This year Bristol Choral Society didn’t do Messiah<\/i>, but put on a programme called ‘An English Christmas’. I was glad of the change as, apart from the anthems we sing in church and bits of carol singing, I don’t get to do any Christmas repertoire these days. In particular, this concert ended with Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols<\/i>, which somehow I’ve managed never to sing before, though I have heard it countless times, which made it straightforward to learn.<\/p>\n
The concert opened with another fantasia, Christmas Day<\/i> by Holst, unknown to me and I felt rather more contrived than Vaughan Williams’ piece. Both date from the years just before the First World War, a time when a lot of composers were writing rather fruitlessly about ‘peace on earth’ (Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden<\/i> comes to mind.)<\/p>\n
The rest of the first half was the SATB version of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols<\/i>, which I did once in the Pump Room with the Chantry Singers (and later, in part, with Exultate Singers). Another very familiar piece, ingrained now because I did the first seven movements as a set work for O-level Music. The arrangement is careful, though occasionally the tenors and basses are left without much to do, and I’m puzzled that That yongë child<\/i> is no longer a solo. (As with In Freezing Winter Night<\/i>, my favourite movement, I feel that this is where Britten is here really writing in his own voice rather than striving to be tuneful.)<\/p>\n
We also began the second half with Holst, his arrangement of Psalm 148 which I hadn’t come across before (we didn’t do its partner, psalm 86). Then Finzi’s In Terra Pax<\/i>. I was one of only a handful in the choir who had sung this before – my chamber-choir background showing up again, I suppose. It’s a piece I can’t sing without remembering the first time I did it, with Janet (RIP) doing the soprano solo.<\/p>\n
We were fortunate to have Anne Denholm, harpist to the Prince of Wales, with us again. Our vocal soloists were Gwen Martin and René Bloice-Sanders and orchestral accompaniment was supplied by the Bristol Ensemble. We had a new (to me) arrangement of singers, with tenors and basses brought further forward, with some sopranos and altos behind them.<\/p>\n
We don’t have a monopoly on the last usable Saturday before Christmas and were in competition with a number of other carol concerts in Bristol, in particular ‘Carols by Candlelight’ at the Cathedral, which has not happened on the Saturday in previous years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This year Bristol Choral Society didn’t do Messiah, but put on a programme called ‘An English Christmas’. I was glad of the change as, apart from the anthems we sing in church and bits of carol singing, I don’t get … Continue reading