Berberis' World

Thursday, 13th April 2023, Royal Festival Hall.

Nearly a decade since last singing it with Lewisham Choral Society, we were joined for this performance of Verdi’s Requiem the Hackney Singers. The Festival Hall is one of my favourite venues, and this evening it was packed. There were more people in the audience than for probably any other concert I’ve been part of.

There may be very little else for me to say about this work. If the different shade of yellow highlighter is anything to go by, there were some minor changes this time round: all Altos join the Tenors for the 2 bars immediately after Figures 9 and 94; Choir 1 and 2 join forces from 7 bars after Fig. 78 to Fig. 79. Any excuse to sing more Verdi is fine with me.

The programme has some interesting Guiseppe gossip: Wagner – perhaps following the old adage of “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”, or because his opinion was thought irrelevant – declined to say what he thought about the Requiem, whilst both Brahms and George Bernard Shaw respectively declared it the work of a “genius”, and an “imperishable monument”: their agreement about at least one requiem mass in all probability being of absolutely no note whatsoever.

Saturday, 16th March 2024, Blackheath Halls.

Ralph Vaughan Williams – Five Mystical Songs

Francis Poulenc – Piano Concerto in C# minor / Stabat Mater

Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

Piano: Nico de Villiers

Forest Philharmonic Orchestra

Baritone: Daniel Tate

Soprano: Helen Meyerhoff

Piano: Cliodna Shanahan

This term’s major work for Lewisham Choral Society was Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, something I appear to have performed almost exactly 13 years ago with the London Philharmonic. I don’t remember that earlier performance, although I do recall the rehearsals, during which a fellow alto – Stephanie – and I doodled on our scores and wrote comments on how awful the text was.

However, unless Poulenc wrote two Stabat Mater‘s this wasn’t the same work. I don’t have the score from when I was in the LPC so can’t be absolutely sure, but a quick peek at the post from back then has a quote from a review that mentions a Pavan, which wasn’t in this score. The review refers to the piece as having something “sensually Caravaggian about its pained chromaticism…“

Pained is certainly a word one could use.

The other work was Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams, words by George Herbert.

Song 1 is Easter, and contains the phrase “The cross taught all wood to resound his name who bore the same/His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key is best to celebrate the most high day.” Apart from the ridiculous Tolkienian notion that trees communicate with each other even after they’ve been felled and fashioned into an instrument of torture, comparing the tuning of a lute’s strings to stretching a human being’s sinews to tearing point is just horrible.

Song 2 is the quaintly titled I got me flowers. I prefer Blur’s version.

Song 3, Love bade me welcome, is a dinner invitation. I’d put good money on the fact that no-one has ever invited anyone to dinner with the words “You must sit down […] and taste my meat”.

The choir stay silent during Song 4, The Call. Following on from Song 3, this call should be to the police.

Song 5 is one song – Let all the world in every corner sing – to the tune of another (and not one that I’ve heard before). However, after the other 3 it’s quite cleansing. The altos end on a high D, surpassed only by the E in Easter.

The final rehearsal is in situ with the orchestra. The RVW was as expected: I hadn’t practised anywhere near enough, and it showed. The Poulenc was slightly better, but I finally decided to mark off several bars where – even with considerably more practise – I still couldn’t pitch the notes. Thankfully, there were more than enough altos who knew what they were doing but miming isn’t what I plan to do during a concert. Where I was confident, I sang up. It was a pleasant surprise to end the rehearsal feeling slightly better disposed to Frankie Plank and his pained chromaticism.

For the concert, the Five Mystical Songs passed without incident, bar my forgetting – at different times – both the tune and the words. By contrast, both Daniel, the baritone soloist, and Cliodna, the pianist, were superb. There was a palpable atmosphere in the Hall at the end of Song 4, a collective breath that was held until the Antiphon. I found the D at the end and was glad it was over.

Dan seemed to thoroughly enjoy conducting Poulenc’s Piano Concerto – disjointed and weird as it was -and the orchestra responded to his enthusiasm. There’d been a huge round of applause from the choir when Nico arrived during our rehearsal, and another for his virtuoso performance on the piano. It’s not the main instrument, as in some other concertos, and each section of the orchestra gets their chance to shine. I’d not heard this work before, and probably won’t again.

Stabat Mater went better than I thought it would. At the rehearsal on Wednesday, Dan – referring to the Forest Philharmonic – said “they can play it”. Well, they can – and they did – with an enthusiasm unmatched by mine. Helen sounded wonderful – especially considering she was recovering from a bad cold.

Listening to practice tracks and recordings of the work was probably counter-productive as so much of it sounds wrong. However, the silent four (perhaps five) bars aside, I felt confident, but was still relieved when I managed to pitch the last note correctly. We’ll have to wait until Monday to find out what Dan thought.

Saturday, 11th November 2023, Great Hall, Goldsmiths College.

I missed three things in the run-up to this concert: the Staff Awards on the Friday, where the choir performed in a room largely full of drunk people; the Frankie Boyle gig at the Broadway Theatre in Catford; the final rehearsal on the Saturday morning. All thanks to an ENT consultant who, frankly, should have known better than to bring their virus to a crowded office with no access to fresh air. So, having gone through several hours of self-imposed voice rest, I turned up at 7 with no idea where I was going to stand (hopefully, by one of the basses) or if any last-minute instructions had been given by Dan.

There were no additional notes, but there were two seats reserved for me. I suspect that one of the altos had realised I wasn’t there but would be later on, so saved one independently of the one requested by the seating organiser. Not everyone can always attend the morning rehearsal, so this is quite common.

To be honest, my voice still wasn’t fully recovered, but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to sing this piece for what must have been the sixth time. This time, though, it was different. This time I knew both Osanna‘s.

The hall was packed – there were even people in the gallery – and they seemed to approve (not of my very minor accomplishment) of the whole performance.

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.