One theme running through the Erleigh Cantors’ choice of music for our visit to Llandaff Cathedral was pieces with bars in 5/4 time. I got quite used to it.
Welsh cakes kindly served by locally-connected choir member and organist!
The most ambitious piece we did was a reprise of Frank Martin’s Mass for double choir, which we previously sang at St Edmundsbury in 2015. Despite my previous claim that it was engraved on my memory, I had my work cut out to re-acquaint myself with this piece and there was a further twist: this time we were also expected to sing the Kyrie, which is one of the longer movements. But it does repay the effort.
As this left less rehearsal time for other pieces, they were kept relatively simple, with the exception of Naylor’s Vox dicentis (I seem to be running into this piece a lot at the moment) and Howells’ Evening Canticles in B minor. The new piece for me was Eleanor Daley’s Upon your heart which is popping up all over the place on music lists, although I haven’t come across anything else by her. Other pieces included Gibbons ‘Short’ service and David Willcocks’ Sing! which is really some vanilla words set to the background of Widor’s Toccata, but does boast a particularly good dedication.
The dedication of David Willcocks’ ‘Sing!’
Not long afterwards Llandaff’s voluntary choir paid a visit to Bath Abbey and I went to hear them as I knew one member of the choir.