This church is a local landmark, but I haven’t sung in it for a long time (previous visits were to sing Holy Week devotional works with aggregations of local church choirs). I returned to augment A Handful of Singers (conducted by Christopher Finch) for a concert of two Mass settings.<\/p>\n
I’ve sung Kodály’s Missa Brevis<\/i> a number of times, though not within the last three years or so. It was included in the last concert I sang with the Chantry Singers; this was five years ago, although a surprising number of people think that I have sung with the choir since then, or even that I still do! Fortunately the piece had been very thoroughly drilled into me so I was able to recall it easily on one rehearsal. I notice one thing about the score which is unusual for a 20th century work: it has a dedication in Latin (presumably because this would be more widely understood than Hungarian).<\/p>\n
The second half consisted of Fauré’s Requiem. I’ve sung this quite a few times in church recently, but with at most an obbligato violin in the Sanctus. This time there was a small band.<\/p>\n
This concert was going to be followed by a chance to audition for the choir, but the vacancy has been filled by a former member who returned, so I’ll have to wait for another opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This church is a local landmark, but I haven’t sung in it for a long time (previous visits were to sing Holy Week devotional works with aggregations of local church choirs). I returned to augment A Handful of Singers (conducted … Continue reading