Prom 57: a sprint from Ely

Posted on October 13, 2012 by vhk10

Somehow I managed to get away after 4 p.m. evensong at Ely Cathedral, made it to the railway station, leapt onto another train at Cambridge and then arrived at the Albert Hall around 7 o’clock to be there for the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester’s Prom under Daniele Gatti. A print-your-own-ticket facility ensured I had a seat waiting for me, though curiously my (minimal but not non-existent) 3 days’ worth of luggage didn’t get checked. Part of it was my academic gown, which I wore as I went in. Quite a rush, but that is me: Cathedral singer by day, Berg enthusiast by night.

What I’d come to hear was Frank Peter Zimmermann playing the violin concerto, as part of a concert with a loosely Viennese theme. Some of the concert was made up of opera excerpts: it began with some chunks of Parsifal, like the Prom I went to two years ago. And after the interval came the suite from Der Rosenkavalier, which somehow manages to neutralise the attractiveness of the music, especially by its unsubtle replacement of Strauss’ wry original ending with a reprise of one of the big themes.

These pieces were all played with lovely tone and great clarity; the only flaw I noticed was occasional mis-tuning in the brass. The interpretation of Berg’s concerto was on the restrained side (as seems to be common these days), allowing the score to speak for itself rather than being overly demonstrative.

The final piece on the programme was Ravel’s La valse which gradually emerged as a brutal cousin of the Rite of Spring or the second of Berg’s 3 Orchestral Pieces. Sadly I needed to dash off again afterwards to be sure of making my train and so missed what I’m told was a fine performance of the prelude to Meistersinger.

This was generally thought to be one of the best of this year’s Promenade concerts. Proms audiences seem to have been more beset by coughs than ever (perhaps it’s the cold, wet summer), but even the apparently more inattentive fell silent and really paid attention.

Reviews:

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a reunion with Cambridge Voices

Posted on September 21, 2012 by vhk10

On the Sunday of my Ely visit, Cambridge Voices (described in their publicity as ‘one of Europe’s finest choirs’!) came to rehearse Bach’s B minor Mass in the Lady Chapel under the direction of Ian de Massini. I dropped in, because I sang in the predecessor of this choir, the Cambridge Chamber Group, and knew many of its members. While the chapel was being set up I ‘worked the room’ and went round as many people whom I remembered as I could find in the time! And it was good to find that they remembered me too – in fact more than one suggested that I should insinuate myself into the choir for the concert, though my travel plans didn’t allow for that.

I notice that an altar with an elaborate iron fence round three sides (I forget the correct term for this) has appeared at the east end, which tones down the effect of the statue in the Chapel. I still suspect that the statue will be taken down for repairs before too long, and that these repairs will go on indefinitely.

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going up the Octagon

Posted on September 21, 2012 by vhk10

I have never been able to go up the Octagon in Ely Cathedral before, but it is now open to the public on guided tours, and some of us in the Cathedral Chamber Choir seized the chance to do so on our recent choir tour. If you have a head for heights you get wonderful views back down into the building and the painted angels are surprisingly broad-brushed when seen at close hand.

But we were there to sing, and I joined the choir part way through its Cathedral week. On Friday we sang an unaccompanied service (Gibbons and Byrd) in the Lady Chapel to a congregation ranged round the walls. I’d forgotten just how resonant a building this is.

Saturday was a bit of a wallow with Blair in B minor and Brahms’ How lovely are Thy dwellings.

On Sunday we gave the premiere of a Missa Brevis by our conductor, Matthew O’Donovan. Actually it’s not clear that it was the premiere because it was also being performed at a service that morning in Germany, conducted by another member of the choir. But our performance was complete (the Cathedral varied its usual liturgical pattern to allow us to sing both Kyrie and Gloria). It’s an intriguing mix of French-style choral and organ writing with some vigorous Latin American-influenced rhythms.

Our final evensong was a big sing – Dyson in D and Give unto the Lord by Elgar.

We stayed in Bishop Woodforde House, which was comfortable and gave us a generous breakfast each morning. And I think this is the first Cathedral week I’ve been on where the choir got two drinks parties!

There are some audio clips (including parts of the Friday Evensong and Sunday Eucharist) on the choir’s web site (go to the ‘visits’ tab and look for Ely).

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a Cathedral organist in a village church

Posted on September 11, 2012 by vhk10

The small village of Rumengol in Finistère has no amenities other than a bar and a church. However it’s no ordinary church, as twice a year it holds a pardon (religious festival with processions). The Assumptiontide pardon co-incided with our stay in the area and part of the festivities was an organ recital by Yves Cuenot, organist of Dijon Cathedral, which I went to.

The recital was a mixture of short pieces, transcriptions for organ, a couple of pieces where the organist accompanied a local singer, and, this being France, some improvisation, all on a Marian theme (rather loosely as it included the hymn to the Evening Star from Tannhäuser). The final piece on the programme was a ‘Suite pour Rumengol’ by M. Cuenot himself. The audience were invited to join in appropriate plainchant during the improvisations on the Magnificat (which I did) and to sing a locally well-known hymn in Breton at the end (which I didn’t).

I’d guess that Dijon is a mid-ranking Cathedral in the French organ world. So how did its organist come to be playing a rather rheumatic organ in a village church? I had the impression he was a regular visitor, so perhaps he usually spends his summers in the area. Or was it the prestige of the pardon?

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Prom 39: the off-stage brass that wasn’t

Posted on September 3, 2012 by vhk10

It’s been a dozen years since Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts was heard at the Proms, and the Albert Hall would seem a natural place for it, because of the huge forces, including four extra sets of brass instruments. When I performed this work in Colston Hall two years ago, these were distributed in four corners of the hall and the Proms prospectus implied that something similar would be done when Thierry Fischer brought the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to the Proms: ‘Although the work’s choral and instrumental requirements are massive, perhaps most revolutionary is its exploitation of the performance space as an element of composition.’

I accordingly positioned myself in the centre of the arena to enjoy the full aural effect of being surrounded by the brass players. However, they were ranged around the edge of the orchestra, apparently following Berlioz’ directions expressed in his memoirs. In fact, Berlioz said that the four bands should be at the corners of the combined choir and orchestra, which when the choir is 500 strong is quite different from simply putting them in a line behind the woodwind.

In any case, was Berlioz being pragmatic, thinking that the players available to him couldn’t cope with being in four corners of a large building? If he could have heard a good orchestra performing thus distributed, would he have given different instructions? I did feel that some of the immediacy – the sense that the events depicted are happening here, now – was lost from the passages where the extra brass were used.

The huge choral forces sang well, although the tenor soloist was recovering from illness and struggled with the higher passages in his very exposed part. Among the orchestra, I’ll single out the lead flute, whose notes seemed to dangle from a thread in some of the quieter, more intimate passages (tempi generally were on the slow side). I think she (or he) deserved their own call at the end.

I raved about this piece last time, but I’ll end with a some food for thought: what was it with Berlioz and judgement? Right from the start (his lost opera Les francs-juges dealt with a group of judges), and later especially the Last Judgement (in which Berlioz didn’t actually believe). He put the Dies irae plainchant into a symphony and emphased the Last Judgement in his Te Deum. His take on the Faust legend isn’t simply called Faust, but La damnation de Faust, emphasising the final verdict. No wonder he came up with something so extraordinary when he set the Dies Irae directly.

Reviews:

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Prom 12: Interval O’Boulez

Posted on September 1, 2012 by vhk10

My husband took the elder children to hear Daniel Barenboim conduct the West-Eastern Divan orchestra in a programme of Boulez (Mémoriale and Messagesquisse) and Beethoven (Fifth and Sixth Symphonies). They got a slip in their programme saying that the interval would be after the second Boulez piece, not the first, but many people were unaware of this change and after the first Boulez made a dash for the bar/toilets/ice-cream stall/natter in the corridor with friends, and then missed the second. (It says something about the Proms audience that most of those so excluded tried to get back in to hear the Boulez).

I’m told that the orchestra sounded good, though some sections of it are more accomplished than others.

Some reviews:

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the Cathedral with the beer mug

Posted on August 29, 2012 by vhk10

Lichfield Cathedral has a beer mug on display, which used to be used to issue a measure of beer to lay-clerks as part of their payment. That doesn’t happen any more (or rather it still does, but indirectly via the lay-clerks’ bank accounts).

I joined Priory Voices for a weekend of services there at the end of July. The Sunday morning music was Widor’s Mass, which I’d only ever rehearsed before, not performed. It’s edited from a Mass he wrote for two choirs (not double choir) – you can still see the joins in places.

The canticles included Murrill in E (for the second time in a week!) and Noble in B minor and we used Sumsion’s responses. Early music included O Sacrum Convivium by Croce, Tallis’ O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit, and Let thy merciful ears, O Lord. So nothing that required too much straining against Lichfield’s high pitch, except possibly Joubert’s O Lorde the maker of al thing.

Because of illness we had two conductors during the weekend and repeated Saturday’s anthem on Sunday.

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comfy cushions at Exeter

Posted on August 29, 2012 by vhk10

My recent excursions to sing at Exeter Cathedral have involved rehearsing in the Chapter House, in one case while people were noisily setting up lunch next to us. I’m happy to say those days are now over, and there is a new rehearsal room which visiting choirs can use. (I can just remember the old one, because we rehearsed there when I first sang at Exeter, with my college choir). This was a great improvement for the Erleigh Cantors’ visit, although we did have to rehearse in the visitors’ centre on Saturday evening. I missed the first two days’ singing and came for the weekend services.

I’d sung all of the music before, mostly with this choir. Saturday’s music included Harris’ Strengthen ye the weak hands, a demanding sing which I would guess contains one of the last (apparently sincerely written) Handelian-style recitatives. A less familar introit was Aston’s Beloved, let us love, an unaccompanied setting of a version of 1 John, which sneaks in a top B flat for sopranos near the end. (And one of the more awkward page-turns, with a crescendo on the first page but no indication of what level you crescendo to, because it’s on the next one!)

On Sunday morning we sang For Lo, I Raise Up by Stanford, the favourite anthem of choral scholars at St. John’s Cambridge ‘He scoffeth at King’s’, and clock-repairers ‘I will stand upon my watch’. Our Eucharist setting was Mathias’ Missa Aedis Christi, which is in his usual ‘Anglican spiky’ style but carefully written with leads for the singers prepared in the accompaniment. Later at Mattins came Britten’s morning canticles in C and Lassus’ Justorum Animae.

On Sunday Evening the Magnificat was Finzi’s setting. This should really give the lie to the idea that Finzi just wrote mild, wishy-washy music. I’ve often wondered whether the multiple repetition of the word ‘Abraham’ near the end is a tribute to the composer’s Jewish descent. We paired this with Rachmaninov’s Nunc Dimittis (in English), and a relatively short anthem, Sydney Carter’s Sing we merrily.

I should like to praise Exeter for something I’ve never commented on before in writing up Cathedral visits: the comfortable and beautiful needlepoint cushions the choir sit on. Exeter clearly has a very active and skilled church needlework team.

Almost every time I go to Exeter there happens to be a visitor in the congregation who knows me. This time, it generated a blog post (the title of the blog does not reflect his opinion of the choir!)

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Reincarnations

Posted on August 10, 2012 by vhk10

I went to hear the Clothworkers Consort of Leeds (formerly the Leeds University Liturgical Choir) singing a concert in Christ Church Bath during their residency at Bath Abbey.

The most notable feature of the concert was the large number of different formations the choir members adopted in the performance area. There were single choir, double choir, choir and semi-chorus, and parts scrambled together, with various combinations of these. The sound was good, though not without the top-heaviness which is usual in student choirs.

The choir seemed rather happier in the 20th-21st century music in the second half of the concert, than in the earlier pieces in the first half (their conductor Bryan White is a specialist in the English Restoration). The music in the second half was all new to me, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything sung in Manx before! (the piece in question being a folksong arrangement by Vaughan Williams). In particular, I’d never heard Samuel Barber’s Reincarnations, which is him in would-be Irish mode. These really deserve to be better known, although quite demanding to perform I suspect. The second half also included two settings of Stevenson by Philip Henderson, commissioned by the choir and receiving their first live performance (although the choir has recorded them). I enjoyed these, but have never sung (or heard?) anything by their composer. What a lot of choral music there is out there that one can so easily miss.

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In the Garden of God

Posted on August 2, 2012 by vhk10

Sadly the weather prevented us from enjoying the St. Mary Magdalen chapel garden, which has one of the best views in Bath. Instead, the Chandos singers performed an unusual programme of music setting mostly Catholic texts, or at least texts by Catholic authors.

Rubbra’s Creature-songs to Heaven are a real rarity. They set four poems, translated by Rumer Godden, which imagine how a hen, a snail, a ladybird and a peacock might address God. They were written for a school choir which I imagine must have found them quite taxing because they are difficult, even with the help of a piano accompaniment (the accompaniment exists in various forms). I can see there are non-musical reasons why they have sunk, rather unfairly, almost without trace (an Internet search on the title turned up no performances other than our own!). They aren’t secular, but couldn’t be performed as part of the liturgy, and also Rubbra’s music is generally out of fashion now (apart from choirs going doggedly through his evening canticles in A flat).

I’d divide Britten’s music for unaccompanied choir, or choir+small forces, into two categories. There are the pieces that don’t require a very accomplished choir (of which I’d rate Rejoice in the Lamb as the hardest) and the ones that are really seriously hard (of which I’d rate the Hymn to St. Cecilia as the easiest). AMDG, an unaccompanied setting of seven poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, is definitely in the latter camp. The set was never completed, which suggests that Britten himself was not happy with it, as I think he didn’t leave a trail of unfinished pieces behind him. I sense that he was somehow at odds with the words – perhaps this is most clear in his setting of The Soldier, which apparently praises a profession Britten would have deplored. Occasionally I got disconcerting echoes of other pieces Britten wrote around the same time, such as his Cabaret songs!

We sang two of Grieg’s ‘Psalms’ Op. 74, his last compositions, and characteristic of him in their rather modal turns of phrase, but now combined with daring harmonies.

Substantial pieces by Sweelinck (Ecce prandium meum) and Gabrieli (Jubilate Deo) completed the concert.

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Why I’m giving up chamber choirs

Posted on July 23, 2012 by vhk10

I don’t want to alarm too many people whom I sing for – I’m not giving up singing in small groups for liturgical purposes, or taking part in workshops for small numbers of singers. Nor am I necessarily doing this absolutely and for ever – in fact, I’m always open to the opportunity to do something interesting and worthwhile, and to having my arm twisted. But for the moment I intend, where concerts are concerned, to concentrate on larger groups of 60 or more. (I realise this is a rather arbitrary division, but in my experience it seems about the right place to make it).

Severeral things have led me to this. One is the realisation that there are number of works I would like to sing, or sing again, that can only be done with a large chorus. Another is meeting a number of good singers who do a lot of symphony chorus singing, and clearly do not regard it as a second-rate option. Thirdly, after singing recently in a couple of concerts with a large chorus, I’m beginning to feel that this may be what I’m best cut out for. If I’m honest, this suspicion has been at the back of my mind for a long time, even from before I moved to Bath.

My history with chamber choirs has been mixed. There have been a lot of choral relationships which haven’t worked worked out, but no real recurring theme, unless it’s the dreaded ‘waiting list for auditions’, which never in practice leads to an audition. Sometimes I’ve had to say goodbye when I moved away from the area; other choirs, in particular the Brandon Hill Singers, just fizzled out. I had the misfortune to live in Manchester at a time when there were very few chamber choirs there (others noticed this, and several were started up at around the time I left). One local conductor said she admired my singing and musicianship, while treating me as one of the most dispensible of her singers. Another dropped me from his (very distinguished) choir explaining that he felt I wasn’t at ease in some of the repertoire they did, a fair comment at the time. Two other local choirs cancelled auditions at the last minute. And so on and so forth. I am beginning to conclude that I may have been barking up the wrong tree for quite a while.

I should like to make it clear that I’m not quitting in a huff the choir I’ve been singing with most recently. Far from it. But I do feel I need a change. Watch this space for news of what happens next.

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Adam and Eve-ing it

Posted on July 19, 2012 by vhk10

I took part in the South West Festival Chorus/Bath Phil’s performance of Haydn’s Creation. Our conductor, Jason Thornton, told as that Haydn had been inspired to write the work after conducting Messiah in Bath Abbey, so by performing it there we were ‘bringing it home’.

I hadn’t done this for some years (last time was with the Brandon Hill Singers). One problem with it is that there isn’t a huge variety of mood. The fall of the demons near the start of the work is really the only ‘dark’ music the chorus has to sing. For the rest of it, we bob up at the end of each day’s work and cheer ‘Another winner! Hooray for God!’

Meanwhile we had some fine soloists (Sophie Bevan in particular). I’d forgotten quite what a long work the Creation is, and in fact we cut it slightly.

In order to practice entries, I stood in for the soprano soloist in part of the rehearsal, including one of the long Adam/Eve duets. (Fortunately not the bit where (the unfallen) Eve has to sing ‘from obedience grows my happiness’!) In fact, if I’d been making Genesis’ Creation story into a libretto I’d have done it a bit differently. Haydn could surely have done something interesting with the bit about Adam’s rib, for example.

The performance was reviewed in the Bath Chronicle. It was just a pity that the audience, though sizeable, wasn’t even larger. The concert didn’t get any extra publicity beyond the usual Bath Phil leaflets.

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