My first Tridentine Mass

Posted on August 30, 2019 by vhk10

This summer we went to Austria, my first visit there which did not include a stay in Vienna. We were in the far west of the country, and the local church is one of a few dozen in Austria which regularly celebrate the Tridentine liturgy, for which so many Mass settings I sing was written. I went along out of interest; the musical contribution was a couple of hymns (Austrian churches supply the congregation with music editions of the hymnbook) and a fair chunk of plainchant, mostly from the Missa de Angelis. At the Agnus Dei I wanted to help out the priest who got lost at one point, but decided I was not sure which parts should be congregational.

There weren’t really other musical highlights from this holiday, apart from noticing a musical box for sale in Zurich which, rather unusually, played music from Stravinsky’s Firebird.

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Steal away

Posted on July 30, 2019 by vhk10

Not the spiritual this time, though I wish it had been. On my railway journey to sing with the Erleigh Cantors at Liverpool Cathedral, my overnight bag was stolen from the train between Bristol and Birmingham. (Memo to Cross Country Trains: please install CCTV on your trains as other companies have done). I consoled myself with thinking how disappointed the thieves must have been to open it and find it was a musician’s case: boring and rather old monochrome clothes, overnight stuff, sheet music and a choir folder. Nothing worth risking getting caught for.

Liverpool (and Christine from the choir) was able to supply me with replacement clothing (H & M is the place to go if you need a black skirt of a sensible length in a hurry). Also many thanks to Ian, Catharine and Liverpool Cathedral’s music department for sorting out a replacement set of music for me.

There was a shortage of hotel rooms in Liverpool that weekend. My accommodation had the advantage of being near the Cathedral, but was not very satisfactory (contact me if you want details!) However, when I got on to the actual singing things improved.

As usual at Liverpool, Saturday evensong was in the Lady Chapel, but we still put in some big expansive pieces – Os Justi by Bruckner and Gloria Deo per Immensa Saecula by Healey Willan – as well as the canticles for tennis players who don’t hit straight, the Byrd Second Service. Our responses for the weekend were by Sidney Campbell but very different from his usual jaunty style, being apparently inspired by mediæval music. Recommended for choirs with a less than confident tenor and/or bass line (we don’t have this problem!) as they duplicate sopranos and altos respectively almost all the way through.

Our accompanist on Sunday was Professor Ian Tracey himself. We established a quick rapport for Grayston Ives’ Missa Brevis at the Eucharist, where we also sang the only piece of the weekend that I’d never done: Ubi caritas by Paul Mealor. It’s usually just a matter of time before new commissions for royal occasions turn up on music lists (although the Rutter piece premiered at Prince William’s wedding seems to have sunk without trace).
We could hardly have picked a bigger sing for our final service: my favourite canticles by Howells, the St Paul’s service, and Wesley’s Ascribe Unto the Lord. I have not sung this latter in the lifetime of this blog, but having once recorded it, I remember it very clearly, apart from the second soprano verse part which was new.

The main choir stalls are now closer together (new stalls have been placed in front of the original ones); I am not sure whether they had moved at the time of my last visit ,a few years ago. We felt well looked after and the use of the kitchen near the rehearsal room was appreciated. So not the happiest of weekends overall but musically a good one.

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In the beginning

Posted on July 12, 2019 by vhk10

Bristol Choral Society’s 2018-19 season, themed around ‘War and Peace’, ended with reflection on hope and new beginnings in Bristol Cathedral. I’d never sung (or I think even heard) Copland’s In the Beginning before. It’s a setting of the Genesis Creation story for unaccompanied choir and mezzo soloist. It’s a pity that Copland didn’t write anything much else for choir, as it’s a very exciting piece to sing with varied writing, despite a considerable economy of material. Copland’s trademark fourths and fifths are much in evidence. (I will forgive him the passage where the 2nd sopranos sing the same note some 50-odd times in succession, as there is rhythmic interest to compensate.)

I turned out to be the only person in the choir who’d sung Lauridsen’s Chansons des Roses before (apart from the final one, which I hadn’t sung). This didn’t stand me in as good stead as it might have done, as this time we kept to the conductor’s tempo markings rather than the more generous speeds at which I’d done it back in 2005, and I realised that I was probably never all that familiar with these settings.

We ended with arrangements of spirituals, both the familiar set by Tippett and a number by Richard Allain, mostly made originally for the National Youth Choir. These latter had some tricky corners which had to be mastered. Some were familiar melodies but there were also relative rarities such as Go down in the lonesome valley (again, I wonder whether the ‘saviour’ who is to be met there was someone from the Underground Railroad?) My favourite was the final one we sang: ‘Tis Me, O Lord with its gradual buildup into a denser texture as more different voices were used.

Although I can’t sing in the two autumn concerts, the 2019-20 season promises the excitement of a recording, a new rehearsal venue and my first performance of the Symphony of Psalms.

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the hangover orchestra

Posted on June 28, 2019 by vhk10

A Dutch string orchestra, named after the French translation of a German expression meaning a sickie taken as a result of a weekend hangover. This is the Lundi Bleu orchestra which gave a concert in church as part of a short British tour; I helped out as a steward.

The orchestra performs unconducted (quite a current trend) though with an important role for the leader, in this concert Johan Olof. The programme combined music by Dutch and British composers; a link was a concerto by Hellendaal, who worked in Britain and died in Cambridge. It was good to hear a piece by him at a normal time of day. The British pieces were mostly by or closely connected to Benjamn Britten; his arrangement of Purcell’s Chaconne in G minor, Pärt’s Cantus in his memory (which I’d never heard live before – an extra tubular bell was added for this one) and in the second half his Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge. I should try to familiarise myself with this last, and in particular listen to it with the names of the movements in front of me.

The orchestra was easily up to the demands of the music and was well received. Visiting ensembles can have a mixed reception in Bath; they have to rely on local publicity to recruit an audience and can find themselves inadvertently programmed against another competing musical event.

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my Bath Cantata Group début

Posted on June 12, 2019 by vhk10

The Bath Cantata Group has for years rehearsed near my home, and since a change of conductor a few years ago, I’ve taken more interest in its concerts. When I heard they were doing The Kingdom, I made some enquiries about being able to sing. It seemed such a shame to have learnt it for Three Choirs (it took more effort than any of the other music I had to learn) and not do it again.

It was also the first time I’d sung in St John’s Catholic Church in Bath. I could easily have done this before but haven’t (the Chantry Singers were scaled down when they performed there, and although I was invited to sing in an occasional choir there by the conductor, he didn’t know what voice I sang! It is a rather awkward venue for a large choir – the chancel is not wide and you have to dodge statues of popes and other paraphernalia. We joined forces with the Oakfield Choir of Frome and it was particularly enjoyable to hear the strong sound of the tenors and basses.

I picked up where I’d left off in 2016 and the interpretation wasn’t so very different from then – actually I suspect there isn’t room for a very wide range of interpretation in this work. The Kingdom is in some ways a less progressive work tha Gerontius, with its ‘number’ structure. It seems to go out of its way to hide Elgar’s Catholic background – you’d never guess the soprano soloist was the Virgin Mary from the words that she sings. The ending, showing the new Church united in prayer, is understated, so much so that it almost seems to be asking the question ‘Where did it all go wrong?’

There’s talk of The Apostles in future and I’d be really keen to sing that as it is so rarely performed (the number of soloists makes it expensive). But I wouldn’t have the advantage this time of having sung it before!

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a free ticket to the Festival

Posted on June 10, 2019 by vhk10

The Bath Festival 2019* rather passed me by, though I made the usual excursion to the opening-night gig in Green Park Station. But we did get some free tickets (courtesy of a member of Bath Cantata Group) to a midday piano recital given by Isata Kanneh-Mason in St Swithin’s Church.

She played a sonata by Clara Schumann, which if I hadn’t known I would have thought could have an early work by a better-known composer (I might have said Mendelssohn, except that I’m not sure there’s such a thing as immature Mendelssohn). Clara Schumann never finished it and dynamic markings are missing from some parts, so perhaps she was not satisfied with it.

This was followed not by the advertised Chopin Nocturnes but by the complete set of 24 Preludes. These were taken briskly and mostly accurately. She is finishing her studies in London (I caught an interview recently on Radio 3) and it would be interesting to hear her perform them again in a few years’ time.

There was a large audience although it doesn’t take so many to fill the downstairs part of the church. I have heard a number of people say that they didn’t feel there was much in the Festival for them this year. If I’m to go to Saturday morning concerts in the Assembly Rooms (I feel this is a very civilised time to have a concert) it will have to be at the Mozartfest, as that slot has now been given over to book signings. To judge by the brochure, these predominated over concerts. Of course they can be much cheaper to put on; shorter, with only one or two people on stage, who (presumably) don’t need as much time beforehand at the venue to prepare.

(*It is now the Bath Festival not the Bath International Music Festival. It’s not just music as it has merged with the LitFest, but it is a shame to scale back the geographical range of the performers.)

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no more anachronistic absinthe

Posted on June 4, 2019 by vhk10

I haven’t been to the Royal Opera for a while, and took the opportunity to break my return journey from Cambridge to catch the opening night of the revival of their production of Andrea Chénier.

The closing days of the Terror have been fruitful source material for composers, with Chénier being executed a few days after the nuns in Dialogues des Carmélites and a few before Robespierre’s own death. This production is faithful to the period, and from my seat high up I admired the skill of the set designers who have to conceal their artifice and make the detail look realistic from every angle in the house.

I went to see a cinecast of the first production, and the revival was apparently unchanged, except that I think the anachronistic absinthe may have gone from Act II. Alagna was worth hearing, even if a little rough around the edges, and I had no complaints about Sondra Radvanovsky or Dimitri Platanias either. The orchestra, conducted by Daniel Oren, was its usual high standard, though they are not really the stars of the show as Giordano didn’t go in for interesting orchestration.

The ROH assembled reviews here. The negative comments are mostly from people who don’t like the opera much because it isn’t Dialogues.

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Shostakovich’s afternoon in Corpus

Posted on June 3, 2019 by vhk10

Still in Cambridge on the Monday, I had the Rare Books Room of the University Library almost to myself while I consulted back numbers of the Letter of the Corpus Association for information about Corpus chapel choir. I am trying to compile an annalistic history of the choir, because members of it tend to know only about three-year periods of its history. My researches answered some questions I’d had, such as when the choir started admitting women (I was aware this was before the College did). I recall copies of music in the Choir library marked up for baritones to sing the treble line an octave down, as happened for several decades when it was an ATB outfit. (It was also then considered acceptable for the congregation to sing along with canticle settings and anthems!)

There were surprises too. Some of the features which Corpus had and Merton at that time didn’t, such as printed music lists and Cathedral weeks in the summer, had been recently introduced by the organ scholar who was there when I arrived. But information about the choir got scarcer the further back in time I went, so my timeline will concentrate on the last 50 years or so.

I also dropped into the College a transcription on CD of the LP the choir – a dozen strong and including me although I was only a part-time member of it that year – made when I was a student. It was recommended by (I think) Choir and Organ which praised the ‘Emma Kirkby-like tone of the sopranos’ (ahem). For some time there was a pile of unsold copies in the porters’ lodge, but it seems none survived to make it into the College archives.

The most interesting titbit about Corpus’ musical life didn’t concern the chapel choir, though. It seems Shostakovich spent an afternoon in Corpus during a visit to England in 1972. He went to the Master’s Lodge and then was treated to a short recital in Chapel by some of the College’s best musicians. Who’d have thought it? I’d love to know more.

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Confirmation bias

Posted on June 2, 2019 by vhk10

A late-night series of trains got me to Cambridge from Reading a little after midnight, ready for my godson’s confirmation in King’s College Chapel on the Sunday morning, part of a group from King’s College School.

The presiding Bishop was that of Leicester (a late replacement for the Bishop of Lincoln) and the music was Lennox Berkeley’s Missa Brevis and Messiaen’s O sacrum convivium, both in my repertoire. You don’t seem to hear so much of Berkeley’s music these days. (We didn’t sing any of his compositions at Merton, even though that was his College; some enterprising contemporaries of mine went to interview him for the College magazine. Probably because we couldn’t easily sing anything with the organ in Merton Chapel.)

This will be the last time I hear Stephen Cleobury conducting King’s College Choir and I was able to catch him at the end of the service and exchange a few words. It will be interesting to see how the inevitable comparisons with St John’s change under his successor.

When I was a graduate student I tended to attend services at King’s rather than St John’s, perhaps drawn by the architecture. (I find St John’s College Chapel a faintly irritating building, possibly because it is a 19th-century copy of Merton.) Although I am not a huge admirer of the stained glass in King’s, there was always plenty of detail to look at while you listened to Stanford’s Latin Magnificat in B flat (which was what the choir seemed to sing at least half the times I went). This time I found myself admiring a particularly vivid depiction of Jonah and the whale.

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an Anglo-Spanish concert in Caversham

Posted on May 27, 2019 by vhk10

The Erleigh Cantors’ May concert this year reunited a number of pieces from recent Cathedral visits, by English and Spanish composers.

It wasn’t all familiar territory to me, however. Having missed last July’s weekend in Hereford, I hadn’t previously sung the Te Deum by Jeremy Filsell (known to me at friend-of-friend level from my undergraduate days). This fell into place fairly easily once I’d got used to the major/minor alternation which is a prominent feature. Another piece most other people sang last July was Vivanco’s Magnificat on the 8th tone, which proved quite challenging because of the large number of parts (with a single 4-part verse just to catch you out if you weren’t on the top or bottom line).

Furthermore, we sang the whole of Guerrero’s Mass Congratulamini mihi, including Kyrie and Creed, and this time I was singing 2nd soprano. Another piece from our Winchester visit was the Nunc Dimittis from Weelkes’ setting ‘for trebles’. A piece that was totally new to me was O vos omnes by Victoria, one of three settings of this text in the European Sacred Music volume.

Our programme was completed with some well-known anthems by Byrd, Tallis and Victoria (as well as the last’s Ave virgo sanctissima) and as a rousing finale Parry’s I was glad.

This Saturday evening concert was the beginning of a heavily cultural weekend, and I dashed off in the direction of my next engagement.

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