The final concert of Bristol Choral Society’s season, in the Cathedral, was largely music connected to Bristol. (Incidentally I had my triennial audition, and can continue to sing.)<\/p>\n
Bristol does not feature very largely on the map of British composers. Our concert had something in common with a rather similar one I once performed in with the Brandon Hill Singers in St. Mary Redcliffe: a substantial work by Samuel Wesley. This time it was Exultate Deo<\/i>, which blossomed when given space in the generous Cathedral acoustic. (I don’t think I’d have wanted to have met Samuel Wesley, and I think he might well have been in trouble with Operation Yewtree had he lived closer to our own time). The evening opened with a zippy setting of Psalm 150 by David Bednall, who accompanied, and later played an improvisation. We sang the rather pleasant opening of Pearsall’s Requiem mass, a work which perhaps deserves rather more exposure as it would be a useful standby for church choirs; I’d never even heard of it. One piece had a more personal connexion, Raymond Warren’s A new thing<\/i>, as I was at university with his daughter and am still in occasional contact; it was also written for and dedicated to a member of the choir. The half ended with a warhorse of cathedral music, O how glorious is the kingdom<\/i> by Harwood.<\/p>\n
The second half featured Vaughan Williams – folk-song arrangements, ‘Linden Lea’ and Julia Hwang playing The Lark Ascending<\/i>, with piano accompaniment. We ended with three items from the ‘Encores for Choirs’ book: Good Hope<\/i> which combines words from various African languages (clicks and all), a 3-minute condensed version of the Messiah<\/i> and finally an arrangement of ‘Every time I feel the Spirit’. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The final concert of Bristol Choral Society’s season, in the Cathedral, was largely music connected to Bristol. (Incidentally I had my triennial audition, and can continue to sing.) Bristol does not feature very largely on the map of British composers. … Continue reading