17th November turned out to be a busy day musically. In the morning I was in the choir for a memorial service for the parents(-in-law) of two members of my church choir, in the small parish church in Winsley. I appreciated the generous catering at the lunch afterwards, as I then had to hot-wheel it over for the Keynsham Orchestra and Chew Valley Choral Society’s performance of Duruflé’s Requiem in the parish church there.<\/p>\n
I had two reasons for jumping at the chance to sing in this concert (which came via Bristol Choral Society). Firstly, these concerts<\/a> have the enjoyable feel of a community event, which you don’t get even in Bath and certainly not in Bristol. I know one or two in the orchestra and you can purchase more generous catering in the shape of home-made cake in the interval. Secondly, although I have sung Duruflé’s Requiem countless times, I have only once before done it with full orchestra, in an All Souls’ Day Mass at St Mary Magdalene, Paddington. It is a very different animal from the more austere organ accompaniment one usually gets, with much extra colour and counter-melodies which are not to be found in the other version.<\/p>\n I was in the audience for the first part of the concert, Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante d\u00e9funte<\/i>, which I was hearing for the second time that week, and the suite from the ‘Firebird’. Our soloists in the Requiem were Angharad Watkeys and Niall Hoskin and the conductor was Mark Gateshill. I was behind the horns which was not as deafening as you might think and gave me a chance to appreciate some of the counter-melodies mentioned above, for example near the beginning of the Libera me<\/i>. Our performance was warmly received by a good-sized audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 17th November turned out to be a busy day musically. In the morning I was in the choir for a memorial service for the parents(-in-law) of two members of my church choir, in the small parish church in Winsley. I … Continue reading