Come and Sing (1): the Missa Solemnis

Posted on February 13, 2018 by vhk10

I don’t do very many ‘come and sing’ workshop type events, but this spring there are two, six days apart.

The first was looking at Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Gavin Carr (and Gerry Hoddinott on piano). Several dozen of us gathered in New Oriel Hall, and it was a real throwback to the South West Festival Chorus of old, and to the Mahler 8 of 2015. Most people had a link to either Bath Minerva Choir or (in some cases) the Bournemouth Sympnhony Chorus.

This work has not been performed in Bath since 1982 (and people wonder why I base my concert singing elsewhere!) although some people had sung it with the Bath Festival Chorus in Wells Cathedral in the late 1990s. I was reasonably fresh from having done it in Gloucester just over a year ago, though I would not say that I remembered it perfectly. We were fortunate in having several in the tenor section who knew it well.

The solo parts were up for grabs by anyone who wanted to have a go, and several of us sopranos did. I ducked in and out where they overlapped with the chorus lines. Much of the solo writing isn’t actually harder than what the chorus are asked to do, though of course doing both made quite a bit of extra work! It gave a chance to experience another side of the piece, in which the relationship between soloists and chorus is a complex one. Certainly any chance to sing it is worth taking.

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buying CDs at the farmers’ market

Posted on February 1, 2018 by vhk10

Bath Farmers’ Market takes place on Saturday mornings. The market stalls stand next to other stalls which are there all week, including one that sells second-hand DVDs and CDs. Among the latter there is a small selection of classical ones, changing every week, mostly on sale for £4 a CD or box.

The repertoire on these classical CDs is not, for the most part, the usual sort of compilation of ‘hundred best tunes’ or even complete popular works. Whatever source they have is especially strong on 20th-century American repertoire and obscure operas; so for example I’ve recently seen Edward Thomas’ Desire under the Elms, Marschner’s Der Vampyr and Verdi’s La battaglia di Legnano. A couple of weeks ago I picked up Colin Davis conducting Les Troyens, and last week there was a bargain-basement pile priced at £1 each from which we selected Stravinsky ballets (Apollon musagète/Agon/Orpheus), Bartók piano concertos, Bruckner’s string quintet, a box of unreconstructed 1960’s recordings of Vivaldi concertos and Joan Sutherland singing Adriana Lecouvreur. And back they come in the shopping basket alongside the olives, bacon and bottles of apple juice.

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not on the front row

Posted on January 27, 2018 by vhk10

I joined the choir of St Peter’s Caversham to sing evensong at Bristol Cathedral. We were quite numerous so made 3 rows on each side, with me in one of the middle ones, which felt unusual in Cathedral choir stalls.

The music was straightforward; Howells’ Here is the little door, Clucas responses (and his Lord’s Prayer, which I actually prefer to the responses), Noble in B minor and They that go down to the sea in ships by Sumsion. It was a return visit for this choir and the clergy remembered us. Tea and biscuits were provided for us before the service.

The Cathedral was going to take up the nave to install underfloor heating (part of a ‘perfect storm’ of simultaneous concert venue closures that has caused headaches for the city’s choirs) but this doesn’t seem to be happening just yet. At any rate the building was warm enough on a dismal January day. I was also able to drop into the shop and replace my collapsible Bristol Cathedral water bottle (left on the train on the way back from an Erleigh Cantors practice last summer) with a new one.

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a new rehearsal room

Posted on January 14, 2018 by vhk10

Our choir is going to be rehearsing somewhere else next season, as our current venue will be for University use only after the summer. I’m not part of the process of choosing a new rehearsal location, but here are some thoughts on what makes a desirable venue for this purpose.

Currently we rehearse in a University lecture theatre. This is the first choir I’ve sung in that does this but it’s quite good for a large choir.

  • The acoustic is fine – the DoM or their stand-in can easily be heard right to the back rows where those with coughs and colds sit, and we can hear one another when we sing
  • The raked seating means that everyone can see the conductor when they are sitting down, and usually when they are standing up
  • The seats are comfortable and you can rest your music on the shelf in front of you, a real advantage when you are working with a big heavy score
  • There’s plenty of room, including space to spread sign-up sheets and posters/fliers for distribution, and a table where jam and cloth bags are sold in aid of choir funds
  • It’s a sensible temperature except in September (the University is notoriously reluctant to put heating on until its employees start exercising their statutory right to go home)
  • It’s reasonably central and accessible by road with plenty of parking nearby (I usually use the spaces in front of the glass workshop where they make chemical equipment for the University), and easily reached on public transport
  • There are sufficient toilets and other facilities such as a vending machine
  • It’s available every week without fail on our rehearsal night, and we’ve also been able to use it on non-standard nights and Saturday mornings

The drawback is that people have to clamber over one another a bit, because there isn’t space in front of you when you sit down. The benefits to the University are twofold: income and engagement with the wider community. The choir has been rehearsing there for as long as anyone can remember, certainly for at least 30 years.

So we need to find somewhere else which can accommodate us all and offer as many as possible of the same advantages. I’ll miss the lecture theatre with the left-over pieces of physics on the blackboard, mysterious occasional ringing bells, and the signs of the zodiac (rather surprisingly and not quite accurately) rendered in plaster on the ceiling.

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2017 in review

Posted on January 14, 2018 by vhk10

2017 was a much quieter year musically than 2016, though not uneventful. The most notable single event was that I fulfilled my ambition to sing in a Promenade concert. A rather unusual programme, but it was well received.

I am beginning to run out of works I really want to sing and have never done, but here too I filled a couple of gaps: Mahler’s Second Symphony and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols. Otherwise I revisited a number of works I had only sung once before, not recently: Mozart’s Great C minor Mass, Bach’s St John Passion, the Chichester Psalms. Cathedral moments included a premiere of canticles at Gloucester and singing almost all of Josquin’s Pange Lingua Mass at St David’s. Building of the Year was probably St Cuthbert’s, Wells, which I sang in on two separate occasions, never having sung there before this year.

I lost some performances due to clashes: I didn’t get to the Cathedral Chamber Choir’s summer week in Lincoln and wasn’t able to sing in Bristol Choral Society’s main autumn concert (though I did go to hear it!) Solo opportunities generally came via the church choir, though I did some solos in an Erleigh Cantors concert, a first with this choir, and sang at a family funeral, one of rather too many funerals this year.

I didn’t get to all that many performances by others this year, though I did get to hear the VPO for the first time, playing Mahler 6 at the Proms, and to WNO’s Khovanshchina.

2018 brings my first overseas choir tour for a few years and in July another encounter with a personal favourite, the Grande Messe des Morts. I don’t know yet what other highlights will appear, but maybe like this year’s Prom they will be at relatively short notice.

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9 Lessons and Candles

Posted on January 14, 2018 by vhk10

Most 9 Lessons and Carols services are not lit by candles held by the congregation, the reason being that it is hard work keeping one alight for nearly two hours (in practice they have to be lit a little before the service begins and a full 9 Lessons and Carols lasts over an hour and a half). This year’s service in St David’s Cathedral was candle-lit (I believe last year’s wasn’t, although that may have been because I wasn’t in the nave then) and I just about kept mine alight until the final Hark the Herald, no mean feat when I was in a side aisle with a draught coming from somewhere behind me, and the best anyone in my block of seats managed. I could have got by without a candle for most of the service, though not for the Welsh translation of O Little Town of Bethlehem.

My location was also near a rather noise box of electrics which hummed increasingly loudly as the service went on, on a B so one just had to hope that the music was in G or another compatible key. Most of the choir music was familiar to me, although I didn’t know Mack Wilberg’s arrangement of Ding dong! merrily on high. I’m afraid that as last year the electrical interference was distracting but the choir seemed to be singing well.

I also got to Midnight Mass and the morning Eucharist on Christmas Day, which gave opportunities to admire the improvisations of Simon Pearce, the long-standing organist at St David’s. We had the Missa ad Praesepe again and on Christmas Day Haydn’s Little Organ Mass.

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a change from Messiah

Posted on January 12, 2018 by vhk10

This year Bristol Choral Society didn’t do Messiah, but put on a programme called ‘An English Christmas’. I was glad of the change as, apart from the anthems we sing in church and bits of carol singing, I don’t get to do any Christmas repertoire these days. In particular, this concert ended with Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols, which somehow I’ve managed never to sing before, though I have heard it countless times, which made it straightforward to learn.

The concert opened with another fantasia, Christmas Day by Holst, unknown to me and I felt rather more contrived than Vaughan Williams’ piece. Both date from the years just before the First World War, a time when a lot of composers were writing rather fruitlessly about ‘peace on earth’ (Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden comes to mind.)

The rest of the first half was the SATB version of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, which I did once in the Pump Room with the Chantry Singers (and later, in part, with Exultate Singers). Another very familiar piece, ingrained now because I did the first seven movements as a set work for O-level Music. The arrangement is careful, though occasionally the tenors and basses are left without much to do, and I’m puzzled that That yongë child is no longer a solo. (As with In Freezing Winter Night, my favourite movement, I feel that this is where Britten is here really writing in his own voice rather than striving to be tuneful.)

We also began the second half with Holst, his arrangement of Psalm 148 which I hadn’t come across before (we didn’t do its partner, psalm 86). Then Finzi’s In Terra Pax. I was one of only a handful in the choir who had sung this before – my chamber-choir background showing up again, I suppose. It’s a piece I can’t sing without remembering the first time I did it, with Janet (RIP) doing the soprano solo.

We were fortunate to have Anne Denholm, harpist to the Prince of Wales, with us again. Our vocal soloists were Gwen Martin and René Bloice-Sanders and orchestral accompaniment was supplied by the Bristol Ensemble. We had a new (to me) arrangement of singers, with tenors and basses brought further forward, with some sopranos and altos behind them.

We don’t have a monopoly on the last usable Saturday before Christmas and were in competition with a number of other carol concerts in Bristol, in particular ‘Carols by Candlelight’ at the Cathedral, which has not happened on the Saturday in previous years.

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BLOOD on my back

Posted on December 31, 2017 by vhk10

Not as bad as it sounds. Some of our church choir were part of a group singing carols at Sainsbury’s in Chippenham in aid of the Freewheelers, popularly known as the ‘Blood Bikes’, volunteer bikers who transport blood supplies to where they are needed. We wore high-viz waistcoats on loan from the Freewheelers, which had BLOOD written in big letters on the back. We raised about £500, which worked out at about £10 per minute of singing.

This was part of a busy December programme for our choir. We had an Advent carol service at church (and, later, a Christmas carol service, but I didn’t sing in that). We also sang at a carol service in the atrium of the local hospital, at the invitation of one of the chaplains there. People wandered past trailing their drips, sat in the café in front and knitted, and a good many joined in all or part of the service.

A week before Christmas a few of us (and a Spanish water dog) went round the local streets of Sion Hill carol singing. Now I’ve done these streets a few times I have some idea which houses will give us a welcome. We were particularly appreciated by some visiting New Yorkers (who videoed us on their phones, presumably to beam back to NYC) and the Christmas party of a Bible study group from Bath Abbey.

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Observing St Cecilia

Posted on December 10, 2017 by vhk10

St Cecilia’s Day at church was marked (I think the schedule was unintentional though) with a concert by the Bath Community Big Band, in which a couple of choir members play. I’m not an expert in this area but I enjoyed the part of the concert that I was able to get to, applauded at the right places (I think) and even recognised quite a lot of the tunes.

At the weekend we got tickets to Bath Minerva Choir’s all-Purcell concert at St Swithin’s Church, thanks to a connexion with the sponsor.

The first half of the concert contained 3 familiar verse anthems: Rejoice in the Lord alway (sung at our wedding), Jehovah quam multi sunt hostes mei (last encountered when I sang it at the Proms) and O sing unto the Lord. In between these was a suite from Abdelazer for string orchestra. Some years ago I was told that a London-based musicologist specialising in this area believed that some of the incidental music published under Purcell’s name was in fact written by his pupils or co-workers, and I’d be interested to hear further evidence or opinions about this. Certainly the quality of pieces in this suite seemed to vary. After the interval was the ode Hail Bright Cecilia, a piece which I sang once for Judy Martin in my Cambridge days.

We thought Simon Ponsford, a counter-tenor from Westminster Abbey, was the pick of the soloists. The choir seemed to be enjoying themselves and it doesn’t appear to have been an arduous programme for them to prepare. The orchestra was Canzona, not to be confused with local choir CanZona.

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I had that Barry Rose in the back of my congregation once….

Posted on December 4, 2017 by vhk10

This happened to me once before, quite recently. This time the occasion was a memorial service at church for Martin, who sang in the choir until a couple of years ago. Martin was musically well connected (he’d been a recording engineer and worked in broadcasting, as well as singing in choirs) and both choir and congregation were swelled by people he’d known in that capacity.

I realise I didn’t overlap with him for very long in our choir – only for a couple of years before illness began to make his appearances less frequent. The music had been proposed by Martin himself and included Purcell’s Remember not O Lord our offences as well as anthems by Bainton (which I sang to Barry Rose last time, too) and Harris, so something for various different tastes.

I hope that will be the last funeral/memorial event of 2017. I have been involved in six, including two family ones, which is more than enough for one year.

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Bath Mozartfest 2017

Posted on December 1, 2017 by vhk10

We didn’t do much about getting tickets in advance, partly because there were lots of good concerts and we were happy with almost anything that didn’t sell out.

Imogen Cooper is a regular here, though it was a little surprising more didn’t come along to her recital in the Assembly Rooms. (It was good to see that these were used for several concerts – in recent Festivals they have been sidelined. A difficulty with booking that has gone away?)

She opened with Beethoven’s Bagatelles Op 33 (I played one of these at a concert when I was at school), followed by Haydn’s sonata in C minor H XVI:20, one of the more familiar of his sonatas. After the interval came Beethoven’s variations on La Stessa, la stessissima (a relatively early work), Schubert’s Klavierstück D946 no 2 (a late work and another unfamiliar piece; the first is far the most often played of this set of three) and Beethoven’s Op 110 piano sonata. I last heard this sonata in the same place a few months ago, played by Richard Goode so direct comparisions could be made. Imogen Cooper was a pupil of Alfred Brendel and so we heard his influence in her precise placing of each note.

The annual bag of Mozartkügels was purchased in the interval.

Later in the week we went to the Leonore Piano Trio in the Guildhall. Their academic approach meant they were rather happier in Mozart’s K502 than in Dvořák’s Op. 62. We liked the cellist in particular though she was rather disconcerting to watch.

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Cheerful Mahler: dodging cymbals in the 2nd Symphony

Posted on November 26, 2017 by vhk10

I’ve almost lost count of the times I’ve passed up opportunities to sing Mahler 2. When I first came to Bath I was invited (via the Chantry Singers) to sing it in the Bath Phil’s Mahler cycle, but I declined – I can’t think why, except that in those days I rather scorned large choruses. A few years ago I could have sung it in Oxford, but rehearsals were awkward. More recently I was invited to do it in Tewkesbury (or was it Worcester?). There were four 2-hour rehearsals in Worcester before the day, which struck me as excessive. Having now sung the piece, I see that there is a lot of subtlety packed into the short chorus part, with its frequent changes of tempo and dynamics. But even so, this much rehearsal seems hard to justify – unless the conductor had very little confidence in his chorus, in which case I was probably best out of it.

This performance was with Eugene Monteith and the Bath Symphony Orchestra. It was my second time performing in the Forum. This time the temperature was more bearable, perhaps because it was late autumn. But the sight lines are still poor. I was in the front row where I often am – directly behind the percussion. Because I was standing on the stage, I had to peer round the cymbals whenever they were used during the chorus section if I wanted to see the conductor. I got a rather percussion-heavy account of the earlier part of the symphony too (how many other works involve such a long wait for the chorus?).

This concert marked the opening of the orchestra’s 50th anniversary season and we had a very appreciative audience. It marks a significant moment in my choral singing career too. It is now genuinely hard to think of an outstanding choral work that I have never performed. The bucket list now consists of works of the likes of The Seasons, The Apostles, The Bells, assorted Handel oratorios and Haydn Masses, and, staying with this composer, the brief soprano chorus in Mahler 3.

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