The name of the church sounds better in Italian – S Paolo fuori le Mura – and according to Wikipedia it’s the tenth largest church in the world. Still not the largest in which I’ve sung The Dream of Gerontius as Liverpool Anglican Cathedral comes in at eighth largest, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sing in what’s believed to be the first complete performance in Italy of this work, with the Parliament Choir and the South Bank Sinfonia conducted by Simon Over. Our soloists were Robert Murray, Beth Taylor and Arthur Bruce.
We were watched by a long line of Popes. Benedict would have loved this event.
Last year I bought a second-hand vocal score of Gerontius, reasoning that it is unlikely to be supplanted by future editions, and this was prescient. My invitation came via the Three Choirs Festival Chorus (about a dozen of us accepted it) and the Parliament Choir, essentially the workplace choir of the Palace of Westminster, was augmented by other singers from Coventry, St Albans (where we had a preliminary rehearsal) and elsewhere, to a strength of about 300. The concert came about after a performance in Westminster Cathedral – like S. Paolo a 19th-century building – to mark Newman’s canonisation impressed the Papal Nuncio sufficiently that he invited the choir and orchestra over.
As one can imagine, the building boasted an impressive echo, though not quite as long as Liverpool’s (which caused significant problems that time as we were made all too aware that sound really doesn’t travel all that fast). The Vatican (S. Paolo is a kind of Vatican exclave) doesn’t charge for concerts and we had a full house which I was told was about 2,500, with four Cardinals including Westminster in the front row. We made do with just the mosaic of Pope Francis, as he himself was on a visit to Hungary.
After our dry run in St John’s Smith Square, we had a rehearsal the day before and then another on the day of the concert. I wonder whether there is anywhere in Rome quite so far from a gelateria? (I would never have found one without Google Maps.) Post-concert refreshment was provided at a nearby restaurant and even with a 9 pm start to the concert it was possible to get back to the centre on the late-running Metro after this.
Rather than attempt to describe the performance, I will direct the reader to YouTube where a film of the whole thing is available.