The Cathedral Chamber Choir spent Low Sunday weekend at a new venue for us, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. I’d sung there once before, a huge combined NW choral societies’ performance of Gerontius<\/i>. I remember two things from that: one was that you couldn’t find a better demonstration that sound travels much slower than light, as the semi-chorus had to be re-positioned several times before they were able to keep toghether with the orchestra. The other was that we carefully seated ourselves somewhere with a sightline (vital for the reason I have just given), only to find a row of tall members of the RLPO chorus, who had been excused the morning rehearsal, appearing after lunch and blocking our view completely. I spent the concert swaying from side to side to get a fleeting glimpse of the conductor.<\/p>\n
Back to Low Sunday 2012. We sang the Saturday evensong in the Lady Chapel – itself larger than most churches. We filled this relatively intimate space with Byrd’s Sing joyfully<\/i>, V-W’s O taste and see<\/i> and for a bit more beef, Stanford in B flat.<\/p>\n
On the Sunday we were in the ‘Big Space’ for which we had one of the Cathedral’s approved organists. I know the requirement to use an organist on this list puts some choirs off coming to Liverpool, but without it a lot of rehearsal time could easily get used up on getting the ensemble together. Our Mass setting was Mozart’s in F K192, which I think I may have done before, but if so remembered nothing from it. Evensong featured Howells’ Gloucester<\/i> canticles and a second helping of Stanford, Ye choirs of new Jerusalem<\/i> which we used to bawl out on Easter Day at Little St. Mary’s. This being Liverpool, we only had rather miserable scraps of psalmody to sing. I had a look at their chant book and it seemed to have a very limited variety of chants, so clearly psalms aren’t a very high priority.<\/p>\n
I got some time to look around the building and found a window near the West end depicting a selection of church musicians. There can’t be many representations of John Goss and F.A.G. Ouseley in stained glass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Cathedral Chamber Choir spent Low Sunday weekend at a new venue for us, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. I’d sung there once before, a huge combined NW choral societies’ performance of Gerontius. I remember two things from that: one was that … Continue reading