a vocal technique workshop

Posted on February 7, 2024 by vhk10

February began with a day in Gloucester working on vocal technique with Judith Sheridan. Lots of familiar faces from Gloucester Choral Society here, with some others. At last years Three Choirs Festival I’d been standing behind Judith at one point (I hope she wasn’t too distressed by the sounds I produced then).

I always feel I benefit from these events, if only to correct bad habits I may have got into. We learnt a lot about the physiology of singing which I appreciated, as I tend to approach technique from that direction rather than via metaphors. It was also my first time inside St Mary de Crypt Church; my musical activities are gradually taking me round Gloucester’s churches and school halls.

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

a solo in the Lydian mode

Posted on January 27, 2024 by vhk10

Bath Abbey Chamber Choir sang at the wedding of one of its members, with two anthems: Parry’s I was glad and during the signing of the register, Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, in which I did the treble solo. While preparing this section, I noticed something I have not seen anyone ever comment on: it’s in the Lydian mode, using a scale of A with a D sharp throughout.

The modes never fully went away, and the Lydian mode appears in a number of pieces which are familiar to me, such as Bruckner’s motet Os Justi and the central movement of Beethoven’s A minor quartet Op. 132, and several other pieces by Britten. The opening of Bach’s much-quoted chorale melody Es ist genug also nods to it. It has an other-worldly feel; maybe that raised fourth looking heavenwards, and making you think that you’re modulating to the dominant but then you don’t. What a number of the works I mentioned have in common is the theme of contemplating God – just right for Christopher Smart’s thoughts about his cat.

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

Epiphany 2024

Posted on January 15, 2024 by vhk10

The Epiphany carol service with Bath Abbey Chamber Choir has become a fixture and included a surprising number of pieces I hadn’t sung before, as well as a couple of standard ones for the season.

John Bull’s ‘Star Anthem’ was apparently once very popular but I’d never even heard of it, or realised that he wrote choral music. It contains one cadence which sounded startlingly archaic to my ears. I took one of the verse parts.

Lassus’ Omnes de Saba and Jacopus de Wert’s Vox in Rama were not pieces I’d sung before (nor in the latter case had I sung anything else by the composer). Moving into more recent compositions, I had heard Carl Rütti’s setting of I wonder as I wander many times on Christmas Eve broadcasts from King’s but never sung it, or anything else by him, and it proved reassuringly straightforward as long as you don’t listen too hard to the organ part.

Back in December I sang in a couple of other services in the Abbey, amongst other things reprising Howells in G and renewing my acquaintance with Philip Ledger’s setting of Adam lay y-bounden.

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

roundup of 2023

Posted on January 10, 2024 by vhk10

So we get to the end of 2023, and if it wasn’t one of the most vintage years it had some remarkable and unexpected highlights. And it included the 20th anniversary of this blog, which I’m afraid passed without comment from me. The 1000th post isn’t far off, either.

I thought I’d been saturated with foreign choir tours but then came along the performance of Gerontius in Rome with the Parliament Choir in April, which brought with it as a bonus my début in St John’s Smith Square.

I sang again in the 3 Choirs Festival Chorus, with a rather lighter workload of less standard works than last time but plenty to learn: my first performances of The Apostles, music by Francis Pott, Eleanor Alberga, Holst and most strikingly Vaughan Williams’ Sancta Civitas.

More first-time pieces came my way in performances with Gloucester Choral Society: Donald Swann’s Requiem for the Living and Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio. But I didn’t sing anything from my wishlist this year.

Cathedral visits were to St Edmundsbury, Gloucester and Canterbury with three different choirs, but I didn’t make any during the summer, for the first time in many years. My busiest time of the year was the autumn, especially October when amongst other things I sang on one day of the recording of Bristol Choral Society’s new CD.

I didn’t go to many performances given by others, but I did make it to a first night at the Royal Opera House and to two especially moving performances of Bach’s St John Passion and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.

2024 doesn’t at the moment promise any outstanding events as yet, although plenty of good repertoire, but who knows what it will bring.

Posted in festivals, going to concerts, going to operas, singing at services, singing in concerts | Leave a comment

Messiah at the Beacon

Posted on December 29, 2023 by vhk10

So, over 4 years after the original reopening date (the hall was at first going to close from 2017-19), with Tudor remains conserved, asbestos removed and resistance on the council overcome, we now have the Bristol Beacon! Bristol Choral Society was one of the first groups to host a concert after the reopening, with Messiah, accompanied by the Bristol Ensemble.

Cherubs having fun with musical instruments

We kept the evening short (this was the first performance I think I’ve heard or sung in which cut And he shall purify, Surely and And with his stripes). There was a review in the Bristol Post which particularly praised the sopranos’ rendering of the final page (polishes halo).

The choir are now raised some way above the conductor, and I felt the choir seating wasn’t as steeply raked as before, so if you are not near the front you have to arrange a sightline carefully. But the acoustic worked well, both from the choir’s point of view and that of the audience (we were able to make effective use of offstage trumpets too), and the wood-panelled interior is very attractive. (I never worked out what made the small rectangular shadows visible in the old lampshades; they looked like huge bacteria.) Although the playful naked cherubs with their musical instruments are no longer in the auditorium, they have not been discarded but are on view outside it. We shared our backstage facilities with the orchestra.

We return for Verdi’s Requiem in March.

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

a work from the syllabus

Posted on December 18, 2023 by vhk10

Gloucester Choral Society presented a mixed programme rather than a single work for the Christmas concert this year.

Introducing the four-part arrangement of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols our conductor said it should be compulsory on everyone’s syllabus in school. Well it was on mine – at least the first part up to and including the interlude was a set work of mine for O level Music and I still have a heavily annotated score. It is strange singing a work that was drilled into me as a teenager, but not for performance. The dynamics and other expression markings are familiar, but feel like marks on the page, because that was how I studied them, rather than as something that makes an actual difference in the sound.

The main work was Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio, premiered at the Three Choirs Festival a few years ago. I missed another chance to sing this piece earlier in the year but it caught up with me in the end. It narrates the Christmas story from Annunciation to Presentation in the Temple, with some appropriate poetry. The hymn tunes are all named after people who played some part in the creation of the work. I (and others) felt that the choir got the best of the music here.

We also sang a selection of seasonal pieces including Byrd’s Rorate Caeli which I’d never sung before, and the preposterous but enjoyable Vox Dicentis by Naylor.

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

the Ronald Reagan Gloria

Posted on November 29, 2023 by vhk10

So the Gloria from Duruflé’s Messe Cum Jubilo, was once described to me, by someone who presumably was reminded of the cavalry arriving in a Western when he heard it.

Bristol Choral Society presented an all-Duruflé programme at Clifton Cathedral with the composer’s two Mass settings. The Messe Cum Jubilo is for lower voices only, and in fact I don’t think I’d ever heard a performance before. It was more varied than I expected, but always with plainchant lurking in the background.

Then the sopranos and altos returned for his Requiem, a work the choir last sang five years ago, in concert and then on our Portuguese tour. This is by my calculations my fifteenth performance of this piece (by contrast, I have only sung Bach’s B minor Mass twice) and it is rather too easy for me to sing it on autopilot, unless it’s the more colourful version with full orchestra that I’ve done a couple of times. This time it was with organ and cello obbligato for the Pie Jesu.

Clifton Cathedral was warmer than it sometimes is and has been a welcome venue while we haven’t had a concert hall available to us. I arranged things so that I didn’t have to negotiate the spiral staircase down to the Apostles’ Room assigned to the choir, but could simply walk in and out of the building as needed.

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

Bath Mozartfest 2023

Posted on November 25, 2023 by vhk10

I’m going to deal with this year’s Mozartfest fairly quickly because I have quite a backlog to get through (I’m writing this some time after the event, as with rather too many blog entries this year). This year the Festival largely took place in the Assembly Rooms, and ignored the Guildhall.

After some dithering about going to any concerts, I nipped out to a lunchtime performance by the Doric Quartet, sometime quartet in residence at the Wiltshire Music Centre down the road. Their programme comprised Beethoven’s String Quartet in A major Op 18 No 5 (which I last heard a couple of years ago) and Schumann’s String Quartet in A major Op 41 No 3 (less familiar to me). The performances were enjoyable and the concert well attended.

Others went to hear the Cuarteto Casals and Adrian Brendel on the Saturday morning (my favourite time but it didn’t work for this festival). They played Beethoven String Quartet No 9 in C major Op 59 No 3, the most lightweight of his mature quartets, treating it rather is if it were Haydn. Schubert’s String Quintet in C major D956, with its renowned slow movement, got a more serious and intense performance.

In a previous visit the members of this needed to keep in close communication with one another. This time they differed markedly in demeanour with a deadpan viola player, an amused cellist, an animated and mobile 2nd violin, while the 1st violin kept an eye on things. Nevertheless they produced a blended sound.

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

a Te Deum for 225 years

Posted on November 8, 2023 by vhk10

I’m not sure what the official name for a 225th anniversary is, if any, but my church reached that landmark this year. Probably not many churches are observing this particular anniversary as the 1790s weren’t I think a very active time for building churches in England, but there was a particular reason for setting up this one.

On the Sunday nearest the date of the dedication, normally overridden by All Saints or Remembrance, we had a more elaborate service, with the musical ‘extra’ being Howells’ Coll Reg Te Deum. I can’t remember when a Te Deum was last sung there, but it was thought appropriate as quotations from this hymn are carved on the window lintels all round the church. One problem with singing Matins (which some Cathedrals still ask you to do) is that there aren’t that many good settings you can use – and if you’re singing that much text, you want it to be set to worthwhile music. If not the Howells, it tends to be the inevitable Stanford in B flat or maybe Ireland in C, unless you can run to either of the Britten settings or even (my favourite) the Elgar.

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

opposite the zoo

Posted on October 30, 2023 by vhk10

Bristol Zoo isn’t located in Clifton any more, but it seemed appropriate to be recording Rejoice in the Lamb with its menagerie just across the road from where it used to be, in the chapel of Clifton College.

Almost everyone I’ve met who attended this school has played the organ. This is only partly a reflection of the sort of company I keep; Clifton used to be very well equipped in this respect, with a Father Willis in the school hall as well as the Harrison organ in the chapel. (The former instrument, restored to the hall at the expense of an old member, was a few years later sent off to a church in Bridgwater.) The chapel has a handsome interior with a fine acoustic and it is a shame that only those who go to school functions get to hear music there, unlike (say) the chapel of Prior Park College which is used for other concerts. Usefully for recording purposes, the chapel is also set well away from street noise, although there were some gurgling pipes at one point.

Praise Him with Trumpets (Window, Clifton College Chapel)

So I’d never been in the chapel, or even in the main school grounds, although in the days of the Brandon Hill Singers we used to rehearse in a music block reached from the street. I was there for one day of Bristol Choral Society’s second recording with Delphian, having not taken part in the previous day’s recording with the choir.

Apart from Rejoice in the Lamb, we recorded two other pieces. The first was Praise Him with Trumpets by Judith Weir, which the choir learnt in lockdown. There are a couple of real trumpets in this, and the composer herself came along again to encourage us. The other was Elizabeth Poston’s Festal Te Deum (again involving a trumpet), which I sang in concert a couple of years ago.

Recording all day, as I have remarked before, is tiring, not just because you are on your feet a lot of the time but also because of the concentration required to try to produce the best performance you are capable of in every take. Despite the busy weekend of singing though, I still felt fresh at the end. The results will appear on CD in a few months.

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