flat peaches in Southwark

Posted on July 26, 2004 by vhk10

That’s ‘peaches’, not ‘pitches’! I bought some at Borough Market, an added bonus to visiting Southwark Cathedral on a Saturday, as part of a weekend there with the Erleigh Cantors. As on previous visits, we were well looked after, with for example a copy of the current music list for every singer and the use of a kitchen for making hot drinks or squash (the only other Cathedral I’ve known to provide this was Christ Church, Dublin).
We sang a lot of music this weekend and an annotated list follows:

Saturday Evensong:
Neary, Martin Responses
Harris, William Behold the tabernacle of God
This was written when the RSCM moved into Addington Palace. Did they commission another anthem when they moved out a few years ago?
Swayne, Giles Magnificat
I wrote earlier about starting to learn this with the rhythm, contrary to my usual practice. Then come the notes and the underlay (not trivial, since there are occasional syllables or pairs of syllables which are unexpectedly repeated). After all this is sorted out, technical problems such as the 3 top B’s the sopranos get towards the end of the piece are just a courtesy detail. I found I was too busy with the earlier sections to be bothered about these, and so they weren’t a problem. Clergy and visitors to the Cathedral alike were intrigued by this setting.
Fayrfax, Robert Evening Canticles ‘faux-bourdon’ (Nunc)
Rutter, John Praise ye the Lord
After some deliberation and experiment we decided to shout the ‘Praise!’ at the end.

Sunday Eucharist
Piccolo, Anthony Canterbury Mass
This is the most interesting setting using modern texts that I’ve sung. Also notable for the flying start you have to make in the Gloria.
Gabrieli, Giovanni Jubilate Deo
A real test of concentration, this one, as it goes on quite a bit longer than you expect.
Gesualdo, Carlo O vos omnes
I didn’t expect anything to upstage the Swayne for me, but this did; it’s the first piece by Gesualdo that I’ve sung. Even to someone accustomed to 20th century music it was startling, not so much for dissonance (nothing that can’t be equalled in this respect by many passages of Purcell, for example), but for its harmonic progessions.

Sunday Evensong:
Batten, Adrian O praise the Lord
Stanford, Charles V Evening Canticles in A
My favourite Stanford setting! It’s just a bit grander than the others, presumably because it can also be performed with an orchestra.
Harwood, Basil O how glorious
Hadn’t done this for ages and I realised that I’d learnt some wrong notes in the past – three places where the sopranos drop a fifth and cross the alto line in the process.

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Priory Voices (3): Gloucester

Posted on July 18, 2004 by vhk10

I fulfilled two ambitions by singing at Gloucester this last weekend with Priory Voices. Firstly, I had never before sung at Gloucester Cathedral. Now I’ve done this, there are only five C of E Cathedrals in England I have yet to perform in: Sheffield (scheduled for October), Birmingham, Leicester, Wakefield and Bradford. Therefore I’ve now sung in all the Cathedrals in the South of England and all the ‘ancient’ ones (those that were Cathedrals before the nineteenth century, half of the total). There’s no particular reason why I should have waited so long for Gloucester, except that the city centre is relatively barren compared with many other cathedral cities, which may make it less appealing to choirs. The cathedral though is one of the very finest. We made good use of the recently refurbished organ, which sounded especially impressive after we’d been rehearsing with an upright piano in the education centre!

Furthermore, I got to sing Howells’ St. Paul’s Service for the first time since I left Cambridge a decade ago. I think this is my favourite Howells setting, and that its long, sweeping vocal lines are more suited to women’s voices than, say, the fussier openings of Coll. Reg. or Gloucester, which I’ve sung many times in the last few years. But this view wasn’t universal among the members of Priory Voices! Anyway, that is another item on my wishlist seen to.

I can’t finish without mentioning the Vierne Messe Solennelle which we sang at the Eucharist. I sang this last year in Bristol Cathedral; we purchased our own copies then and rather than take out a second mortgage and buy a full score I got the vocal score, which is about the size of a postage stamp and doesn’t have the organ part in. (If you’re lucky, you are given a few organ notes to give you your lead, otherwise you just have to count bars and pitch your note from memory). There’s something of the fairground organ about this setting (e.g. the gloriously naff little motif which accompanies Sanctus and Hosannas). As for the choir, I think Vierne thought of it as an additional organ stop – a real Vox Humana if you like. And frequently his idea of developing musical material is to repeat it at a different pitch. But it’s fun to sing in the right building.

Next time, I’ll be posting a report on my weekend singing Swayne et al. in Southwark Cathedral.

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the worst week of the year

Posted on July 11, 2004 by vhk10

… for concert-going in London, except possibly the week between Christmas and New Year. I am attending a meeting at the British Library tomorrow and my usual practice if work takes me to London is to end the day by going to a concert, but I have drawn a blank this time. The major orchestras and ENO have finished their seasons, the Proms haven’t started yet and the Wigmore Hall is dark because it’s being refurbished. I’ve tried a few other likely venues such as St. John’s Smith Square but no joy. All I can find is a sold-out Tosca at the Royal Opera House (everyone who’s missed this production over the last 40 years wants to see it!) and two concerts on the South Bank: one by a local youth orchestra, and the other a 70th birthday concert of works by a composer unknown to me. So it looks like I’ll go to the theatre instead.

On a more positive note, the Chantry Singers concert of Kodály, Haydn, Schütz and Walliser (a composer previously unknown to me) was well received. I didn’t feel I was singing quite at my best. I think the reason was probably the need to adjust to the high pitch of the organ, after rehearsing with a piano at standard pitch. (Salisbury Cathedral presents a similar problem). I’d got used to singing the music at that pitch and was consciously thinking higher, not because I have perfect pitch but because I had a physical memory of what it felt like singing them. But pushing up notes from below, especially very high ones, is a bad idea! I still haven’t worked out which of the tenors or basses caught my husband out in a recent cricket match.
Next week I’ll be writing up a weekend of services in Gloucester Cathedral.

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why are you clapping?

Posted on July 6, 2004 by vhk10

…. asked my two-year-old son, finding me with a copy of the Swayne Magnificat on my knee which I was beginning to learn, for a performance with the Erleigh Cantors at Southwark Cathedral at the end of the month.
The cross-rhythms require a great deal of concentration and as always familiarity, possibly to the point of memorisation, will make it all easier. There are several ways of making sense of them, the most basic being as a kind of binary on-off sequence, though this doesn’t give you any sense of structure. To start with I’m looking at it bar by bar (most of the piece is in a strict 4/4). Often it’s clear how there are smaller, repeating rhythmic cells, though when they turn out to be 3 ½ or 1 ½ beats long it may not be a huge amount of help knowing they are there! At the moment I’m concentrating on one passage of about six bars where the rhythm is especially irregular.

There are several other new (to me) pieces in this weekend: O Praise the Lord by Rutter, Piccolo’s Canterbury Mass, O vos omnes by Gesualdo and Jubilate Deo by Gabrieli. The last two from the OUP European Sacred Music volume which I’m increasingly asked to sing from and which has brought a lot of things into the repertoire.

Meanwhile I have the music for the Priory Voices visit to Gloucester Cathedral and a new CD player to play the accompanying CD on, and the Chantry Singers’ concert of church music is this coming weekend.

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more on Mags and Nuncs

Posted on June 25, 2004 by vhk10

A quick calculation shows that the 21-CD Priory Records Mag and Nunc set (see my previous posting) contains some 188 different settings of the canticles (including a few instances of free-standing Mags or Nuncs). A few settings appear more than once, such as Dyson in D. About a third of these 188 I would be unlikely ever to sing, because they are only in local use, and/or for men’s voices only or for trebles only (in practice I’m never asked to sing canticles of this last type). I estimate that I’ve sung a little over half of the rest at one time or another. Many of them I learnt with the choir of my Cambridge college, which performed about thirty different settings a year.

188 different settings – but which ones aren’t there? I found one very striking omission: William Mathias’ ‘Jesus College’ canticles, which I think of as a standard part of the repertoire; at any rate I can recall the music instantly to mind. I found that early settings were rather under-represented (for example Caustun, Humphrey, and a couple I’ve done by Tomkins). Perhaps when the recordings were made there weren’t good editions, or they were inconveniently long. The same two reasons may account for the absence of Stanford’s Magnificat in B flat for double choir, which has enjoyed a recent surge in popularity thanks to a new edition (I will leave to another time my views on on whether this is deserved or not!).

Some of the missing ones are missing for good reason! I can’t remember anything about Arnold in A, Nicholson in D flat or Macpherson in D, for example. There was a time when these and their like formed a large proportion of the settings I sang – a pity when there were good settings around which were no harder.

On the other hand, listening to these CDs has reminded me of many settings I ought to add to my wishlist: among them Ayleward, Howells in B minor, Purcell in B flat, Tippett St. John’s, Parry in D. Now that the music list for my forthcoming trip to Winchester has been announced I see that I get a chance to sing Bairstow in D for the first time.

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an embarrassing mistake

Posted on June 21, 2004 by vhk10

Singing the Kodály Missa Brevis again reminds me of what happened on the only other occasion I performed this piece. Kodály is admirably uninhibited about using the top end of the sopranos’ range and the score is sprinkled with top A’s and above. I had recently joined the Cambridge Chamber Group and we did the Mass on little rehearsal, I think because most people had recently sung it in a concert. At any rate I knew the work less well than everyone else and in those days I was not so conscientious about learning notes. On one of the most exposed high bits I found myself a semitone out from the others. I still shudder inwardly at the recollection of this, but it’s taken until now for me to have an opportunity to perform the passage correctly!
In an odd sort of way the Missa Brevis reminds me in parts of Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G minor. For example, the setting of the words ‘Glorificamus te’ in the Gloria. Perhaps it’s what comes of noodling around with folk-song.

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Britten at the Theatre Royal

Posted on June 11, 2004 by vhk10

I went to one other performance at the Bath Festival: Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream put on by English Touring Opera at the Theatre Royal. This production was well reviewed and I generally enjoyed it, although the Oberon and some other singers didn’t always come over very strongly. But I realise that somewhere along the line I don’t completely connect with Britten. In particular, I find his sense of humour rather heavy-handed, although I did have fun with the take-offs of other operas in the play-within-a-play in the final act. I wouldn’t let this put me off going to a performance of one of his operas another time (this was the first one I’d ever seen).

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Priory Voices (2): Wells

Posted on June 7, 2004 by vhk10

So at last I’ve sung a service in Wells Cathedral. I was a bit disappointed not to do all of the promised three psalms, but there was some compensation in the form of a lovely introit, new to me: Domenico Scarlatti’s Iste Confessor. A simple strophic setting of the hymn, built around a beautiful melody given in alternate verses to soprano soloist and to choir. We sang from an internet edition downloaded from this page. All the rest was very familiar music: Stanford in G, Rose responses and Weelkes’ Alleluia, I heard a voice, the last also from an internet edition (I’m coming across them more and more often these days).

I was asked by a member of the congregation one of the things I’m frequently asked ‘Where are you from?’ I find cathedral congregations, and even sometimes even the clergy, often have difficulty imagining how we can come from all over the place and put together performances on the day, without meeting beforehand. Surely it’s not that uncommon a skill? I’ll be doing it again next month when Priory Voices visit Gloucester.

Meanwhile, a couple of choirs have passed on an invitation to me and other members to participate in the TV Wife Swap; apparently they’re targeting choral singers for the next series!

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Priory Voices (1): Lincoln

Posted on June 2, 2004 by vhk10

I haven’t written about Priory Voices before, but they are going to feature a lot this summer. The choir meets several times a year for a weekend singing in a Cathedral; its members come from all over (though many live or have lived in the North-West) and we rehearse intensively at the place where we’re singing. This works because the conductor chooses singers who can turn out a good performance under this sort of pressure, most of whom will know most of the music already. The music is sent out in advance with a recording so you can mug up on anything unfamiliar.

Unfortunately, my music for last weekend’s visit to Lincoln Cathedral was delayed in the post and only arrived at the last possible minute. In my experience (it was my third visit to sing services there) rehearsal time at this cathedral is always extremely short, and the result was that I had to concentrate very hard for the Howells ‘Coll. Reg.’ morning canticles, which I’d never sung before. I knew more or less how the Te Deum went, because it is often broadcast; but that left the Jubilate, and the rhythms of the Te Deum are also irregular and very easy to mis-count. The other new piece for me was Tallis’ Loquebantur variis linguis.

Saturday evensong was almost entirely music by Sumsion, who is not a favourite of mine. He goes in for long phrases that I find meander about with no great sense of direction. I’ll make a partial exception for a couple of anthems where this becomes a more positive feature because it illustrates the words, as with ‘In exile’ (depicting the lamentation of the exiles) or in Saturday’s anthem ‘They that go down to the sea in ships’ (rolling waves). Another exception, for a different reason, is his Responses (which we also did on Saturday); here the format imposes limitations, so that your Sumsion comes in handy bite-sized chunks. At least I’m promised some items from my wishlist in Priory Voices events later in the year.

The choir’s next outing is at Wells Cathedral next weekend. Astonishingly, I’ve lived in the diocese for some eight years and never sung a service at Wells, only Bath Camerata concerts. I can’t sing the whole weekend, but have been given a special dispensation to join the choir for Sunday evensong.

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Biber in the Festival

Posted on May 26, 2004 by vhk10

I’m not going to very many concerts in the Bath Festival this year – I don’t have many free evenings, and also this is another year when the Bath Festival Chorus is not performing.
I usually get to a concert in the Abbey; this venue often sells out or nearly so despite its size. Last year it was a performance of ‘Dido and Aeneas’ which I remember largely for a rarely-heard guitar interlude (though having heard it I could see why it was usually left out) and an extraordinary spoken postlude in which the only word I could clearly make out was ‘Protestant’. (The postlude was dropped when the performance was repeated at the Proms).
This time it was Biber’s Missa Christi Resurgentis, receiving its first modern performance in Europe from the English Concert. (My knowledge is a bit incomplete because the programmes had sold out by the time I arrived). The concert got a five-star-rated review in the Guardian. When I hear choral music unfamiliar to me, I usually end up thinking what it would be like to perform it. In this case, the music was pleasant enough to listen to, but I don’t think I’d find it so interesting to sing, at least if I were in the second choir. Although the choral writing was far from dull, I had the impression that the composer was often really interested in the orchestral parts rather than the vocal lines. I should qualify this by saying that I was sitting in a side aisle where the orchestra came over more strongly than the choir. The Mass was interspersed with instrumental pieces, topped and tailed by plainchant sung by the choir (and some of the orchestra!) as they processed in and out, and the whole concert finished with the humorous ‘nightwatchman’s serenade’. It was short – only just over an hour of music without an interval – and will go out on Radio 3 next week.

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lots of Mags and Nuncs

Posted on May 17, 2004 by vhk10

Some generous birthday presents have helped me to buy the Priory Records complete Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis series in 21 CDs (Disclaimer: I have no financial or other interest in Priory Records). I’ve been listening to all the discs to check that there are no problems with any of them.

I won’t attempt to review the entire set here but I’ll nominate some of my favourites: Chichester (for the Holst Nunc and Smart in G), Truro (because I’ve sung almost all the settings on this disc), Keble College (the only mixed-voice recording – I identify with the choral sound but am not so keen on their organ) and New College (an ambitious programme including the Finzi and Swayne Magnificats and the Byrd ‘Great’ service). Anyone looking at this last should note that my copy at least has both Mag and Nunc from the Great Service, on a single track. My special award for best liner notes goes to Paul Trepte’s on the Ely disc.
I expect to use these recordings to prepare for performances of some of these settings. To help me locate them, I’ve created an index to the set, ordered by composer. I can supply this in Word or Excel form for anyone who’s interested.

I’ll return to this set in another posting, and consider the choice of canticles (including identifying the well-known setting which they’ve unaccountably not recorded!).

[I’ve now found a review of the series here]

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my time in the Exon Singers

Posted on May 10, 2004 by vhk10

I don’t have much going on at the moment to write about, but I see that someone searched this blog for references to the Exon Singers, so here is an account of my connexion with them.

Some years ago I was recruited at short notice to sing in the Exon Singers’ summer West Country tour, conducted by Christopher Tolley. Over the week I was with them, we performed in venues including Buckfast Abbey, Truro and Exeter Cathedrals, and the barn at Buckland Abbey.

It was clear that the membership of the choir was pretty stable, and for some years afterwards I had fun picking out the voices of people I recognised when the choir sang their Choral Evensong broadcast at New Year. There were also a lot of couples in it, which may have been connected to the fact that the free board and lodging laid on for us in Tavistock was only available to singers.

Most of the music we performed was new to me. I recall three (very diverse) pieces in particular: Byrd’s Laudibus in Sanctis (done on minimal rehearsal as everyone else had recently sung it with the choir), Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden (since learning which I’ve never had problems pitching augmented 4ths/diminished 5ths), and a setting of part of Dr Seuss’s Sleep Book by Roderick Williams.

The week was hard work because of all the new music, and in those days I was relatively inexperienced, but I enjoyed being part of such a good choir. I occasionally look back on it with nostalgia, especially at times when singing at that standard isn’t available to me. I see from the website that now Jeffrey Makinson, whom I knew in my Manchester days, plays for them, but they don’t seem to assemble at Tewkesbury over New Year any more.

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