{"id":6390,"date":"2023-08-15T23:23:37","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T23:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/?p=6390"},"modified":"2023-10-27T23:00:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T23:00:25","slug":"three-choirs-2023-the-final-evening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/2023\/08\/15\/three-choirs-2023-the-final-evening\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Choirs 2023: the final evening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Apostles &#8211; relatively rarely done because of the number of soloists required &#8211; was missing piece needed to complete my performances of the three great choral works by Elgar.<\/p>\n<p>I remarked before that <em>The Kingdom<\/em> will do its best to convince you that God is an Englishman, but <em>The Apostles<\/em>, with its Hebrew melodies, quotations from the Talmud and shofar (we had a long trumpet rather than an actual ram&#8217;s horn) is altogether a bit more exotic.  And that&#8217;s not all&#8230;<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_6441\" style=\"width: 274px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20230428_113252.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6441\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20230428_113252-264x300.jpg\" alt=\"Mary Magdalen by Caravaggio\" width=\"264\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6441\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20230428_113252-264x300.jpg 264w, http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20230428_113252-902x1024.jpg 902w, http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20230428_113252-768x871.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20230428_113252-1354x1536.jpg 1354w, http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20230428_113252-1805x2048.jpg 1805w, http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20230428_113252.jpg 2026w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 264px) 100vw, 264px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-6441\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Caravaggio&#8217;s penitent Magdalen is rather more subdued than Elgar&#8217;s<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n<p>An orgy scene in an oratorio by Elgar &#8211; who&#8217;d have thought it?  Actually this was one of the trickier passages in the piece.  Overall, despite its length, there aren&#8217;t that many showpieces for the chorus, a large part of whose role is interjections (probably because of all those soloists).  Nevertheless, I would take it over <em>The Kingdom<\/em> in future.  I was particularly impressed by the libretto and how well Elgar must have known his Bible to choose such appropriate texts from other parts of Scripture (and the aforementioned Talmud) to expand the Gospel narratives.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Reviews (and they <em>were<\/em> of the same concert!):<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_6386\" style=\"width: 154px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230729_191933-e1696630044508.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6386\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230729_191933-e1696630044508-144x300.jpg\" alt=\"Bible quote in Gloucester cloister window\" width=\"144\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6386\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230729_191933-e1696630044508-144x300.jpg 144w, http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230729_191933-e1696630044508.jpg 378w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 144px) 100vw, 144px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-6386\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A text set in The Apostles (window, Gloucester Cathedral cloister)<\/p><\/div><br \/>\n<i><a href=\"https:\/\/seenandheard-international.com\/2023\/07\/elgars-the-apostles-is-a-richly-rewarding-end-to-the-2023-three-choirs-festival\/\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/seenandheard-international.com\/2023\/07\/elgars-the-apostles-is-a-richly-rewarding-end-to-the-2023-three-choirs-festival\/', 'Seen and Heard International');\">Seen and Heard International<\/a><\/i><br \/>\n<i><a href=\"https:\/\/bachtrack.com\/review-elgar-apostles-partington-three-choirs-festival-gloucester-july-2023\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/bachtrack.com\/review-elgar-apostles-partington-three-choirs-festival-gloucester-july-2023', 'Bachtrack');\">Bachtrack<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<p>So 2023 was of necessity a somewhat austerity edition of the Festival, which made it logistically easier for me, at the cost of reduced opportunities to sing.  I was impressed by the standard of the choir, which I felt was higher than in the previous Festival I sang in. <\/p>\n<p>Singing in 2024&#8217;s Festival will involve weighing up the repertoire against the things which I could otherwise do which got sacrificed this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Apostles &#8211; relatively rarely done because of the number of soloists required &#8211; was missing piece needed to complete my performances of the three great choral works by Elgar. I remarked before that The Kingdom will do its best &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/2023\/08\/15\/three-choirs-2023-the-final-evening\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[1357,60,353,388,1171],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6390"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6390"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6459,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6390\/revisions\/6459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}