Belshazzar’s Feast with a pounding heart

Posted on December 22, 2016 by vhk10

On to Belshazzar (I would say ‘onwards and upwards’ but I don’t think there is any ‘upwards’, in any sense, after the Missa Solemnis). I have had terrible difficulties driving to rehearsals in Bristol this term, and tried to get round them by going to this concert on the train, and arranging to catch the train before the one I needed to. Failure! All trains were cancelled and I was put on the dreaded ‘replacement bus’ which arrived at Temple Meads station around the time I should have been at Colston Hall. I ran from the station to the hall, struggled to find the way on to the stage (I was not on the usual side of the stage and it lurked behind a fire door) and got into place after the rehearsal had started. Fortunately the first page doesn’t involve the sopranos. Less fortunately, my temples were now pounding, and not in time with the beat.

I did manage to get a warning out via social media about what had happened as I was in the semi-chorus which would have left a noticeable gap.

Belshazzar is a new work to me. I’d sung most of Walton’s church music, with the exception of The Twelve, which gave help with turns of phrase. But the continually shifting rhythms just had to be learnt as they were. Apart from the semi-chorus parts, it all came together for me at a fairly late stage. The Philharmonia gave great colour to the orchestral writing. I was near the percussion and greatly enjoyed the special effects such as the resonant ‘god of iron’. My interpretation of ‘Slain!’ was modelled on Brenda Rae’s Todesschrei, and David Soar our soloist had also appeared in Lulu at ENO.

It was programmed alongside the now-familiar Coronation Te Deum, and as Adrian Partington was conducting, this was as in the Three Choirs Festival. Also on the programme were two overtures about English places: Portsmouth Point and Elgar’s Cockaigne.

Afterwards Bristol Choral Society held its farewell event for Adrian, with a presentation, speeches, a toast and lots of food!

Many of us sang Belshazzar again a few days later in St David’s Hall, joining forces with the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales for a performance broadcast live on Radio 3 (still on iPlayer at the time of writing), with Neal Davies as soloist. Martyn Brabbins conducted, broadly in line with the way we’d sung it the previous Saturday. I was relieved of my semi-chorus duties, and so able to enjoy listening to all the semi-chorus passages.

The programme for this concert also included Elgar’s In the South and Delius’ Double Concerto, with Tasmin Little and Paul Watkins. People were especially impressed with the Delius; I can’t really comment as I have Delius immunity.

Reviews of Cardiff performance:

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The Missa Solemnis is singable

Posted on November 24, 2016 by vhk10

So the great day finally came round, and I got to sing the Missa Solemnis with Gloucester Choral Society and the Bristol Ensemble in Gloucester Cathedral.

I wrote earlier of the particular difficulties of performing this piece. It wasn’t Beethoven’s fault that pitch has risen since his day, but I am left with the impression that LvB believed sopranos would explode if they came into prolonged contact with the stave. There are some gratuitously difficult lines, such as the bar where the soprano soloist goes from a high A to a high B via a brief detour to a note an octave lower. With familiarity the notes in the chorus part came more readily, though it may be beyond my powers to make them sound easy. And perhaps this work is not meant to sound easy. I gather that Prof. Nicholas Marston (still known to me as Nick, from the days when he returned to his undergraduate College choir to sing alongside me) made this point in his talk about the work.

In fact I found that the pacing actually worked. On the only page where my voice came unstuck, we’d been asked to reinforce an alto lead, so we were singing one more bar than Beethoven had assigned to us. I think that this is only possible with a careful choice of tempi, by enjoying the gentler passages when they come round, consciously releasing tension before the really hard bits, and of course by not giving all in rehearsal. The final proof that this approach worked was that I was able to sing a chunk of the verse section in Stainer’s I saw the Lord in church the following morning.

The Missa Solemnis is not quite the rarity it once was; in fact there was a performance in Cardiff the same night as this one. But it has not been performed in Bath since 1982, so if I hadn’t made a move this time I might not have had another opportunity for a while. I hope one does come round before too long though, because having learnt the Mass thoroughly I would love to sing it again.

Two sublime, radical works in the space of eight days: it gets no better than this.

[January 2017: I’ve now listened to a CD of the concert, which gives an idea of how it sounded if you were in front of rather than in the midst of the performers. It is very tempting to try and pick out one’s own contribution when doing this, but although some individual chorus sopranos are audible, I’m not among them. The recording does confirm my impressions of the performance in various ways.]

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Bath Mozartfest 2016

Posted on November 22, 2016 by vhk10

There has been so much going on that this report is going to be rather brief. Between us we got to three concerts.

My husband went to hear Winterreise in the Guildhall, performed by Roderick Williams and Roger Vignoles, which he enjoyed, although he felt that the chosen keys weren’t quite right. The interpretation moved towards the resigned rather than the despairing.

Later we went with a party of mathematicians to a generously long lunchtime concert also in the Guildhall of music for piano four hands, played by Simon Crawford-Phillip and Philip Moore (not the composer of that name). This paired Mozart’s variations K501 and Sonata K497 with Ravel’s arrangement of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Philip Moore’s own arrangement of the Firebird suite (or rather, of extracts from it). The Ravel arrangement of Debussy probably came off best. The two pianists swapped positions between pieces.

Angela Hewitt played Scarlatti, Mozart and Beethoven in the Assembly Rooms and my husband luckily got a return. There was some grumbling in the audience about her Fazioli piano, but she’s a regular here and clearly enjoys visiting.

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an unsatisfactory seat at ENO

Posted on November 13, 2016 by vhk10

After watching from a distance some belated but spectacular fireworks originating (I was told) at Somerset House, I went to the new production of Lulu at English National Opera.

I have already seen this production in the cinema. The distinguishing feature was the drawings by William Kentridge which were projected on the backdrop. After a while I didn’t pay too much attention to them (for the reason given below), though some made an impression, such as the drawing of Berg himself, apparently looking on at the opera he never lived to see staged.

More to my liking was the mute actor, Joanna Dudley, who was on stage throughout, interpreting the events through her body language. She was very impressive, not least in her ability to sustain some of the attitudes she adopted. Although I could imagine that, as with Berg’s music, with only slight changes she would have been intolerable. (The other, male, mute actor didn’t do much for me. He was dressed as a butler and often struck the absurdly bent-over pose some people adopt when they are trying to move unobserved and which has exactly the opposite effect.)

At this well-attended performance I was seated in the Upper Circle, in the middle of row E. The drawback with this was that the orchestra didn’t come across as strongly as they would have done in the stalls or dress circle. So rather unusually for a performance of Berg, the singers dominated. Perhaps this was not a bad thing as Lulu herself was not hugely powerful.

Another problem with my location was that in Act II the projected drawings were not completely visible because the top of them disappeared into the safety curtain; so, for example, I could not identify any of the faces. In addition, the mime artist was now on stage right, and the head of the person in front of me often blocked out either her or the main action. This problem disappeared in Act III along with the neighbour to my left. Perhaps he was suffering Bergnot or, conversely, was a purist who would not accept the completion of Act III; more likely he felt he needed an early night to nurse the cold he was clearly suffering from.

I was happy with all the performances, which included Willard White (last heard as Elijah at 3 Choirs) as Schigolch. Kudos to ENO for a very informative programme, including Cerha’s account of what the completion of Act III entailed. I was left pondering as often why a composer whose music is not exactly lacking in emotion was drawn to such a chilly subject; did he regard it as a challenge?

There are loads and loads of reviews and other blog posts about this. Here are some of them:

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Two festivals merge

Posted on November 12, 2016 by vhk10

The Bath International Music Festival is to merge with the Bath Literature Festival into a single festival that will run for 10 days in May 2017 and 17 days in subsequent years, with a greater rôle for jazz.

This can be seen as a return to the more inclusive Festival that once used to exist. A few years ago it got rid of non-musical events, some of which (such as walks led by local historian Kirsten Elliott) were snapped up by the Literature Festival. Ever since then the programme of the Music Festival has looked a bit thin, and the branding of Bath as a ‘Festival City’ did not do it any favours. There is a danger of course that the music could become a sideshow to the literature events, which are much less expensive to put on.

Let’s measure this development against the open letter I wrote a few years ago, with suggestions about the festival. It certainly fulfils two of the headings Establish primacy and It’s not just music. I suspect a combined Festival might also be able to deal better with Street Publicity, Know your audience and some of the others, because the Literature Festival has always given the impression of being very well run and promoted. If there’s one single change I’d like to see to the musical side of the combined Festival, it would be the return of the Assembly Rooms as a venue.

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when the conductor is ill

Posted on November 12, 2016 by vhk10

I went along to hear Priory Voices sing Evensong with music by Stanford and S S Wesley at Wells Cathedral. The founder and usual conductor is not able to conduct at the moment so members of the choir are (very ably) doing the job instead. It was a pleasant service, and as I’m very bad now at being a member of a congregation I was glad that I was surrounded by people who were focused on the liturgy and not just chatting to one another.

Actually conducting the performance is only one part of replacing the conductor, and as it’s not clear when the usual one will return, there are a whole lot of other issues to be negotiated. Who should replace the people who will inevitably drift away at such a time? (I know of at least one such person among those who sang at Wells.) What repertoire is to be sung? How can one prevent individual choir members (I have no one in particular in mind here) pushing their own agendas? Should the choir be making bookings for future visits, and if so where and how many? Should the sound of the choir be preserved? (Over a meal afterwards it became clear that some want to steer it towards a more ‘men and boys’ sound). Who is to discipline choir members, and how?

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a free ticket to Cavalli

Posted on November 11, 2016 by vhk10

I won a pair of tickets to Cavalli’s La Calisto performed by English Touring Opera at Bath’s Theatre Royal, thanks to a competition in the Bath Chronicle.

Cavalli has been chosen before by this company. La Calisto is his best-known work; it has plenty of substantial roles (Juno’s and Diana’s are as substantial as Calisto’s) and lively intertwined plot and subplots. It was sung in English but rather as in a silent movie each scene was introduced with the display of a single-sentence description.

The various parts were all well sung and acted, with Juno being our favourite. And some lovely period sounds from the pit, though the ‘organ’ sounded a bit fake. The production played up the comic side of the plot with ribald gestures (but what do you expect when there’s a satyr around?) contrasting with the rather dry libretto. The Heath Robinson-like set required considerable physical agility from the singers.

The performance was well attended, and as before I noticed that there is an audience that converges on Bath from miles around when there’s an opera on. Now I think there are few in Bath who know more about Greek mythology than I do, but I realised that I was among some seriously experienced fans of baroque opera, ready to compare performances of Rameau or Handel at the drop of a hat.

Bath Chronicle review

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30 years of the Bath Camerata

Posted on November 4, 2016 by vhk10

I dashed back from Gloucester on the train to get to the Bath Camerata’s 30th birthday concert in the Pump Room. Ten years ago the 20th birthday was celebrated at a Good Friday concert which I sang in. This time round the former members just took part (optionally) in one or two numbers, some of them playing glasses in Eriks Esenvalds’ Stars. We were however given a special seating area which confirmed (even allowing for the presence of partners) that there are an awful lot of former Camerata members around!

The music was drawn from the last 150 years or so, with several showpieces which had been used in competition. The centrepiece of the first half was Friede auf Erden by Schoenberg, which I once sang with the Exon Singers. Its equivalent in the second half was James MacMillan’s Miserere which used a variety of styles and made even the familiar Tone II plainchant seem fresh and new. But this being Camerata, the programme wasn’t all serious!

There are still several in Camerata from my time there, and the choir, now under Benjamin Goodson, made light of the difficulties, although one of the parts was not as blended as it could have been. The only real dampener on the evening was the absence of Nigel Perrin, who was convalescing after an operation.

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Double Gloucester

Posted on October 31, 2016 by vhk10

Back in Gloucester again, this time for a weekend at the Cathedral with the Erleigh Cantors.

As has happened here before, we had an out of the ordinary service to sing, in this case a farewell Eucharist in the nave for one of the Canons. Our setting was Jonathan Dove’s Missa Brevis, which I hadn’t sung before and which presented a lot of rhythmic challenges, as any mistakes in this area could be ruthlessly exposed. For the anthem, Giovanni Gabrieli’s Exultet iam angelica, I was part of choir 3, which sang only briefly but which got to go up on to the spacious organ screen. (This space got quite a bit of use for stray singers in the 3 Choirs Festival, for example the Carmina Burana‘s children’s chorus, ‘Lift thine eyes’ in Elijah and Mater Gloriosa in Mahler 8. You’d be amazed what there is up there.)

Sunday morning’s Eucharist was also in the nave, and we presented Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G minor, with Philip Stopford’s Ave Verum Corpus as the offertory motet. Although the heating was on (unlike at Ely four years ago) the Gloucester miasma was beginning to settle for the winter. There isn’t much that can be done about it, short of diverting or draining the Severn.

It was good for the final evensong to be cocooned in the quire, where we sang Howells’ Westminster Canticles and Walton’s Coronation Te Deum. Now where have I come across that piece before? In fact, I’m about to do it again with Bristol Choral Society, so my copy had a complicated arrangement of colour-coded tabs and markings with initials, to indicate differences for the two performances. It is a confusing enough piece to sing even once, especially as different editions have moved the vocal lines around. (I have removed/deleted the first lot of markings from the score now, so it is a little less complex.) Our introit was Casals’ O Vos Omnes. I don’t rate this as highly as does the choral acquaintance whose favourite anthem it is. I don’t think it’s the greatest setting of this particular text, or indeed, even the greatest setting of this text in the European Sacred Music volume. But it is a well-crafted piece that I enjoy singing.

I had the honour of being one of the last people ever to park in the spaces immediately south of the Cathedral; the following day the archaeologists moved in to investigate the site before it is grassed/paved over, as part of Project Pilgrim. Maybe this might be followed by Project Chorister, a renewal of rehearsal facilities similar to what has been done recently at Wells and at Exeter?

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My Museum of Bath Architecture début

Posted on October 25, 2016 by vhk10

The Museum of Bath Architecture (formerly the Building of Bath Museum) has occasional concert series. I remember hearing the Paragon Singers (appropriately enough) there some years ago. I was fortunate to be invited to sing with the 10-strong choir of Bellacapella, conducted by Basira Ward, in a programme of sacred music for women’s choir. We were accompanied by fellow Corpuscle and Minerva Choir accompanist Steven Hollas, on the organ retained from the museum’s days as a chapel (why couldn’t St George’s Bristol have retained its organ in the same way?)

There were just two pieces in the programme. First was Rheinberger’s Mass Sincere in memoriam, written in memory of Brahms, though not a Requiem Mass. This was a charming, reflective setting, reminiscent in places of SS Wesley, and less expansive than his unaccompanied double-choir Mass which I’ve sung a few times. I’ve heard music by this most famous Liechtensteiner here before.

Then came possibly the most famous sacred piece for upper voices – Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. I’ve sung this once before, back in Cambridge with the ‘Virago Consort’ (I think it may have been the only concert they ever gave) conducted by Graham Hancock. The solos were spread around various singers: I had the upper part of ‘Quis est homo’.

We sang from the organ gallery looking down across the top of a large model of Bath on to our audience in the body of the chapel. I haven’t done much upper-voices music for a while, in fact not really since the early days of Corpus Angelorum; it was a refreshing change to explore this repertoire, and to give a concert with a small choir.

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My Michael Tippett Centre début

Posted on October 19, 2016 by vhk10

I’ve only been to Bath Spa University’s Michael Tippett Centre a handful of times. Not long after I moved to Bath I had a disastrous audition there, and I seem to recall rehearsing the Millennium performance of Mahler 8 there too. I returned with the choir of Christ Church to sing Choral Evensong.

We weren’t actually in the auditorium, but in the foyer. This resembles Bath’s crematorium chapel in giving you the illusion of being outside, with farmland visible through the large expanses of glass. The handsome cattle there seemed appreciative; at any rate, they moved nearer during the service.

We had a piano nearby but chose unaccompanied repertoire by Gibbons and Grayston Ives. The foyer actually has a pleasant acoustic. Maybe next time I perform there I’ll have graduated to the main space.

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three degrees of choral separation

Posted on October 8, 2016 by vhk10

A couple of times recently I’ve found myself sharing a choral acquaintance with someone I know and been told ‘Small world!’. But should people be all that surprised? How many removes am I from most active (by which I mean singing in at least two choirs) choral singers in England?

I think three should probably do it. For example, one person for whom I have sung was, at the time I first encountered them, in charge of some 500 singers. Add to that all the singers they have previously worked with, and we’re into four figures. Consider all the people those thousand-plus people have ever sung with, and by this one route I am 3 degrees of separation from a very large number of people. And that is starting with only one of the hundreds of people I’ve shared a concert platform (or church/cathedral choir stall) with over the years.

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