A social media post alerted me to a weekend visit by Priory Voices to Bath Abbey and I went along to Sunday evensong. It is a few years since I sang with this choir, and although I went to many Cathedrals with them, I don’t think they visited Bath Abbey during my time.
I recognised many of the faces in the choir and their supporters in the congregation, which still meets three or four times a year, though with a different conductor now. The repertoire for this weekend was standard pieces I know well, with perhaps the least familiar being the Sunday evensong canticles: Smart in B flat. (I did sing those with Priory Voices once, in Bristol.)
Standards have been maintained, with my only gripe being that I’d have liked more variety in the organ registrations, for example in the hymn. There was however an explanation for this: the Abbey’s organ isn’t fully back in place after cleaning, and some stops are still missing. I noticed one difference from the Abbey’s normal practice, and indeed from that of other similar choirs I sing with. Instead of entering at the back of the procession like a shepherd and taking his place at the music stand or in the stalls, the conductor walked ahead at the front and stood in the centre of the aisle at the east end of the stalls, facing westwards, while the choir filed into the stalls, then walked the length of the stalls to the music stand; at the end of the service he stood in the same place at the east end during the closing prayer before leading the choir out.
The service is on YouTube here.
Maybe we might have you in the stalls with us in Wells this autumn??
Sounds like a rather egotistical conductor!