The Lion, Reading

Posted on December 20, 2008 by vhk10

Not Kingsley but the title of a movement in True and False Unicorn, part of the Chandos Singers’ tribute to Finnish independence day. We began with Freedom on Saint Nicholas’ Day by Hyvönen, a composer whose career sadly ended when it had barely begun; he died aged about 20. Next came the Agnus Dei from Kokkonen’s Missa a cappella; illness in the tenor section prevented us from doing the complete work, so it lives to fight another day.

The second half was Rautavaara’s True and False Unicorn which included a wide variety of vocal techniques and styles: everything from a spiritual to serialism (in ‘Sigmund of Vienna’).

I don’t think the Finnish Embassy sent a representative, but they did advertise us on their website!

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a Messiah and a carol service

Posted on December 18, 2008 by vhk10

I’ve got a bit behind with performances. Just before Advent began we had a come-and-sing Messiah in church, for which I joined the chorus. This was an informal performance so we could wrap up well and I dug out my Icelandic jumper (though like the Icelandic economy it seems to have shrunk a bit recently). The four vocal parts were more balanced than they usually are in such performances and general familiarity with the work was good! Our performance was conducted by Anthony Crosland.

The following day I was back for the Advent Carol service. This began with one of our regular pieces, the Richard Lloyd setting of the Advent prose. I heard this on an evensong broadcast from Lichfield, so now I know what it sounds like when someone else sings it. Another, Rejoice in the Lord alway by Purcell, was performed at our wedding but I have not sung it for considerably longer than that. (It’s actually not the most exciting of pieces if you’re a soprano). And I thought I know Byrd’s O magnum mysterium but I must have been muddling it up with Victoria’s setting because I realised I hadn’t come across it before.

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Name that tune (1)

Posted on December 17, 2008 by vhk10

The tune notated in this PDF was used as dance music during my daughter’s school play. I heard it again on a compilation tape as background music to the office Christmas party. We would like to know what it is! It goes fast. I have given it in C major.

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Mozartfest 2008

Posted on November 26, 2008 by vhk10

We liked the programme for this year’s Mozartfest and got to four concerts.

The Nash Ensemble just brought their string players this time. I enjoyed the Mozart (G minor string quintet) and Strauss (prelude to Capriccio) in the first half, but the concert really took off with Mendelssohn’s Octet in the second half. The following day others in the family went to hear the Vienna Piano Trio play Mozart (K496), Ravel and Beethoven’s Archduke. It was felt that this trio played French music rather well, and didn’t strive for beauty of sound at the expense of other musical qualities.

On the Thursday I got to hear Kate Royal and Mark Padmore in a joint vocal recital. I just arrived in time as I’d not really taken in that it was in the Guildhall not the Assembly Rooms. This concert was a real treat. The first half was a selection from Schumann’s Myrthen, including Der Nußbaum (love using that HTML), which is possibly the only song where I am more familiar with the accompaniment than the vocal line. (I once had to accompany it offstage in a school production of Time and the Conways). After the interval there were duets, by Handel, Monteverdi and Schumann again. I felt the Monteverdi, beautifully performed though it was, didn’t really fit in the programme. Even Roger Vignoles couldn’t disguise the fact that the accompaniments weren’t written for a piano or anything like it, and this got shown up even more by Schumann’s highly pianistic writing in the surrounding pieces. The vocal highlight was Mark Padmore’s stunning pianissimo control – but I felt that both singers were addressing every word to me, although I was sat quite a way back.

The last concert we attended was the final one, with Charles Mackerras conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the Forum. The first half was based around music from Le Nozze di Figaro with the soprano Rebecca Evans. She appeared in different dress for her two arias, and this was explained as being because the arias were sung by different characters; but my daughter observed that she was playing respectively Susanna, and the Countess disguised as Susanna, so she should have been wearing the same clothes! After the interval came Beethoven’s Pastoral; my husband was less happy with this, because he felt it didn’t really benefit from period instruments. A discussion of where the authenticity movement has got to with regard to music of this period will have to wait for another post.

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Richard Hickox

Posted on November 24, 2008 by vhk10

I was sorry to learn today of the sudden death of this former Bath resident. He conducted a number of concerts with the Bath Festival Chorus and I’ll never now be able to find out at first hand why some of my friends speak so highly of the experience of having sung for him.

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The Museum of Bath at Work

Posted on November 23, 2008 by vhk10

This played host to a concert last night given by A Handful of Singers. This choir is relatively new, and its emergence is some evidence that Bath has been under-provided with good chamber choirs for the number of singers here. (Along with the lengthy waiting lists for auditions for some of the others!) As far as I can tell from talking to people recruitment is only by invitation from existing members. [correction: at the moment – April 2009 – the choir is having a recruitment drive. See the notice in the window of Bath Compact Discs]

The programme was had a 19th-century theme, with choral and solo pieces interspersed with appropriate readings. I usually approach ‘music and readings’ events with some concern, because in my experience the combination can lead to an excessively long programme. (I recall a concert of this type I once sang in, themed on the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, which lasted for going on three hours!) However this time the balance and quantity of the various components was right. Most of the choral pieces were ones I’d done at one time or another, but it was good to hear them nicely sung. I was interested in particular to find out that Rheinberger’s Abendlied, well known to me, has a companion Morgenlied.

The Museum isn’t usually used for concerts, but this was a fund-raising event. I didn’t see any posters for it, and it looked as if most of the audience were friends and family of the performers (I knew two of them).

I did get to some of the Mozartfest concerts, and will write about that next.

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Requiem (2): Britten

Posted on November 22, 2008 by vhk10

On November 9th I sang in Britten’s War Requiem for the first time in the Colston Hall, Bristol. (A first for my setting foot in the Colston Hall, too!) This was the second of a pair of performances with many of the same people taking part; the Bristol one also included the City of Bristol Choir and the Exultate Singers, conducted by David Ogden, and the Tewkesbury Abbey boys were replaced by rather older girls from local school and church choirs. People who sang in both concerts said that Tewkesbury Abbey as a venue had more atmosphere than Colston Hall, but that there was a benefit second time round from having already given one performance.

I went to rehearsals in Tewkesbury and then on the day in Bristol. I was ashamed to arrive late on the day (particularly when I used to arrive so punctually for Exultate Singers rehearsals), because there were no trains and the bus I should have taken was cancelled. I am losing patience with the weekend bus service between the two places (fortunately, I rarely have to use it).

Somehow I have managed to miss the War Requiem altogether, and was unfamiliar with its music. I still have reservations about Britten and can’t count myself as an unqualified fan. The part of the War Requiem that stayed with me most was the Agnus Dei, perhaps because it is so understated. (I imagine you could ask half a dozen people this question and get as many different answers).

Britten wanted the soloists at the first performance to be from the different combatant nations, and there is also a diversity in the musical references within the work. Apart from the nods to earlier Requiem settings and the gamelan style in the Sanctus, I heard echoes of many other 20th-century composers. The opening of the Libera Me, with its untuned percussion followed by a repeated sighing phrase, appears to be a tribute to the first of Berg’s Op. 6 pieces for orchestra, and part of the Lacrimosa took me straight to the final chorus of Mahler 8. Elsewhere, I thought I detected Stravinsky, Shostakovich and dare I say it Orff? I hope that I’ll get to perform the work some other time and explore this further.

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Requiem (1): Fauré

Posted on November 13, 2008 by vhk10

This year we did the Fauré Requiem again for All Souls. This is the third time in the lifetime of this blog that I’ve performed this piece so I’m beginning to run out of things to say about it. There was one difference in this particular performance: I sang the Pie Jesu. Although I learnt this a long time ago, this was the first time I’d performed it. It has a particular difficulty you get also in some of Fauré’s songs: a lot of continuous singing without any significant break. I think my anecdote about the restaurant in York and the Libera Me will have to wait for another time, as I have a backlog of things to write about.

Just time to mention that my husband went to the ENO Aida in London. This is designed by Zandra Rhodes, something which he felt you weren’t allowed to forget! In that it resembles the Magic Flute I went to at the Met in New York a couple of years ago. But he was reasonably happy with the singing.

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hungry at the Wigmore Hall

Posted on November 5, 2008 by vhk10

After singing at St. Paul’s, I decided to go to Florilegium’s all-Bach programme at the Wigmore Hall. I haven’t been to a concert there for a few years, and the building has been refurbished in the meantime. One change (which I’m told is more recent than the refurbishment) is that the cafeteria which used to adjoin one of the bars has now been replaced by a restaurant with waitress service. You are asked to place your order at least half an hour before the performance starts, and I arrived in time to do this. However I failed to catch the attention of any of the staff (although others arriving after me succeeded). Perhaps table 24 is ‘starvation corner’ or maybe a woman on her own is just not as lucrative for the restaurant as a man or a party.

The concert itself was enjoyable, though nothing really stood out for me. The programme was built around a complete performance of the Musical Offering, something I learnt about in detail for A-level (along with Bach’s other major works) but which I haven’t paid much attention to since. Probably the part I know best is the Ricercar – in the arrangement by Webern! I wasn’t totally convinced by the combination of cello and viola da gamba in some parts, but I’m not an early music expert so I’m willing to be persuaded that that is how it should be.

I returned home in reasonable time to find a hot supper waiting for me, and will look out for other places to eat nearby on a future visit.

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the Gloucester Service in St. Paul’s

Posted on November 3, 2008 by vhk10

The following day I was off to London where the Erleigh Cantors were hitting the big time: St. Paul’s Cathedral. This was the first time this choir had sung there; I have previously been with a couple of other choirs, though not within the lifetime of this blog. As it happens, on my last visit (with the Cathedral Chamber Choir) I sang canticles by Howells and an anthem by Bairstow, and this happened again. I suppose the big acoustic suits these composers.

As at Worcester, we arrived shortly before major organ work was to be dedicated and the new work wasn’t totally ready. Our organist got to try out the Cathedral’s new toy – a movable console – but it was located under the dome and behind the conductor’s shoulder which wasn’t the easiest place for contact and the resulting ensemble. The choir stalls are famously far apart, though I couldn’t decide whether they are actually as far from one another as at, say, Lincoln. Or are they much further apart and the size of the building creates the illusion that they are closer than they really are?

I sang Howells’ Gloucester Service again, but first soprano this time so there was some variety. The anthem was Bairstow’s Lord, Thou has been our refuge which is the kind of anthem that can only really be done in cathedral services because of its length. Just as you think it’s reached its climax, another section unfolds. At any rate, I don’t think it started any wars. The service music also included the Sanders responses and a Richard Marlow psalm-chant which was freely based on O for the wings of a dove.

The Cathedral staff made sure that we slotted into the physical and time spaces where the choir was expected to be; I got the impression of being a replacement part in a complex mechanism. (As opposed to the approaches of many other cathedrals: leaving you to your own devices, finding space for you only after everything else has been accommodated, or regarding you as a positive nuisance!)

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the Gloucester Service in Wells

Posted on November 3, 2008 by vhk10

I made it to the final Priory Voices weekend of the year, at Wells Cathedral.  Strangely enough, this was the first time I’d ever done a full weekend of services in Wells, which has been my local cathedral for over a decade.  It’s either been Good Friday concerts with the Bath Camerata or isolated services (and only two of the latter!)

Last time I sang was just before the new rehearsal rooms opened, but this time we were able to use one.  They are a great improvement and very handsome, although still rather lacking in all the choir notices and memorabilia that give many of these rooms their character.

As it turned out, much of the music was pieces I’d recently performed with other groups.  As a result there weren’t really musical high points, though we had lots of stuff by quality composers such as the Byrd 4-part Mass, Howells’ Gloucester Service, Morales’ O Sacrum Convivium, Stanford in C and Brahms’ Geistliches Lied.  There were also some nicely chosen chants, though if I’d turned up to Saturday evensong and got only 6 verses of psalmody, I’d have felt seriously short-changed.  As Ps. 119 comes in 8-verse chunks, I wonder whether it should have been 16?

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some new musical angels

Posted on October 24, 2008 by vhk10

I haven’t sung an evensong in Bath Abbey for quite a while now, but joined a visiting choir for one last Saturday. (This choir was the combined forces of two churches in the Reading area, with significant overlap with the Erleigh Cantors).

This was the first time I’d sung in the choir stalls since various changes were made to them. Some handsome wooden and glazed screens now stand behind the stalls on either side, intended to make it easier to hear the singers on the other side of the quire (a notorious problem at Bath) and to help the sound to project down the nave rather than be dispersed in the transepts. Having now sung in the choir stalls as well as being in the congregation at other services, I have to say that I don’t think they succeed in doing either of these things. I’m not sure what could be done instead, short of blocking off the transepts altogether. Bath Abbey’s own choirs of course are used to the acoustic and experienced at getting round its problems.

A row of sculptures of angels playing musical instruments has been placed near the top of each of these screens. These are best seen from the choir stalls opposite, and I suspect have been designed with that view in mind, rather than as they appear from further down the nave. They still look a bit large for their location.

The music we sang included Noble in B minor and I was Glad by Parry. We had quite a reasonable congregation, though I suspect mostly of the choir’s supporters.

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