Berberis' World

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.

Saturday, 27th March 2017, Royal Festival Hall, London.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV232

Soprano: Elin Manahan Thomas
Soprano: Helen Meyerhoff
Alto: Roderick Morris
Tenor: David de Winter
Bass: Philip Tebb

Hackney Singers
London Mozart Players

Harpsichord + Organ continuo: James Orford
Organ continuo: Andrew Storey

Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

The B Minor Mass at the Festival Hall. What’s not to like? Well, very little. I’ve written at length about this largely glorious piece – the Credo still grates, but is more than compensated for by everything else. I’d’ve preferred a front row seat (I was in row 3 of the choir stalls), and my enthusiasm got the better of me on a couple of occasions but, this aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this concert.

Saturday, 12th November 2016, Great Hall, Goldsmiths College.

Schubert: Offertorium, Intende Voci, D963
Mozart: Piano Concerto No 21 in C, K467
Schubert: Mass in E Flat, D950

Soprano: Helen Meyerhoff
Alto: Susan Legg
Tenor: Mark Chaundy
Bass: Philip Tebb

Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas
Piano: Nico De Villiers
Forest Philharmonic Orchestra

According to a number of the composer’s fansites, Intende Voci is amongst Schubert’s less well known of his religious songs. I have a non-Schubertian ear, so can only guess at why this might be: is it too difficult? is it not difficult enough? too long? too short? too boring? (Oops…what a giveaway. Sorry, Franz.)

I found the Mass in E flat a bit of a curate’s egg: it wasn’t until the andante con moto at bar 145 in the Gloria that it started to appeal. It was slow and dramatic and, although a quartet sang the Miserere, the remainder – especially bars 221-224 – were more than adequate compensation. The Quoniam is over fairly (and thankfully) quickly, and the Cum sancto spiritu is very reminiscent of Bach. We interrupt the soloists every now and again during the Et incarnatus est, and they repay the gesture in the Benedictus. The Osanna gets its customary second airing after this.

By far my favourite section is the Agnus Dei. This has a lovely few (and I do mean few) bars where the altos are not completely drowned out by the brass section. Towards the end, after the Dona nobis pacem, there’s an all-too-brief reprise of the Agnus Dei but, again, the altos are up against the brass and, again, we lose.

All that said, he orchestra were very good, the soloists were on top form, Nico was sparkling in the Mozart, and Dan was as energetic and expressive as usual. However, for the few bars that I really enjoyed, I’d not rush to perform either piece again.