaneous singing of the National Anthem at the Oval cricket ground, if only because I can’t imagine being part of anything quite like it again.
Large-scale concerts returned (though not the Bristol Beacon, for which we must wait till December 2023) and the works I performed at them included Fauré’s Requiem (twice), Rutter’s Requiem, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs (twice), the long-awaited Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky, Vivaldi’s Gloria and Messiah.
The Bath Abbey Chamber Choir is finding its feet and I have learnt new repertoire (including O Hearken Thou from my wishlist) and did the solo in Britten’s Te Deum in E. I didn’t do much singing with visiting choirs at Cathedrals, although I did go to Lichfield and Gloucester with the Erleigh Cantors. I reacquainted myself with some pieces I had not sung for many years, such as Howells’ Responses, Stainer’s Crucifixion and, at different times, all of Handel’s Coronation Anthems.
Concert-going was now freely possible again, and this included a Prom, Bath Opera, a trip to the Barbican and to hear Welsh National Opera in Cardiff.
2023 promises excitement both in performing and in hearing others do so. I’ll write it up here in due course (along with finishing off writing about 2022).