Low Notes 18
By David Ward
January 2023. This is the latest in an erratic series of newsletters about the choir that will include information about what we are singing plus irrelevant ramblings and observations from the back row of the basses.
And so another singing year begins. A belated happy 2023 to everyone.
We’ve had a good start to preparations for our Passion Sunday (March 26), though the basses were scarily scarce at our second session. Wikipedia tells me, that Mendelssohn composed his Cantata O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (O sacred head sore wounded), in 1830 when he was just 21. That was the year he also wrote his Hebrides overture which everyone who takes a trip to Staffa hears as the boat nudges into Fingal’s Cave. Mendelssohn had started young – he had to, since he was going to die at 38. He had knocked off his first symphony (the order of composition of his five symphonies is thought to be 1,5,4,2,3) at 15 and his Octet at 16.
The cantata was greatly influenced by JS Bach after Mendelssohn directed in 1829 the first performance for decades of the almost forgotten St Matthew Passion. Following renewed interest in Bach’s music, Mendelssohn later commented: “To think that it took an actor and a Jew’s son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!”
We have yet to look at the choruses from Messiah but have had a go at the new version of Donald’s dramatic setting of The Donkey by GK Chesterton:
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
As Donald reminded us in his recent message, the choir gave the world première (I love saying that) of his piece in 2005; we sang it in the Methodist church and were accompanied by a full orchestra in those days when we had space and cash for such luxuries. But the new scaled-down version should be perfect for St Oswald’s.
We had a busy farewell to 2022, a year during which it seemed, at least some of the time, that life had returned to normal after the horrors of the pandemic. Within about three weeks at the end of the year, we sang at our concert, at the carol service for St Oswald’s and at Messiah For All. We also managed to fit in our annual dinner at The Vale, where the cracker jokes seemed worse than ever.
From my place in front of the altar, I had the feeling that the concert included some of our best singing ever – or at least in the 20 years since I joined. At moments in the Gloria and Credo of the Hassler mass, there were magic polyphonic moments when each part was doing its own thing while fully embracing other voices doing their thing. Not sure if that makes much sense but then I’ve always thought writing about music was trying to hold jelly. All I know is that something special was going on and I was delighted to have been in the middle of it. Though it was a shame I didn’t win the raffle.
As usual, I went carol singing with a bunch of friends round our bit of Bollington – I’m proud to say that I’ve been making a festive noise in the streets at Christmas for almost 50 years. This time, it didn’t rain and turn our song sheets to pulp nor were our hands numbed with cold. We gave them the familiar stuff plus a Sheffield carol, another from the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky and one of our many versions of While Shepherds Watched.
As we sang Away in a Manger, a couple came to their front door with their two-week-old daughter Phoebe and their Christmas joy was the perfect complement to a festival about a new birth 2000 years ago. The only snag as we travelled on following the star like the Three Wise Men was that several people claimed not to carry cash. Next year we’ll have a card reader.
Looking forward, the June 18 concert will include Gounod’s St Cecilia’s Mass and that will be the piece we’ll work on at our singing day on March 11. It’s open to everyone so please bring your singing friends.
I end on a sad note: Judith Smith died just before Christmas after suffering from cancer for some years. She sang alto and was a wonderful player of the bassoon, its sound a solid rock for the basses to lean on when our notes were tricky. We will miss her voice, her bassoon and her smile greatly.
David