Bristol Choral Society’s season ended with a performance of Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi in the Bristol Beacon, for which we were joined by the return visit of some members of the Hannover Oratorienchor.
This was my second performance of this work in two years (after a very long time since my first performance of it) but it was totally new to almost all the choir. A few of us had sung the Hymnus before, and an even smaller number had not but had sung the related Requiem; for many Howells was a totally new composer so there was a distinctive idiom to become familiar with as well as the notes.
It didn’t take me too much effort to dust off the notes again, but there were some differences from last year in Gloucester. One was that we used a scaled-back orchestration which dispensed with brass and woodwind and made more prominent use of the organ. With the full orchestra version fresh in my mind, I noticed the absence of wind sonorities, but there were advantages. Last year when I enquired about some dynamic markings in the final movement I was told that beyond a certain point you just had to ignore them, as the orchestration was too heavy. With some instruments missing it was possible to be more subtle. The organ in the Beacon isn’t back in place yet so we had a digital substitute.
I was also in the semi-chorus this time (as I was when I first sang this, I think). Or at least most of it, as there was some redistribution of semi-chorus passages for full choir. Doing it I came to appreciate how the semichorus is used to change the mood, injecting some reflection and melancholy into an apparently joyous moment.
Our tenor soloist Nick Pritchard sang Finzi’s Dies Natalis which I was unfamiliar with despite Finzi having been a cult composer when I was a student. The programme began with Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, sung (as before with this choir) entirely by the choir without soloists so we got rather more to do than in some performances.