‘O soft, self-wounding Pelican’ 18th-century wooden statue, Tewkesbury Abbey
I have not sung in Tewkesbury Abbey in a long time; my only previous occasion was a day trip for a Saturday evensong with my church choir from Manchester. It was good to have an opportunity to return with Gloucester Choral Society (and Jonathan Hope conducting), whose normal base is unusable while the organ is being put back in place. We were warned that it could be cold, but of course we are used to that.
Our first half opened with Elgar’s Te Deum and Benedictus, which I’m always glad to have a chance to sing; in fact it’s not long since I did the Te Deum. This was followed by another very familiar piece to me (but not to many others in the choir), Finzi’s Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice. The main danger here was the tempo changes being rather different from those in other choirs where I’ve sung these pieces.
After the interval we sang Ian Venables’ Requiem, a piece commissioned for Gloucester Cathedral choir and sung a number of times in the area since. The composer was present, sitting a little way back in the audience. We were warned that for the most part it is slow and sustained, although not invariably so. (Maybe the faster sections just seem fast by comparison). So I found it a demanding piece to sing and it didn’t play to my strengths. The notes in themselves weren’t particularly difficult with one or two exceptions which just had to be mastered individually.
The Abbey has a gently warm acoustic and a large room for the choir to go in pre-concert, although we could have done with liberating some of the chairs which had been stacked inaccessibly in a corner. Also stable staging (not always a given), even if you had to be careful not to drop anything into the void beneath and behind your seat.