MIKE'S CHORAL REMINISCENCES
It was the Bury St. Edmunds Bach Society that contributed most to the enrichment which I, a veritable non-musician, was able to share in taking part in so many of western civilisation’s greatest musical masterpieces. I’m now at the exceptionally fortunate time of life when such matters can be reviewed in their entirety.
It would have been unfair to leave the kids – kids now nearing retirement – to leave them with weighty boxes full of old diaries, much too bulky to justify examination, too wordy to yield any interesting biography. But what if each year’s account were to be condensed onto a single A4 page of text, of summarised significant text? That ought to be possible, given the facility of a convenient laptop, useable while relaxed in a recliner armchair. There should be plenty of time, even though there still aren’t enough hours in the day. The process revealed, again, the importance of music in my life.
OVERTURE
Dad was competent on the piano. We enjoyed some Beethoven and Chopin, as well as accompanying my sister and me in our attempts at treble items from Messiah and Crucifixion. A complete vocal score of Faust, tattered and repaired, is still in my possession. But the instrument was actually a pianola, so by dint of my youthful enthusiasm and energy I was able to pedal heartily on the suction pump and thus produce my own performances of sonatas and nocturnes, operatic melodies and Hungarian dances.
I was keen to learn the piano ‘properly’. Though wartime finances had to be a consideration, a local tutor was found, but instruction proved to be short-lived as he was called up for Active Service a few months later. (A lifelong regret, trying to catch up in my 80’s proved ineffectual. Old dogs …)
At school every day started with Mr. Coult activating a 78rpm record with the fibre needles of the big record player to yield an item introduced by Headmaster ‘Jacko’. Once a year there was an Inter-House Music Competition, judged by Dr Derry from London, no less. And my treble had broken to an acceptable bass in time for me to qualify as a Policeman in the Pirates of Penzance - the current choice of joint enterprise with the equivalent girls’ school.
ACT I
It wasn’t long after we had been able to move back to our bombed and rebuilt Banstead house that a small poster notified of a Messiah in the Village Hall to which one was encouraged to bring the music and join in! It proved to be enjoyable, finishing with an invitation to join the hosting village choir. That modest local group was more – it was a contributory constituent of the Leith Hill Music Festival at which several widespread village ensembles united under the guidance of Dr Ralph Vaughan Williams.
WHAT an introduction for a schoolboy! We found it hard work getting to grips with his Sea Symphony but the final full orchestral performance experience was beyond rewarding – way beyond. Complement that with Bach: not any old Bach but the Matthew Passion, only slightly abbreviated. I think that may have been a biennial RVW undertaking, certainly with a London orchestra and soloists brought down to the Dorking Halls. Back in the village, some members disliked the music-free summer term: I was invited – or allowed, I can’t remember which – to join weekly meetings in a domestic lounge. And so it was that I enjoyed VW’s charming, so-different In Windsor Forest too.
A pre-college year in rural coastal Dorset came before three years in the land of song, though that time was officially dedicated to rural interests too. Nevertheless, freshers were in those days – sadly no longer I learn – were welcomed to Aberystwyth with a pocket book of words of student songs, some in English, some in Welsh (crickey!), some orthodox folk material, some hymn tunes with context-appropriate words. To guarantee a seat at any debate, student show or other assembly it was necessary to arrive at least twenty minutes early for a preliminary singsong with piano accompaniment. With a forceful conductor assuming the dais it proved possible to direct such gems as Sospan Fach rendered in the style of a Russian folksong.
The music department did sponsor a formal students’ choir, so I was introduced to fresh works including the Fauré Requiem and the celebratory music of the new queen’s coronation.
Birthdays came and went. In 1950 little Granny suggested I select a gift to mark my 18th. Although I wasn’t at all familiar with it, I had heard that Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius was a modern masterpiece, perhaps on a par with the Sea Symphony? I chose the blue-covered hardback vocal score, just with a vague hope but no prospect of any involvement.
Indeed, after all that came several years of a musical interregnum. Statutes still dictated two years of military, officially ‘National’ Service. Then came the exigencies of normal life – marriage, a car, a job, a mortgage, a family. Fate determined that what might laughingly be called my ‘career’ should stall while living on the edge of Bury St Edmunds.
ACT II
I attended one or two posh concerts in the Cathedral given by the Bury St Edmunds Bach Society – quite a big choir, effectively with its own orchestra. And forthcoming productions were to include the Matthew Passion and Gerontius!
But this was no village group. And I was no further forward as regards musicianship: I could follow a score alright once I knew the tune, but working out a bass line from the printed notes without a piano was out of the question. O well, what’s to be lost? Courage to the fore, on the 1st of December 1965 I joined the Bury St Edmunds Bach Choir.
At my level of skill it was always an advantage to possess my own personal copy of each vocal score so that I could scribble my own signs, symbols and cues. And to note how that Latin / Hebrew / Russian text was supposed to be pronounced. Doing so in a hired library copy would have been unforgivable. (Unfortunately, extortionate pricing prevented this working with Poulenc.) It is not my intention now to list every concert over the succeeding 21 years of Act II, though there is a tabulation at the end of the text, derived largely from my 2024 shelf of vocal scores. Instead, there will be only random disparate comments, as they occur to me in the process of my diary summarising.
So next March there was the first of so many memorable days. Orchestra and soloists in the morning; all forces combined in the afternoon; performance in the evening. Though many details may have been different, my Surrey Matthew Passion had enabled me to cope happily with its Suffolk equivalent.
What then of Gerontius? Suffice it to say that my 16-year faith in its status proved well founded – its orchestral atmosphere, its choral colour and those moving solo and duet sections. What came as a surprise was that this choir, large though it seemed to be, was reinforced with singers from Boston, Lincolnshire, leading to a reciprocal visit: we joined them in their performance in ‘The Stump’ a week later.
For some reason now lost in the mists of time, my copy of Holst’s Hymn of Jesus is a ‘Study Score’ rather than a vocal score. Insight number one: composing music must be an excessively tedious chore since almost every page is of thirty-two lines of notes and rests (not to mention dynamics), with up to ten lines bearing words in addition. I daresay a computer might insert the rests en masse nowadays, and blocks could be duplicated with copy and paste, but even so …
Of course, the Hymn is an unusual case. There’s no time signature at all for the first bar, and irregular changes are made thereafter including those 5/4 passages. Key signatures are a mystery to an ignoramus: the almost total absence of regular sharps or flats is remarkable in so colourful a composition. But the real mystery is in section 17 were all the sopranos work with two sharps alongside everyone else having none! The piano and celesta had earlier achieved the same.
Anyway, beware that broad opening theme duet between horns and trombones: getting it lodged in the brain can lead to a persistent earworm.
Beecham reputedly asserted that no really decent tunes had been written in the twentieth century. Had he been insensitive to the magic of Britten’s Balulalow in his Ceremony of Carols? Its only fault is brevity.
Had I been making a nuisance of myself in the choir? Perhaps I’d asked too many questions? Be that as it may, at the June 1970 AGM I was appointed Secretary. And that was just ahead of our week-long Festival in October, with choral involvement in the Bach B Minor Mass; Handel Messiah; and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, plus two concerts by visiting ensembles and a solo organ recital.
What can a mere mortal say about THE B Minor? My modest assertion is that taking part as a bass in the full orchestral delight of Cum Sancto Spiritu is among the most uplifting of experiences that has ever fallen to my lot. And I’m an atheist!
There’s a tricky start though. With no introduction of any sort, we basses have to start the opening Kyrie by belting out a forte “Ky” on B below Low C, the only clue for non-musicians being some memory of the A recently used for tuning up by the orchestra. Poised and ready, lagging a microsecond behind more competent colleagues was the best option.
The Society’s administration lapsed into some sort of difficulties, the details of which now escape me. But resolution took the form of an Extraordinary General Meeting in September of 1972 at which I ceased to be Secretary and became Treasurer instead! I wonder now how long the new analysed cash accounting system that I then set up will have lasted. Of course it must all be on spreadsheets or accounting software nowadays. Anyway, back to the music -
There’s no need for any Bach organisation to stick exclusively to dead serious stuff, though we never did, in my time, get round to his Coffee Cantata. Nevertheless, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (Coleridge-Taylor) did perhaps feel like an optional extra rather than a core activity. Light but quintessential were Christmas items of course, including charitable Carols by Candlelight. Certainly a year without The Shepherds’ Farewell (Berlioz) would be a year short-changed.
Bridging any gap, another of my hero’s compositions, written when Vaughan Williams was aged 81, was Hodie [to avoid embarrassment, that’s hod-E-ay] (This Day) A Christmas Cantata. Unlike (dare I say?) Mozart’s, even the recitatives linking solos and choruses are a delight in their own right. Written for treble chorus and organ, technology enabled me much later to copy them consecutively onto a CD for use in the car.
Now then, Fred – that’s TF Harrison Oxley M.A., B.MUS. – our Musical Director and Conductor as well as Cathedral Organist and Master of the Choristers – by 1973 Fred had been able to assure himself that we, his Bach Choir, had reached a stage where we could sensibly contemplate tackling, ideally with reinforcements, another mountain peak of Western culture, the Verdi Requiem. And thus it was that our 1974 Summer Festival included its first performance, aided by the voices of the Boston Choral Union, on the 8th of June.
Half a century has passed since then. It’s a shame that popular disc jockeys always plump for the opening of the second movement, the Dies Irae. Don’t they realise that Verdi’s first-composed version of that drama is to be found again in the final movement? There it leads shortly on to the quiet (sometimes unaccompanied) soprano and chorus section [98] ending in the ‘impossible’ solo soprano high B flat, and which reduced me to an emotional wreck when included in Princess Diana’s funeral. But in any concert context those emotions are totally reversed as the Libera me fugue builds to its final climax within twenty bars of the work’s pppp ending.
We did it all again, a week later, in Boston. And, jumping ahead, I have had the privilege of involvement several times since. But beware! It was in May 1986 that the opportunity arose to do it in the Royal Albert Hall – a massive pre-booked Public-Come-and-Sing invitation. And it was the massiveness that proved to be the disappointment. With a ‘choir’ distributed around the auditorium the physical separation between voices was huge in distance and appreciable in time. Though we all kept meticulously to the conductor’s beat, we dared not listen to the effect because the basses heard the sopranos half a second late, and vice-versa, etc. In fact, if I had to choose an optimum situation for really experiencing that music I’d pick an occasion approaching a concert date, with Fred fairly confident that we knew our notes, announcing, “After the break you can sit wherever you like so long as it’s not adjacent to someone singing the same part as you”. Despite having no orchestra, just Janet’s brilliant piano musicianship, every singer was totally involved within Verdi’s inspiration.
Not a musical memory, but bleachers deserve a mention. If you Google the term you’ll be given something like “a cheap bench seat at a sports ground, typically in an outdoor uncovered stand”. They might have added that they are tiered. Such things had entered the consciousness of Suffolk folk via the American air force bases within the county. After much research, deliberation and specific fundraising the Society acquired the rusty structures and wooden boarding to constitute a demountable set to accommodate the full choir in the Cathedral. As luck would have it, I had access to workshop space, Trevor Newton had the expertise, and over time volunteer choristers joined in the wire brushing, phosphate anti-rust treating, priming and painting. Minor modifications were made, partly as a gesture to the dreaded Health and Safety but more particularly to suit some less nimble folk among the membership. Erection and dismantling were always highly labour-intensive: storage was initially a problem. At the end of my time they were in a cathedral cellar I think. Where are they now? And have you improved on the ‘acoustic screen’ that was erected behind the top, back row? Made of a roll of corrugated cardboard supported on long bamboo canes, it was supposed to prevent too many decibels disappearing into the unoccupied sectors of the cathedral.
Boston and Bury soon combined again, this time with Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. Even my Dad who professed to hate ‘modern music’ confessed to a remarkable experience when listening to it in a neighbour’s lounge. How much better, then, LIVE! And to be involved IN it. All that strident brass. The imaginative percussion. The rhythms. The drama. Fighting a fortissimo D natural against the brass’s accented E flat. Even that final note when the chorus has finished, exhausted, and the whole orchestra prolongs a terminal explosion only for the full organ to join in and double the power in the last bar, with an impact that is impossible to reproduce in any recording. “Most exciting item ever”, according to my diary.
But please excuse a bee in my bonnet. At [54] bar 5 there is a double bar line marking the change from personal destruction to communal rejoicing: THAT’s where the change is. I have known conductors to pause – as marked – at [54] itself instead, as if the explosions in the first four bars were related to rejoicing rather than to destruction. If I had my way I’d delete the pause mark (fermata) ahead of [54] and print at least a pause mark over the bar 5 double line, perhaps even insert a one-bar rest, implying a sort of “Wait here for a nose-blow if you like” signal! I defy anyone to justify the pause ahead of [54].
My heart had skipped a beat in committee when Fred had announced that we were going to be doing “Sea ” but was deflated by the next word, “Drift”. Delius is all very well in his way. Eventually it came though. For 1975 the choice was the VW Sea Symphony. I was almost the local expert for a week or two.
A tricky one was to be included next. My memory could be making a false accusation, but I think it was our Boston partners who had had to abandon an attempt at the Howells Hymnus Paradisi. Anyway, we managed it. Not a listen-in-the-car background item perhaps, though I do still have it on professional tape and have been glad to have experienced it from the inside so to speak. Dedicated to the memory of a lost son, the intensity of feeling and emotion must be expected.
The time came round for another Matthew Passion, Bach of course. If performed in full, unusually, it is perhaps over-long, counting in fact as two concerts on some professional performers’ pay scales. And that is how we did it in 1977 and again in 1982 to mark the Golden Jubilee of the Society: 5 pm to 6.30 and then again at 8 pm, with special arrangements having been made with nearby hostelries and restaurants – for performers as well as for the audience.
The Society had always had a valued list of individuals who supported its work as Patrons, receiving direct mailings and listed on the backs of programs. In that same 1977 it was mooted that a very small subcommittee – Ann Brown, solicitor Tim Hill, and I (treasurer) – should initiate an appeal in search of Corporate Patrons too. I seem to recall that we gained a few. What is the situation in 2025?
Though I find it hard to believe, as far as I can see, 10 December 1977 included my first diary mention of the Mozart Requiem. But not the Süssmayr completion. And therein lies a mystery. My diary distinctly records “Mozart/Maunder Requiem”. But consult Wikipedia and the “Richard Maunder” page includes, “This new version was recorded by Christopher Hogwood with the Academy of Ancient Music in 1983 and the score was published in 1988.” So was our 1977 concert a pre-publication World Premier? I do seem to recall that Fred knew Richard on a personal basis so that could be possible. And yet I recorded none of the razzamatazz that might have been associated with a first-ever performance of a new version of so well-loved a work.
What I do know is where the Süssmayr/Maunder differences begin. It seems to me that it would be appropriate in nearly every concert performance if, immediately on completion of bar 8 of the Lacrymosa, conductor and orchestra and chorus were to freeze (in mid-bow, mid-puff, so to speak), relaxing after five seconds to allow the conductor, after a further five seconds, to address the audience along the following lines or similar. “That is as far as Mozart got in committing to paper his final work – his personal requiem. Already ill and with, some say, a presentiment of his own death, it marks the point at which the intellect of a supreme human genius was effectively extinguished. [Pause.] However, he did leave some further jottings, and some sections bear repetition, so in a few moments we will repeat his beginning of the Lacrymosa and continue with the ‘completion’ mentioned in your programme notes.” Just another bee on my bonnet perhaps.
Our next Boston cooperation, according to my diaries, was with 1978 twin Dream of Gerontius performances. For good measure, we similarly joined with the Ipswich Choral Society for a third in that eastern part of Suffolk later in the year.
By the time of the 1978 AGM I had completed six years as Treasurer and was, therefore, ineligible under the terms of the Constitution for an immediate continuation in that capacity. Plenty more music though.
Certainly no problem with the Fauré Requiem: I still had my Aberystwyth copy of the score and could wallow again through the lovely second-bass line of the Lux æternum.
But what of Tippett’s A Child of Our Time? Rather like Hymnus Paradisi, it’s a difficult modern work, associated with a painful circumstance, but very different from any requiem. It has its rewards, and not just those spirituals.
After just a year on the metaphorical as well as physical back benches, at the 1979 AGM I was honoured by being elected (unopposed!) and appointed as Chairman.
I’ve some views on the matter of language in choral and operatic music, fortunately in line with Fred’s preferences. It has always seemed to me to be more important that the underlying message of each work should be accessible to the audience than that there should be an exact correspondence between syllables and note lengths as designed by the composer. Latin is a special case which I’m forced to allow, in deference to the history of European Christianity. Fortunately we’ve always done Passion and other stories such as The Creation in English, even ignoring Brahms and presenting his German Requiem to a UK audience in English. (It would have helped if Brahms had called it “A Vernacular Requiem”, implying options for other cultures.)
But when it came to his Chichester (Sussex!) Psalms we had to bow to the stated wishes of Leonard Bernstein who insisted that they be performed in the original Hebrew. So I wasn’t the only one needing pronunciation help: a guide sheet was issued to all members to supplement the minimal indications given in the score. The music is truly remarkable including some exquisite if unusual melodies, but it’s unlikely that we’ll ever hear chatty comparisons of “Urah, hanevel, v’chinor!” with, say, “The Ta’aroch l’fanai shulchan section”. It will never be widely welcomed if it can’t be talked about. Which I think is a shame.
It fell to me as Chairman to make a presentation to Fred Oxley in 1983: a glass tankard engraved with the Society’s ‘angel’ was deemed appropriate to mark his 25 years as Musical Director and Conductor. (Does the angel still feature? I didn’t spot it on your website.) But it was not until the following year that a financial rate for the job was established. I’m not sure how remuneration had originally been set: I just recall a sum having been proposed by the committee and voted on at each AGM. In 1984 it was linked to the rates paid by the West Suffolk Education Committee to its tutors on evening courses and the like. Perhaps fortunately, I don’t recall the grade.
Preparations for the major works that made up our repertoire normally took up all the available rehearsal time. More rarely there were opportunities for non-concert items to be included for variety. A limited number of copies of a few choral arrangements of Bach orchestral items were added to the library, some time in the 1980s. (Still there? Used occasionally?) An enthusiastic diary entry in February 1985 reads, “Marvellous rehearsal with voices mixed, all the best bits of the Verdi Requiem and the Swingles-type Bach Gavotte”. And the Verdi performance didn’t suffer: contrariwise, Fred reported that “we excelled ourselves”!
Later on in that 1985 there was a change of culture. Back in those days the financial underpinning of the majority of amateur musical organisations was provided by the National Federation of Music Societies. Their main role was to distribute equitably their allotted chunk of Arts Council funding. Messiah, G&S and the like were expected to be self-financing, but the majority of our concerts employed professional orchestral players, entirely or in part, as well as expensive soloists: such enterprises could be generously subsidised. Particularly favoured were performances of works composed in the then-current century – the more ‘difficult’ the better (though that wasn’t specified). To mark the NFMS jubilee they had sponsored Geoffrey Burgon to compose a major choral work. The resulting Revelations was to receive a number of performances, each by choirs combined within a region. Our involvement required rehearsals at Harlow and Hatfield ahead of the performance in our Cathedral in the presence of the composer. If memory serves, Sir Charles Groves conducted.
The change of culture arose from the NFMS decree that the gentlemen should all be in dress suits rather than our normal dark lounge suits. Charity shops did a roaring trade.
The following year saw another change – we went abroad! Whether it was the first-ever or just the first in my time I can’t say. But it was modest in both duration and distance with a two-night stay in Mechelen in Belgium. We took part in church services and contributed an unremarkable but enjoyable evening concert.
Poulenc was mentioned earlier in passing. His Gloria is well known and is an interesting work to perform, even if the most remarkable themes have been given to the soprano soloist. The Stabat Mater would have been similar in tonality and structure, with twelve sections against the Gloria’s six, but I couldn’t talk Fred round to it during my time in the choir.
Indeed, that time was limited – the whole structure of my life changed in 1987.
ACT III
I didn’t just leave Bury St Edmunds, I left the country! Initially living on a 28' sailing catamaran I was equipped with radios for both seamanship and entertainment. But music was effectively limited to listening: I couldn’t produce any of my own. Feeling the lack, it was a purely impulse buy when I happened to spot a Casio PT-1 miniature keyboard while gazing round the posh El Corte Inglés department store in Bermeo, northern Spain in 1988. It gave a lot of joy, principally in reversing the normal procedures – I recalled themes and melodies which I was then able to record on manuscript paper (regardless of key signature choice!).
But choral singing remained out of the question until I reached Gibraltar. English-speaking of course (most of the time), and well provided with both sacred and secular musical opportunities. Perhaps I overdid things, with four involvements. Judging by current websites, things have changed since my time, though the enthusiasm still seems to be there.
First thought on arrival was: “Is there a Gibraltar Choral Society?” Yes there was - slightly unusual perhaps, in that the conductor was a military bandsman. For well-known reasons, there was, as always, a strong military presence on The Rock. And the then current contingent boasted a regimental brass band.
Another always-active service was, of course the civil authority, led by the Governor whose residential facility necessarily included the ‘Kings Chapel’ – wherein served an organist and choir. With Gibraltar being very much a multi-faith community, the potential for Church of England recruitment was limited, so even a music-loving atheist was welcomed.
Like any comprehensive community, Gibraltar had its own educational establishments, which included a music department. Out of hours the clientele was the general public, developing a chamber choir complementing rather than competing with the Choral Society.
Not only multi-faith, those very few habitable square miles were, as now, multi-service too, with naval and air force operations based there. As luck would have it, while I was there a naval officer took it upon himself to organise a performance of Stainer’s Crucifixion. Some service personnel may have been dragooned into participation, but odds and ends like me were auditioned and welcomed too – my participation even including a few bars of solo.
Venue options for large concerts included the cathedrals and the non-denominational cave!
It was then that my more-than-a-toy Casio PT-1 proved to be absolutely ideal for an untalented choral singer. Faced with an unfamiliar score I could explore and learn my line with the aid of the little machine’s hundred-note memory. I could first work out what the notes were and then, as a separate operation, control the timing of each note to get the rhythm adjusted against the in-built metronome. Then SAVED, that passage could be played repeatedly at adjustable tempos, until cleared or the machine was switched off. But meanwhile, if I thought I knew a section I could record the soprano line, say, and discover whether or not I could still sing my part in competition against it!
During one phase of my Gibraltar stay I became a UK commuter for a couple of years. Plate tectonics had emerged long after my school days. Computers were changing the world. And I wanted to fit in some studies that had escaped me during my career preparation. My six ‘voluntary’ terms back at university included all these topics. And you’ve guessed it – choral singing too, arising from the Music Department but open to all students. Thus it was that my next A German Requiem was in German (and consequently less enjoyable), while the Mozart/Süssmayr and Fauré Requiems were of course in Latin.
And not only that: Op Soc’s choice was Faust – The Operatic Society would use all staff and student talents plus professional soloists to stage Gounod’s opera in full for a week. I had accepted a library copy on loan rather than rescue Dad’s ancient copy!
My life changed again when I returned to the UK more permanently, not to either Reading or Bury St. Edmunds, but to south-west Scotland – with a new wife. Away from major conurbations, and without even a local church choir, choral activities would henceforth be largely limited to occasional events in neighbouring communities. A 1996 “Sing Day” in Newton Stewart was devoted to choruses from Elijah after rehearsals in Whithorn, while the following year’s Gatehouse of Fleet From Scratch day featured the Fauré Requiem. That was also the year of British Telecom’s nation-wide sponsorship of Messiah For Hospices, locally in Newton Stewart and repeated in the Millennium year.
But G&S did feature too, thanks largely to the enthusiasm of local school staff. Despite being rather an aged new boy by this time, I was Colonel Calverley in 1998’s Patience, and Old Adam Goodheart in 2000’s Ruddigore.
Though not choral, Scottish Country Dancing proved to be musically enjoyable and is to be strongly recommended for physical and mental fitness as well.
A much more ambitious millennial event was a performance of the Verdi Requiem in Dumfries. Backed by professional soloists and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the choir consisted of groups from a wide area who had been practising in their villages and area assemblies. Princess Alexandra attended.
And that reminds me to make a confession. Big complex choral occasions with combined choirs are unlikely to be high security events. Nobody is totally sure who’s supposed to be there and who isn’t. So if you march boldly in ahead of the afternoon final rehearsal with the score in your hand and ask to be directed to the first basses nobody is likely to object. I’ve enjoyed two extra Sea Symphonys that way, first in Bournemouth and much later in The Sage, Gateshead in July 2007. Evening performances were completed alright without my help.
For reasons which seemed sensible at the time, three years were spent living in western Europe, predominantly in a one-time farmhouse among the hills of Andalucía. It proved to be a total choral desert, even lacking any Christmas carols.
Back then to England, to a Northumberland coastal village where a Fishermen’s Choir had gone into a decline and been re-invigorated without the industrial connotation. The diet for the thirty or so regulars was mainly of songs from the shows and seasonal specials, performed for charities in a variety of churches and village halls.
Yet another move, this time to a Midlands town with no choral tradition but a church choir with organist, rehearsing and adding to services in a venue kept at summer temperatures, remarkably, every weekend all year. Again, an atheist was welcomed. Indeed, on one memorable occasion I was invited to the organ loft for a dedicated performance of THE (Bach D minor) Toccata and Fugue. The only other choral opportunities arose from a small rather specialist group designating themselves a Chorale, a few villages away. Preparing the Rutter Requiem, its already marginal existence was brought to an end with the outbreak of the pandemic.
CODA
I said at the beginning that my choral activities could be “reviewed in their entirety”. Now in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, I sampled both a formal and an informal choral society as well as a church choir but all with negative outcomes. My now limited hearing made rehearsals impossible. Even with my hearing aids, chorus instructions had mostly to be repeated by a neighbour, while the music itself was uncomfortably deafening via those mini-amplifiers. And having muffed a voluntary driving retest some years ago, transport is an increasing problem too.
Though no longer a performer, I’m still thrilled by Thus in Babylon, the mighty city, elevated by Cum sancto spiritu, aroused emotionally by various Requiems, perhaps more by virtue of knowing them from the inside and not just as a hearer. With virtually unlimited access to music through all the wonders of digital electronics and the internet, Radio 3 and Classic FM are accessible during my daily constitutional outing; iPad with Bose noise-cancelling headphones seem to cope best with my deafness at home; and explorations continue as I’ve just been introduced to the miracle of TF cards which might supplement my limited range of bought and home recorded CDs.
So as I said, there aren’t enough hours in the day. Even halfway through my ninety-third year boredom is not a problem. I’m thankful and just a bit curious as to how long that can go on.
Bach, Christmas Oratorio, 1973, Bury St Edmunds, 1985, B St E
Bach, Komm, Jesu, komm, 1980, Bury St Edmunds, 1986, B St E
Bach, Magnificat, 1971, Bury St Edmunds, 1977, B St E, 1990, B St E
Bach, Mass in B Minor, 1970, Bury St Edmunds, 1982, B St E
Bach, Sanctus in D, BWV 238, 1973, Bury St Edmunds
Bach, St John Passion, 1979, Bury St Edmunds
Bach, St Matthew Passion, 1950, Dorking + V-W, 1966, B St E, 1971, B St E, 1974, B St E, 1982, & 1987 B St E
Bernstein, Chichester Psalms, 1980, Bury St Edmunds
Borodin, Polovtsian Dances, 1970, Bury St Edmunds
Brahms, Requiem, 1967, Bury St Edmunds, 1974, B St E, 1983, B St E
Britten, A Ceremony of Carols, 1969, Bury St Edmunds
Britten, Rejoice in the Lamb, 1983, Bury St Edmunds
Coleridge-Taylor, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, 1951, Sutton (?), 1972, B St E
Duruflé, Requiem, 1976, Bury St Edmunds, 1984, B St E
Elgar, Dream of Gerontius, 1966, Bury St Edmunds, 1970, B St E, 1984, B St E
Elgar, The Music Makers, 1980, Bury St Edmunds
Fauré, Requiem, 1952, Aberystwyth, 1967, B St E, 1983, Woolpit, 1990, Reading, 1997, Gatehouse of Fleet
G&S, Pirates of Penzance (chorus), 1950, Sutton
G&S, Patience (Colonel Calverley), 1998, Newton Stewart
G&S, Ruddigore (Old Adam Goodheart), 2000, Newton Stewart
Gounod, Faust, 1989, Reading
Handel, Zadok the Priest, 1977, Bury St Edmunds, 1986, Mechelen
Handel , Solomon, 1966, Bury St Edmunds
Handel/Prout, Messiah, 1967, Bury St Edmunds, 1970, B St E, 1979, Mildenhall, 1980, Long Melford
Handel/Shaw, Messiah, 1982, Bury St Edmunds, 1984, Mildenhall, 1986, Mildenhall, 1997, Newton Stewart, 2000, Newton Stewart
Haydn, Creation, 1967, Bury St Edmunds, 1981, B St E
Haydn, Harmonie-Messe B-Dur, 1971, Bury St Edmunds
Haydn, Nelson Mass D Minor, 1986, Bury St Edmunds
Holst, A Choral Fantasia, 1976, Bury St Edmunds
Holst, Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda 1, 1969, Bury St Edmunds
Holst, The Hymn of Jesus, 1967, Bury St Edmunds, 1984, B St E
Howells, Hymnus Paradisi, 1976, Bury St Edmunds
Mendelssohn, Elijah, 1996, Whithorn
Mozart, Coronation Mass in C, 1988, Gibraltar
Mozart, Laudate Pueri, 1971, Bury St Edmunds
Mozart/Maunder, Requiem, 1986, Bury St Edmunds
Mozart/Süssmayr, Requiem, 1977, Bury St Edmunds, 1978, Burgate, 1990, Reading, 1991, Algeciras, 2006, Gateshead
Parry, Blest Pair of Sirens, 1980, Bury St Edmunds
Parry, I Was Glad, 1967, Bury St Edmunds, 1981, B St E, 1986, Mechelen
Poulenc, Gloria, ?, Bury St Edmunds
Purcell, My Heart is Inditing, 1977, Bury St Edmunds
Rossini, Stabat Mater, 1980, Bury St Edmunds
Rutter, Requiem, 2020, (Covid, cancelled)
Schubert, Mass in G, 1952, Aberystwyth
Stainer, The Crucifixion, 1989, Gibraltar
Vaughan Williams, A Sea Symphony, 1949, Dorking + V-W, 1976, B St E, 1984, B St E
Vaughan Williams, Dona Nobis Pacem, 1986, Bury St Edmunds
Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on Christmas Carols, 1965, Bury St Edmunds
Vaughan Williams, Hodie, 1967, Bury St Edmunds, 1979, B St E, 1983, B St E
Vaughan Williams, In Windson Forest, 1951, Banstead
Vaughan Williams, Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge, 1968, Bury St Edmunds
Vaughan Williams, Sancta Civitas, 1972, Bury St Edmunds, 1981, B St E
Vaughan Williams, Serenade to Music, 1970, Bury St Edmunds, 1979, B St E, 1980, B St E, 1986, Mechelen
Verdi, Requiem, 1974, Bury St Edmunds, 1985, B St E, 1986, Albert Hall, 1988, Edinburgh, 2000, Dumfries
Walton, Belshazzar's Feast, 1975, Bury St Edmunds, 1982, B St E, 1984, Boston
