hosting a visiting choir

Posted on September 5, 2024 by vhk10

We aren’t on the visiting choir circuit (the last one to come I think was a joint effort 11 years ago), but we did have a guest choir at the end of the summer break, Suzi Digby’s Voce Chamber Choir (Suzi had attended a service at the church a few months ago). As well as motets by Walton (Set me as a seal again!), Stanford and Becky McGlade, there was something we don’t usually have: a mass setting including the Gloria. This was by Lassus, and some enquiries afterwards established it was his Missa Octavi Toni. I was surprised to find out how many Mass settings he’d composed, because I’ve never sung any of them!

Posted in going to services | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

recapitulating the wedding

Posted on August 12, 2024 by vhk10

Bath Abbey Chamber Choir made the second of its Cathedral visits, a rather shorter distance to Bristol Cathedral, where the quire is full of scaffolding and the organ has been dismantled, so we were in temporary stalls in front, and accompanied by a rather faint digital organ.

Our repertoire included two pieces I had, rather surprisingly, not performed in a very long time. I have not sung Ireland’s evening canticles in F in the lifetime of this blog and have done both his Communion in C and (surprisingly) his morning canticles in C many more times. It’s not clear to me why they aren’t done more often.

The anthem was Purcell’s O God, Thou art my God, which I have done just once before, a month before getting married. (Fortuitously, I’d already chosen Purcell’s harmonisation of the final Alleluias for our opening hymn.) Purcell’s verse anthems seem to be very out of favour at present, which may account for the long gap. There are a whole string of them I’d love to do, including Rejoice in the Lord alway, the ‘Bell Anthem’ (another wedding piece). For completeness’ sake, our Responses were Reading.

Back at the ranch (I mean at Bath Abbey) we sang both morning and evening services a week later. Highlights included Darke’s Communion in E, Elgar’s O salutaris Hostia (he set this text several times and I’m not sure which of them I’ve done before though this one seemed familiar), Weelkes’ First Service and another wedding piece, a reprise of Walton’s Set me as a seal, where I did the brief solo this time round.

We were back in August, filling in a gap in the schedule to sing movements from Palestrina’s Missa Brevis, Tallis O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit and Mozart’s Ave Verum. And that really was it for my singing in August this year.

Posted in singing at services | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kentish apples

Posted on July 30, 2024 by vhk10

Rochester was a Cathedral I sang in early on, and in fact I think it may have been the first Cathedral the Erleigh Cantors ever went to. Certainly it was one of my earliest excursions with them. And neither the choir nor I had been back since.

The quire, Rochester Cathedral

The coat of arms of my College can be seen (its founder is buried here)

Our programme was dominated by one piece: Tallis’ Mass Puer natus est nobis. This is a piece I’d wondered about for a while, and now I found out why I’d never sung any of it: it’s on a huge scale and for seven voices. The notes are not too hard but the test is keeping concentration going over the long span of each movement (less of a problem for the tenors who have a cantus firmus). In the end we omitted the Benedictus as we felt Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei were plenty long enough.

We decided to honour Stanford’s anniversary with a couple of less familiar pieces. Our Communion motet was his Latin 8-part Pater Noster and the canticles at Sunday evensong were his early setting in E flat. The canticles are tuneful enough although there are passages where you feel he was running out of time and had to finish the piece in a hurry by writing some unison bits, and the second soprano part has the limited-range tendency normally associated with alto lines.

Other music included Rachmaninov’s Nunc Dimittis (in English) and the Magnificat by Charles Theodore Pachelbel, son of the more famous composer, slave-owner and organiser of the first public concerts known to have taken place in New York and in Charleston. I took one of the solo parts in the Magnificat. We went for some big-name composers; as well as Rachmaninov, there was Walton (Drop drop slow tears) and Beethoven’s Alleluia again. Also Weelkes’ Gloria in Excelsis Deo and McKie’s (something of a one-piece composer, this) We wait for Thy loving-kindness.

Rochester Cathedral is not as much of a crowd-puller as some, but it has a venerable history, sizeable congregations at our services (albeit with a deanery pilgrimage from Woolwich on the Saturday) and an interesting selection of Cathedral gifts: I passed on the Rochester gin (only because I had enough to carry) but took some local cooking apples home with me. My visit also inspired me to do some research into my family history from the area.

Posted in singing at services | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

favourite hymns

Posted on July 8, 2024 by vhk10

I’m not going to actually reveal my favourites here; they change from day to day, and I also have some definite un-favourites!

We hosted an evening of ‘favourite hymns and the stories behind them’ led by Pam Rhodes, in aid of the Spafford Children’s Centre in Jerusalem. I was part of a small group of singers which led our audience and did a Cecil Frances Alexander medley and a couple of descants.

Reflecting on this afterwards, I realise that the category of ‘favourite hymns’ has split into at least two parts. There are the ones that are at least a century or so old, which were the type of hymn used at this church event. But if you are asked to sing at a wedding (and I now tend to avoid doing this, to avoid what I’m about to describe) you tend to get hymns that the couple remember from primary school. Perhaps not ‘favourite’ so much as ‘the only ones we knew’.

The stock of hymns known by different generations is sufficiently different that you can usually tell at funerals whether the hymns were chosen by the deceased themselves (these are usually the most interesting selections), by their spouse or another contemporary of theirs (these tend to be the older sort, and generic ‘favourite hymns’) or by their children. Whoever chooses them, the words are usually taken from some source used by funeral directors which contains variants I have never encountered in any hymnbook.

Posted in singing - other, singing at services | Tagged | Leave a comment

Psalm 121 (Howells)

Posted on June 30, 2024 by vhk10

Bristol Choral Society’s season ended with a performance of Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi in the Bristol Beacon, for which we were joined by the return visit of some members of the Hannover Oratorienchor.

This was my second performance of this work in two years (after a very long time since my first performance of it) but it was totally new to almost all the choir. A few of us had sung the Hymnus before, and an even smaller number had not but had sung the related Requiem; for many Howells was a totally new composer so there was a distinctive idiom to become familiar with as well as the notes.

It didn’t take me too much effort to dust off the notes again, but there were some differences from last year in Gloucester. One was that we used a scaled-back orchestration which dispensed with brass and woodwind and made more prominent use of the organ. With the full orchestra version fresh in my mind, I noticed the absence of wind sonorities, but there were advantages. Last year when I enquired about some dynamic markings in the final movement I was told that beyond a certain point you just had to ignore them, as the orchestration was too heavy. With some instruments missing it was possible to be more subtle. The organ in the Beacon isn’t back in place yet so we had a digital substitute.

I was also in the semi-chorus this time (as I was when I first sang this, I think). Or at least most of it, as there was some redistribution of semi-chorus passages for full choir. Doing it I came to appreciate how the semichorus is used to change the mood, injecting some reflection and melancholy into an apparently joyous moment.

Our tenor soloist Nick Pritchard sang Finzi’s Dies Natalis which I was unfamiliar with despite Finzi having been a cult composer when I was a student. The programme began with Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, sung (as before with this choir) entirely by the choir without soloists so we got rather more to do than in some performances.

Posted in singing in concerts | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Abbey round-up: May/June 2024

Posted on June 20, 2024 by vhk10

Bath Abbey Chamber Choir these days is being given quite a mix of services to sing, not just 9.30 am ones as it looked like at one time. May began with an evensong which included Ireland’s canticles in F, which I had not sung for many years although I remembered them almost exactly. (Lack of competition in the area of Te Deums and Jubilates means I’ve done his morning canticles much more often). Also on the menu were Byrd’s Prevent us O Lord and Hadley’s My beloved spake.

At the end of May at an 11.30 Eucharist we included Robert Walker’s As the apple tree, with the aleatoric touch that was fashionable at the time it was written. Here it takes the form of singing a phrase with note lengths of your choosing and also beginning at a time of your choice. My problem is that all the training I’ve had in keeping in time with the singer next to me is very hard to discard! Alongside it were movements from Palestrina’s Missa Brevis and as an introit Hail Gladdening Light by Wood. Not only did we sing ‘The lights of evening round us shine’ at 9.30 a.m., we sang ‘The rains are over and gone’ just before a torrential downpour!

We completed the pattern of services in June by doing a 9.30 Eucharist with just two anthems: de Sévérac’s Tantum Ergo and Walton’s Set me as a seal.

Posted in singing at services | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

an electronic hymn board

Posted on May 25, 2024 by vhk10

Next stop was Prague, a city I’d never previously visited. On Sunday I went to the main Mass at Our Lady before Týn, where the choir located in the west gallery) was accompanied by an orchestra of significant size – I noticed a trombone player and a bassoonist, amongst others. I didn’t recognise the music, which sounded as if it could be by Michael Haydn or one of the various Czech composers of the same period. There were a couple of hymns and our hymnbooks included melodies, but I didn’t twig until too late in Veni Creator Spiritus that the numbers were shown on an electronic display tucked into the elaborate east end. I’d never seen that before.

The gallery at Our Lady before Týn (bassoonist on right)

Perhaps the orchestra was in honour of the feast of Pentecost, but it seemed quite natural to accompany the choir at Sunday Mass in this way. I shall remember that if I ever get to sing the Glagolitic Mass again.

The following day I visited the Czech Museum of Music, which had many highly unusual instruments on view, though sadly the theremin was out of order.

A three-manual piano which plays quarter-tones

The last thing I did before leaving was to go to the National Museum, and while I was admiring the paintings in a large hallway a string quartet turned up and started rehearsing, again as if this was completely normal. (I think they were then going to entertain a reception for a conference or similar gathering.) A pleasant memory to take away with me.

Posted in category-defying, going to services | Tagged | Leave a comment

May is Mary’s month

Posted on May 16, 2024 by vhk10

The Erleigh Cantors usually perform a concert in May, and this year it was decided to honour the Marian connexion (our reader read the poem by Hopkins on this theme). We did so with a large number of mostly short pieces, many revived from Cathedral visits.

Some highlights from the music I already knew were: the Giles Swayne Magnificat, which I’ve only ever sung with this choir; anniversary composer Holst’s Ave Maria (I’m gradually working round all four soprano parts in this piece); Rihards Dubra’s Ave Maria; Tavener’s Hymn to the Mother of God; Guerrero’s Ave Virgo sanctissima; Jonathan Dove’s Vast ocean of light (not really a Marian piece but it was fresh in the choir’s memory). Also Britten’s Hymn to the Virgin, which seemed to have a sickness jinx affecting the solo quartet; I was a late substitute for an indisposed soprano and am apparently turning into a Britten specialist this year.

There were several pieces new to me. Franz Biebl sounds as if he ought to be Baroque but he is much more recent. His Ave Maria exists in several different arrangements which caused some confusion in rehearsal. It’s quite a long piece and the soprano part gets strenuous in places. Paul Mealor’s O sanctissima Maria, by contrast, lies low, especially at the end. I’d heard Judith Weir’s Ave Maris Stella on the radio recently so it was good to perform it. I had only sung anthems by Vivanco before, but we included his Magnificat on the 8th tone, where the polyphonic verses have different numbers of parts, a trap for unwary singers. (However Mapa Mundi editions are the best for laying out the lines so that you don’t miscount!)

We had a good sized audience of Eurovision refugees as last year.

Posted in singing in concerts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Psalm 121 (Mendelssohn)

Posted on May 8, 2024 by vhk10

The summer concerts of Bristol and Gloucester Choral Societies were nearly two months apart, but both include settings of this text. First up was Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Gloucester (where it was assigned to the Cathedral choir, singing ‘offstage’ in the quire). Our performance was ably accompanied on the organ.

The Dream of Elijah, by Peter Brandl (National Gallery, Prague)


I last sang this in the Three Choirs Festival in 2016 and I can admit now that it was the weak link in my performances that week; I didn’t give it as much attention as other unfamiliar works and there are an awful lot of notes in it. I did my best to iron out the mistakes this time round, but they don’t all stick in the memory very well. On the other hand it has been a bread-and-butter piece in the Three Choirs Festival for many years so I was surrounded by people who knew the work better than me.

I still feel that it would benefit from some discreet cuts and though some passages were pointed out to us as ‘sometimes cut’, the three performances I’ve given were all complete. Comparing it with the biblical story, I sense a struggle to cast it into an oratorio form, with some episodes treated at length and then a chorus near the end giving a brief whizz through all the things Elijah did which couldn’t be fitted in. So my verdict on Elijah is that I wouldn’t want it to regain the huge popularity it used to have, but the neglect it had in the late 20th century was also unfair. Some day I ought to find a chance to sing St. Paul.

Posted in singing in concerts | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

revisiting a work after a year

Posted on April 26, 2024 by vhk10

April has been a very quiet month musically. An early Easter in March, no Low Sunday cathedral weekend and too early for the next round of concerts. It’s mostly been rehearsals and a solitary evensong where we marked the Stanford anniversary with his canticles in C and I more or less sight-sang the alto part in Morley’s responses.

Preparations have begun for Bristol Choral Society’s next concert, Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi. After I’ve not sung it for decades, it has come round twice in as many years. There are of course great advantages in this – I don’t need to invest large amounts of time in learning it and all the work I did last year gets another payoff rather than just being expended in a single evening. (Another way of putting it – I get a chance to correct the (minor) mistakes I made last time!) I don’t get bored doing the same work twice in fairly quick succession if the music’s good enough. But the downside is that along with the notes I learnt a particular interpretation of things like tempo changes (which are many) and I’m now being asked to follow a rather different one.

Posted in singing - other | Tagged , , | Leave a comment