Berberis' World

Saturday, 17th March 2018, Great Hall, Goldsmiths College.

Edward Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius

The Bromley Boy Singers
Forest Philharmonic Orchestra
Tenor: Peter Davoren
Bass: David Stout
Mezzo Soprano: (I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember the name of the lovely lady who stepped in at the last minute – my profound apologies. I will find out.)
Organ: James Orford
Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

The text for Gerontius is awful stuff. The glorification of, and wallowing in, the suffering and pain and fear associated with death in the name of religion… it’s loathsome. It’s a tribute to Elgar that he managed to write music glorious enough to overwhelm such nonsense.

And I do mean glorious. As a member of the chorus, by far the highlight of Gerontius is in Part 2. It starts at figure 74 and goes right through to the end of figure 100, and is arguably some of the most exhilarating and exhausting music written for a chorus. It was fortunate that Dan’s conducting from figure 89 (moreso from figure 95) was at a speed slow enough that it allowed us to relish the big build-up to the final chord – and the lung-shredding crescendo through it – but not so slow that the mawkish text got in the way. I’ve heard recordings where it sounds like it’s on fast-forward, and they are definitely not to my taste. Happily, Dan seemed to agree.

Before this thirty six page workout there is a section in Part 1, from the start of bar 639 to the end, which is almost as fabulous, if nowhere near as physically draining.

Dan admitted that he had very personal reasons for staging this particular work. I understood this feeling completely. Performing Gerontius had been a long time coming for me: it was the next concert in line for the LCS when I left in 2008, and it was the same for the LPC when I unsuccessfully reauditioned in 2011. So there was a certain degree of ‘what’s going to happen to prevent me singing it this time?’ about this third attempt*. Viruses/work stress/another engagement could all have intervened – thankfully, nothing got in the way. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed rehearsing as much since the Deustches Requiem, and the concert did not disappoint.

*This isn’t strictly true. The third attempt was successful: in 2015, I somehow managed to get involved in a scratch performance of Gerontius that had been arranged by a wonderfully enthusiastic and dynamic woman called Diana Bickley. This was staged at Henry Wood Hall in Central London. I have to confess to not remembering much about it, apart from one rehearsal in a very warm room, and feeling very emotional during the section in Part 2 that I found the most rewarding in 2018.

So, thanks to Dan for choosing this for us, and thanks to everyone who made this concert so enjoyable.

Monday, 18th December 2017, Southwark Cathedral, London SE1 9DA.

Carols for choirs and audience: Once in royal David’s City/Of the Father’s heart begotten/Silent Night/Hark! the herald angels sing/The First Nowell/O come, all ye Faithful

Soloist on Once in royal David’s City: Joe Davies (Bromley Youth Music Trust)

Southwark Cathedral’s full title is, apparently, The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie. It’s across the road from London Bridge station, and right next to Borough Market, and is spectacular. I’d attended one of these services before, as a member of the congregation. This time, it was at the invitation of the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who’d invited us and The Metropolitan Police Choir to perform a couple of songs during the concert.

The Met Police Choir is 65-strong group of serving and retired officers and police staff. It was formed in the 1960s as a male voice choir but, in 2016, auditions were opened to men and women, and there were just over half of the choir present this evening. Even with reduced numbers they sounded amazing.

We sang ‘Behold That Star‘ (arr. by the genius that is Bob Chilcott) and ‘Bridge’, and I was genuinely pleased about how well they both went. There was no sign of the collective anxiety that occasionally mars a performance, despite the nervousness which surfaced after the dress rehearsal. The Met Police performed ‘Still, Still, Still‘, by Norman Luboff and it was beautifully done. They also sang ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ (arr. Arthur Warrell) which was completely different in tone but still sounded superb.

Young Joe Davies was note perfect, and seemingly not at all bothered either by the capacity audience or the many cameras which were undoubtedly focussed on him during his solo. And so polite! He came up to us during the reception after the concert and praised our performance, which was lovely of him.

And then there was the descant. There was no way I wasn’t going to sing them – apart from Silent Night and The First Nowell, which I don’t know that well. I’d probably not have been anywhere near as confident without Duffy next to me, and we belted out the lines with gusto. All in all, a great evening in a magnificent venue.

Saturday, 16th December 2017, St Mary the Virgin, Lewisham.

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols

Carols for choir and audience: It came upon the midnight clear/Gabriel’s message/The crown of roses/There is a flower/O little town of Bethlehem/Star carol/Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber/Sir Cristémas/Of the Father’s heart begotten/Carol of the bells/God is with us/I wonder as I wander/God rest ye merry, gentlemen/Hark! the herald-angels sing

Baritone: Pierpaolo Finaldi

Piano: Nico de Villiers

Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

Ah, Xmas. Or Christmas, if you think the X takes Christ out of the season (it doesn’t). Add a splash of red to the usual long and black!, partake of mulled wine during the interval!, join in with the descant!

All three are optional, of course. In reality, as an alto, only two of them are achievable on the night. The descant is, on the whole, about two or three tones too high for comfort. Besides, some of the alto lines are actually better than the melody. Only some, mind you – there really are only so many Es you can sing in a row…

As far as the carols go, there were the usual suspects. All of these are lovely, and just being able to sing the tune in the last verse makes a change.

Gabriel’s message is – to all but the sopranos – you only get one word. The crown of roses is a song about a child being really very badly bullied – where were the parents of these yobs? Horrific.

There is a flower is a bit twee. I have never yet managed to pitch the C in bar 57. O little town of Bethlehem is rehearsed with the warning that it is NEVER ‘where meek souls will receive him still <breath> the dear Christ enters in’. We know. Why not remind the audience?

Star carol is really for children. And the 1980s.

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber was my favourite, because the altos got to sing the tune… not once, but twice!! And there was much rejoicing. Seriously. Just remember to NOT sing verses 3 and 5, and yes there’s a verse 7 over the page. One of the best things about this being that, if you forget, there is a minim rest in the first bar so no-one will notice. The other best things are the final 10 bars. Splendid stuff.

I hate Sir Cristémas. But I can channel this into the first alto entry in bar 4, which helps me get through the rest of the nonsense. Dan loves it, so I can say with almost 100% certainty that we’ll sing it next Xmas as well.

Of the Father’s heart begotten is an old-school majestic sing, with a glorious alto line in the last verse. And the end of the first half of the concert.

There was the usual rush for mulled wine, which always smells nicer than it tastes.

Carol of the bells is irrevocably improved changed by the Cracked Christmas parody. God is with us is all breves and weirdness. Not sure about this one. Needs a good soloist, so that may limit whether we sing it every year. I wonder as I wander is quite jazzy – given my dislike of modern religious music, I shouldn’t like it, but I do.

God rest you merry, gentlemen is another make-sure-you-breathe-in-the-right-place carol. It’s ‘God rest you merry <comma> gentlemen’. Again, no-one takes any notice.

Hark! the herald-angels sing – I always want to sing the descant but it goes to a top A, and that’s a good tone above my present range.

Fantasia on Christmas Carols we’ve sung before. I think I also sang it with the LPC, but can’t find any evidence of that. Again, it needs a good soloist –  which we definitely had – and you need to be able to count, as the time signature is all over the place. There are a few bars towards the end that, in previous performances, I’ve always sung incorrectly but – yay! not this time.

A hugely enjoyable – and very well attended – concert.

Saturday, 18th November, 2017.

Haydn: Te Deum in C & Motet – Insanae et Vanae Curae

Mozart: Piano Concerto No.20

Mozart: Coronation Mass

Forest Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

Piano: Nico de Villiers

Soprano: Susannah Hardwick

This went very well. The orchestra sounded fantastic – better than I can ever remember hearing them. The soprano soloist – a trainee! – was superb, and the audience was the largest I’ve seen at Goldsmiths.

It took me a while to get into the music for this. Normally, as soon as I get hold of the scores for a concert, I listen to whatever recordings I can find – as well as midi-files – to learn the part. I think perhaps the reason I didn’t do the same with these pieces is because there was nothing immediately obvious in any of them that I liked.

In almost every piece I’ve sung, there is a hook. Sometimes it’s one section, sometimes just a few bars – sometimes, it’s only a chord. Whatever it is, once I’ve found it, it’s enough to make me enjoy singing the whole thing. It took me a few rehearsals to find the hook in any of these pieces, a process not helped by uncertainty at work – not just my job, either. The end result was that I was still learning parts of the Te Deum at the rehearsal on the day of the concert.

I volunteered for the semi-chorus in the Coronation Mass, and found it instantly familiar. I like being in a semi-chorus: you have the challenge and responsibility of getting your part right, but with none of the pressure of a soloist; if you suddenly forget how to pitch the next note, you can mime (as long as you don’t pull a ‘shit-I’ve-fucked-up’ face – that’s a dead giveaway); plus, it gives you chance to show off if you’re angling for a solo/duet/semi-chorus again. That said, it didn’t work after the Monteverdi, despite Stefan’s comment.

Nico was – as always – excellent. Watching him play I usually decide to take up playing the piano again…before remembering that I don’t have a piano, have no space for a piano, and have no patience to do the 2-3 hours a day practice. Happy to let Nico do all the hard work and – along with the wonderful orchestra and soloist – take all the very well deserved applause.

Saturday, 8th July 2017, Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street, London.

Zoltán Kodály: Pange Lingua/Evening Song
Johannes Brahms: Rhapsody in G minor, Op. 79 No. 2
Ernö Dohnányi: Rhapsody in C major, Op. 11 No. 3
Arvo Pärt: Alleluia-Tropus/Which Was the Son of…
Henryk Górecki: Totus Tuus, Op. 60
Zoltán Kodály: Missa Brevis

Piano: Nico de Villiers
Organ: James Orford
Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

Otherwise known as The Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity with Saint Jude, Upper Chelsea. I’d loved to have seen the Gothic original but this was demolished when it was only a few years older than I am now. Its designer, James Savage, had roughly a third of his buildings demolished which seems like quite a high ratio. Whether this was normal for the type of constructon at that time is probably on the internet somehwere. Whether the demolition of so many of his buildings was the cause, or the result, of his being a disagreeable fellow is probably also on the internet.

The replacement church has survived demolition, both proposed and actual. The former was prevented due to the efforts of John Betjamen, but even he couldn’t prevent the latter, perpetrated by the Luftwaffe during WW2.

Holy Trinity has two drawbacks: the changing room are the kindergarten, and there’s not enough seating room for the choir which means some of the tenors and basses have to stand in the trancept. However, it has splendid two features that more than make up for this: a huge east window, which we can gaze out of when not singing, and an organ that, on full throttle, makes the building tremble.

(I was unaware of Zoltán Kodály, which is to my shame as he is responsible for this, which has been beyond the wit of every education secretary in my lifetime.)

The text for Kodály’s Pange Lingua is a poem by Thomas Aquinas. I preferred Evening Song. We sang this in English instead of the original Hungarian, which would have been a challenge, but not impossible.

I’d not heard the Missa Brevis before. However, the sopranos have to hit the C two octaves above middle. That isn’t something you forget in a hurry.

Arvo Pärt’s Nunc Dimittis is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard, certainly one of the most beautiful I’ve sung. Which Was the Son of… is almost comical. It’s based on Luke, Chapter 3, verses 23-38, which begins, ‘And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph,[…]’

Um…. ‘as was supposed’?

There then follows a list of 75 men – of whom any or some or all or none might have actually lived – ending in god. It’s been described as a ‘ridiculously banal text’, a comment which incurred the wrath of some botherers, one of whom asked what exactly was ‘a ridiculous text from the bible’? Apart from ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’, pretty much everything. I really do think that if we all lived by the maxim “do as you would be done by” there’d be far less aggro in the world. And, let’s be honest, most of the aggro in the world is caused – either entirely or in part – by how certain individuals/groups interpret their chosen ‘gospel’. To wit, your god imaginary friend is not as good as my god imaginary friend , therefore you – and as many future generations of your family as we think fit – must die.

Someone also wondered if Pärt had set the text to music as a bet.

We’ve performed Górecki’s Totus Tuus before. As an a cappella piece, it’s challenging because, unless you’re paying very close attention, the pitch can start to drop half through the first bar.

Holy Trinity was the perfect venue for this programme, which contained a lot of high notes which echoed around the rafters very nicely.