a sad visit to Cambridge

Posted on February 1, 2015 by vhk10

I am not yet at the age where one regularly attends funerals of friends who were no older than oneself, but one such occasion took me to Cambridge early in the New Year. I had once been a member of the choir at the church where it took place, and since those days the musical establishment at the church has (contrary to the common pattern) expanded and been invested in. We sang some favourite pieces of my late friend, ending with the hymn tune Coe Fen; where more appropriate to sing it than a couple of minutes’ walk from Coe Fen itself? And I learnt that we had shared a love of Franck’s Chorale in A minor, the closing voluntary. Not that any of this afforded very much consolation.

Singing at very emotional occasions (and I have done a few, including funerals of children and young people) is always potentially fraught. I would still rather be in the choir at such times, as its liturgical role gives something to focus on.

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retaining the tonality of A

Posted on January 20, 2015 by vhk10

I can’t actually remember which tonality we had to retain during the Gospel reading at Worcester Cathedral, but our musicianship was tested by having to remember the note needed for the response afterwards.

For the third time in my last four Cathedral visits we (in this case the Cathedral Chamber Choir) couldn’t use the Cathedral’s own song room, though in this case the Cathedral choir couldn’t either. The rather lovely Cathedral song room at Worcester was being refurbished, so a section of the cloister was partitioned off and equipped with heaters. At least the weather was relatively mild during our visit.

Saturday’s evensong had some personal favourites – Poulenc’s Videntes Stellam and Gibbons’ Second Service (in which I sang the 2nd soprano verse part); the Gibbons remains my favourite canticle setting. On the Sunday our Mass setting was Victoria’s on O magnum mysterium, which I’ve done a number of times over the years. Our setting in the evening was Bairstow’s in D, which I’ve only ever sung with this choir. We picked some Epiphany anthems (slightly jumping the gun as the Cathedral didn’t transfer Epiphany to the Sunday): Here is the little door by Howells and When Jesus our Lord/There shall a star by Mendelssohn.

We raised a large choir for this weekend; the time after Christmas is surprisingly popular, perhaps because people feel a need to do something active. I was struggling a bit with the remains of a cold I’d had a week earlier. Although I’ve sung at Worcester before, I’d never before left it by train on a Sunday; the experience is not recommended as trains are infrequent and there’s nowhere sensible to wait at Foregate St.

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Bath loses a CD shop

Posted on January 19, 2015 by vhk10

Bath Compact Discs – which regularly featured on lists of the type ‘The Best Little Shops in Bath’ – has now closed. The website is still going (although the directions to the shop are still there as I write this) and business continues online, but after a big sell-off in December (in which I picked up some recordings I’m very glad to have) the former premises in Broad Street await another occupant.

It’s a standard comment on such events to lament high business rates and competition from the internet, and to regret that one cannot now serendipitously find interesting CDs by browsing through a physical rack. But there are so many more things about the shop that I miss:

  • the flyers and posters for local events (admittedly the posters came and went. At one point they used to fall off the wall and set off the burglar alarm). And with this the advertising opportunity for one’s own concerts
  • the information about new releases put out by record companies and left on display
  • the possibility of bumping into music-loving friends, or just striking up a conversation with a fellow music-lover over a rack of CDs
  • trying to identify the music playing as you came in
  • comparing reviews in the published CD review guides. Yes, you can do something similar on the internet but it’s not as easy
  • the knowledgeable staff
  • teaching children about repertoire by showing them the names of composers on the racks. One of mine liked going through the composers one by one: ‘Delius – isn’t he the one you don’t like?’
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New programmers for the Bath Festival

Posted on January 16, 2015 by vhk10

An announcement has been made about the appointment of two ‘programmers’ for the Bath International Music Festival this year. The only place I can find it is at ‘Listomania Bath’ here; rather surprisingly there is nothing in the Bath Chronicle or even on the Bath Festivals website. A reference to the appointment was, however, buried in the ‘further particulars’ of a Festival-related job, where it was described as a ‘one year interim arrangement’.

The two people appointed are described as ‘programmers’ rather than ‘artistic directors’, which suggests that they are going to draw up the programme of concerts, but perhaps not determine any overall theme of the Festival. (The job particulars are more circumspect and talk about one of them ‘support[ing] … artistic planning’, which really doesn’t make it clear who actually calls the shots.) James Waters, like the outgoing artistic director Alasdair Nicolson, comes from Scotland, and is the programmer for classical music. Another programmer, David Jones, is in charge of jazz.

I’m not a jazz fan, but I’m aware that at times those who are round here have been rather short-changed, and so I welcome this development. We lost a local champion of jazz when Miles Kington died a few years ago, and Broad Street Jazz shut down last month (along with Bath Compact Discs).

I shan’t make any other comments at this stage, but simply refer to my open letter of three years ago. Almost everything in it still applies.

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Turkish marches and children’s toys

Posted on January 16, 2015 by vhk10

Central Europe fought the Turk but appropriated some of his music in the form of the ‘Turkish march’. Some famous examples of this have enjoyed a fresh outing by being played on electronic gadgets of one sort or another. Beethoven’s march from The Ruins of Athens is a favourite demo tune on keyboards, for example. And at Christmas we were given a hand-held game (the idea is to join up pieces to form an electrical circuit) which plays Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca from the piano sonata K331 when the circuit is complete.

What is it about Turkish marches that lends itself to this sort of treatment? It must be the rather jingly, abrupt style, deriving from the percussion-heavy janissary bands that inspired them, that transfers well to electronic reproduction.

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2014 and 2015’s resolutions

Posted on January 9, 2015 by vhk10

2014 certainly had some very high points – comparable to if not better than the annus mirabilis of 2007.

These include, in approximately chronological order:

  • singing Messiah in Bombay and Goa with the South West Festival Chorus
  • performing the Glagolitic Mass and the Petite Messe Solennelle for the first time*
  • two concerts in the Royal Festival Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra*
  • performances with the Birmingham Conservatoire Camerata in Wells Cathedral and Cheddar
  • some other lovely Cathedral visits: Southwell, Peterborough, Gloucester, Norwich
  • reacquainting myself with Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts*
  • singing Gerontius live on Radio 3*

* all of these with Bristol Choral Society (in some cases joining other choirs)

There were of course downsides to the year. I made a gaffe in one performance of the kind that makes you wish the platform would open and swallow you up. I wasn’t able to sing with Priory Voices (all the dates clashed). The only solo work was intoning plainchant responses at a service in Wells Cathedral (part of the reason for this is my choosing to do more large-choir work).

What is there to look forward to in 2015? I don’t think it’s going to be able to compete with 2014, though at least two of the performances listed above came at short notice so you never know. One piece on my wishlist is coming up shortly: Poulenc’s Gloria just after Easter. There’s a prospect of singing part of Gurrelieder (yes, really) in the summer. ‘Cathedral’ trips include Worcester (as I’m writing this review a little late, I’ve already done this one), Bristol, Canterbury, St. George’s Chapel Windsor, York Minster and St Edmundsbury.

And to work on? Probably my sight-singing, which I know could be better than it is. A rather vaguer ambition is to sing with or for one or two people in the Bath area that I have yet to meet properly. I seem to have fallen off the Bath choral circuit (another consequence of doing large-choir work in Bristol) and would like to have a foothold on it again.

On the concert/opera front, things were a bit quieter, though I got to WNO’s Moses und Aron, and Traviata at the Royal Opera House. Honorable mention to my youngest for singing in a concert at the Bath Festival, though the state of the Festival itself is a cause for concern (however there is news on that front, which I’ll report on separately).

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a new conductor for Bath Camerata

Posted on January 5, 2015 by vhk10

It’s been announced that Nigel Perrin will be standing down as musical director of the Bath Camerata in April this year, and the choir is advertising for a replacement.

I sang for a short time with the Camerata when I first arrived in Bath. At that time the choir was expanding and contracting in size as Nigel Perrin looked for the optimum number of singers. I was dropped because I wasn’t so good on the lighter jazzy repertoire he used (fair comment).

Nevertheless, I was invited back for some concerts where former singers were included, and greatly enjoyed these. I was sorry recently to learn that there won’t be any more because there is now no register of former singers.

It will be interesting to see how the transition is handled. Will the existing singers be loyal to the choir, or will some decide not to sing for the new director of music? I recall with sadness how the Brandon Hill Singers failed to survive a change of conductor. I doubt that this will happen with Bath Camerata, because there aren’t comparable choirs around here that might indulge in a spot of poaching. Will the new musical director decide that they want a change of personnel in the choir? Will the sort of repertoire it performs change? Will the choir perform more often in Bath than it now does, or less? Will it go back to making recordings (I think their last one was a decade ago)? Will there be changes to the way the choir is publicised? And will the new conductor try to revive the Bath Festival Chorus?

It’s hard to imagine Camerata without Nigel, but we’ll see what happens. And I think it’s in general good to have changes on Bath’s choral scene; I remarked back in 2009 that most choral conductors in the city had been in their posts a long time.

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Carol singing on Sion Hill

Posted on January 2, 2015 by vhk10

As I was in Bath this year, I looked for some local door-to-door carol singing to join in but didn’t find any. It’s less common in urban areas than in villages, and in central Bath there is the problem that many buildings are divided into flats; which doorbell do you ring? I know that some happened in Widcombe this year, and there have been carol singers from St Mary’s Bathwick in the past. I decided to organise some of my own, and four of us spent an hour going round Sion Hill, which seemed promising territory with nice views into the bargain. We raised about £50 for MSF’s work treating the Ebola outbreak.

When I’ve done this out in a village, and there’s been someone in, it’s got one of two reactions: either the occupants ignore you, or they open the door, hear you sing and then contribute to your good cause. In Bath you sometimes get a third one; the occupant appears, drops some money in the collection, then gradually shuts the door on you before you have finished singing. This tends to result in a truncated carol as there’s no point in finishing it.

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some new pieces for Advent and Christmas

Posted on January 2, 2015 by vhk10

Our well attended Advent and Christmas carols services brought some new music for me to sing. We made a dramatic entrance at Advent singing ‘Unborn’, the opening of Alec Roth’s oratorio The Traveller. Not often you get a text in Pāli at an Advent carol service!

At Christmas, we learned René Clausen’s Tonight eternity alone, with its vertiginous soprano duet – not explicitly about Christmas night, but the words are appropriate to it. We also had two home-grown pieces. A setting for double choir of Silent Night in English and German (with a bit of The First Nowell thrown in) commemorated the informal Christmas truce of 1914. Our organist set the Shepherd’s Masque a few years ago: a text I hadn’t previously encountered about Jolly Wat the shepherd boy, who offers baby Jesus everything – even his tar box!

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‘a passionate and sensitive interpretation’

Posted on December 13, 2014 by vhk10

The following Saturday I returned to another work I performed earlier this autumn, The Dream of Gerontius in Colston Hall. Again we had new soloists (ours were Mark Padmore, Susan Bickley and David Stout), conductor (Adrian Partington) and orchestra (Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra) and the chorus was just Bristol Choral Society (with semi-chorus and some other singers from the BBC National Chorus of Wales). Bath’s own Peter King played the organ.

I’m not going to do any direct comparisons to the other performance I sang in this autumn, so here are some random thoughts on The Dream of Gerontius:

  • If you happen to have a bootleg recording of Kathleen Ferrier singing the role of the Angel, the musical world would like to hear from you.
  • I was sat near the percussion and on display there was a set of bells on a strap, but I never heard them. Presumably I was singing at the moment when they were used. Likewise, I’m a bit vague about exactly where the organ is played, though I was aware of it some of the time.
  • I imagine not even many Catholics have eschatology quite like this any more. It all makes the process of salvation seem very complicated. Contrast the poster that was on display in local churches: a crucifix with the slogan ‘The hard work’s already been done’. But in an age where there’s widespread folk belief in guardian angels, it might not be as out of touch as at first appears.
  • Gerontius has what seems to be a rather crowded deathbed, surrounded by a choir of friends and a priest. Does he have no relatives?
  • The reviewers of the Cardiff performance commented on how prominent the Wagnerian influence on the work was. It’s quite fun trying to work out the leitmotif-like phrases and what they signify. And at the end, someone consigns someone they love to be surrounded by fire for a while, and sings farewell to them. How much more Wagnerian a scenario do you want?
  • I find the libretto towards the end a bit confusing. Who exactly is coming back to whom?
  • We used the passage immediately before Praise to the Holiest (along with the opening of Webern’s Passacaglia and a Beethoven string quartet) as a test piece when buying new speakers. I now can’t hear or sing it without thinking of hifi.
  • There are alternative notes for the chorus if Sanctus, Fortis is sung in A flat. Was this once common practice? Surely any tenor who could sing the opening of ‘Take me away’ could sing ‘Sanctus, Fortis’ in B flat?
  • Our demons this time would have been demonic enough even for a Guardian reviewer. But Newman (and Elgar) gives them a satirical edge. I modelled my interpretation on those Bathonians who will only associate with those whose house is thought to be at least as large as theirs: ‘Our crowns got taken away … and given to people like THAT!’ This raises a more serious question though. How do you depict evil, as opposed to evil thoughts or actions? Should one even try to?

We had an appreciative review on the BBC Music Magazine’s web site.

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Lunchtime in the Building of Bath Museum

Posted on December 13, 2014 by vhk10

I went to a lunchtime concert given by the ‘Men with Horns’ (only without the horns) conducted by Mike Daniels in the Building of Bath Museum. This concert was very popular as the choir had all asked their friends, and programmes ran out. If someone reading this has a machine-readable one, I’d be interested to have it.

The main piece was a mass setting by Rheinberger, sung with the chorus ranged around a first-floor gallery (the building is a former chapel). The conductor of Priory Voices had better not find out about it, or we sopranos and altos might find ourselves out of a job (another mass by this composer is a favourite of his). There were a couple of motets by Rheinberger too and a new piece by Ed Bettella on a First World War theme.

The Building of Bath museum has unusual opening hours, and I hadn’t been there for a while. The concert ticket gives admission to the museum too, so I could browse the exhibits afterwards, and look for my house on the big model of the city on display.

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The sea will give up the dead

Posted on December 13, 2014 by vhk10

A while since our performance of the Berlioz Requiem in London but the time came round for us to revisit it in Gloucester Cathedral. The chorus were mostly the same people, and we still had the Philharmonia Orchestra, but soloist (now Paul Nilon), conductor (now Adrian Partington) and semi-chorus had all changed.

The location posed considerable problems when locating the four extra brass bands. But there is a huge gain when compared with the relatively sterile ambience of the Royal Festival Hall. Here you are surrounded by memorials to those who have died (unlike some Cathedrals, Gloucester hasn’t tidied these away to the cloisters). It gives extra vividness to the depiction of all humanity being rounded up on the Day of Judgement, something which some of these memorials themselves illustrate. Not just one person marching off to their doom as in the Symphonie Fantastique, but the Jacobean teenager who died in childbirth, Edward II, the memsahib who died and was buried at sea, everybody.

There’s talk of a putting on a workshop and performance of this piece again in Gloucester in three years or so – the Grande Messe des Morts fan club clearly has many paid-up members in these parts.

A review from Seen and Heard International: Horrors of Hell unleashed musically in Gloucester’s ancient Cathedral

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