Low Notes  3

By David Ward

June 2016 This is the third in an occasional 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.

The summer concert was fun, one of the best I’ve known, one in which I managed to stop twitching with nerves and just sing. The compact lay-out was a great help – for the first time, I could hear the other three parts. And the back row of the choir stalls may be hard but it’s a lot more comfortable than one of the kiddie chairs.

We all seemed to go for it with a collective concentration that hardly flagged and we also proved that we can sing unaccompanied and stay in tune (most of the time). A member of the audience came up to me after the Rutter and said: “I thought that was Capital G…” and I winced, thinking perhaps the G stood for ghastly. But it turned out that it stood for gorgeous. She couldn’t stop enthusing; she had been overwhelmed, knocked out, it was so beautiful etc etc.

Donald did his best to steer the basses to something approaching accuracy at the end of Ubi Caritas; Alan the organist seemed to have at least five hands and several feet; Jenny, the substitute soprano soloist, was unfazed by the short notice or the pulpit; and our own sopranos played a blinder, undaunted by the fact that one had a broken foot and the other sciatica. Let’s hope their numbers increase significantly when the new session starts on September 6. If you know any likely singers, do some arm-twisting.

I practised for the concert using Steve K’s crib cd and was delighted to find that the solos appeared to be sung by a whistling Clanger, possibly assisted by the Soup Dragon. I also used Youtube and found a lovely version of Tollite Hostias (which I loved) sung by a choir of wide-mouthed boys (and a few girls) and men. They are accompanied by an orchestra that includes theorbos, cornets and possibly sackbuts, which might have come as a surprise to Saint-Saens. It’s worth watching for the bit early on when the dynamic conductor slides out of sight, apparently on castors.

I also explored Youtube for versions of Ubi Caritas but found most were not much help because it was clear, even to my cloth ears, that the choirs were pulling the rhythm about, singing minims for crotchets and losing the sense of the plainsong pulse.

I’ll be exploring Youtube again for the Christmas concert, which will be on December 4 at St Oswald’s. We’ll be singing the Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Vaughan Williams (twelve minutes; several Youtube versions) and the Missa Brevis Tongue of Fire by Cecelia McDowall (15 minutes; it isn’t on Youtube but has been recorded on a cd  – with her setting of the shipping forecast).

We’ll also sing some carols by English composers and a new piece by some chap called Donald Judge, which I think will be a setting of lines from early in Hamlet:

Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad.
The nights are wholesome. Then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is that time.

But it’s a long time till Christmas and my mind is on a holiday in Orkney. Lots of midsummer light, some great Bronze Age graves and the St Magnus Festival. We’ll be at a late-night concert in the cathedral given by choir called Voces8, whose programme ranges from Thomas Tallis to Kate Rusby and includes Lullaby for Lucy, a setting by Peter Maxwell Davies of a text by George Mackay Brown written to celebrate the first child to be born at Rackwick on the island of Hoy for 32 years. I’ll listen to see if there is something that might suit us.

Two Arts Centre events you might want to note: on September 8, Donald will talk about and illustrate his wandering in the Czech Republic; on September 30, the Guardian’s revered theatre critic Michael Billington will discuss his latest book about the best 101 plays of all time with an ageing local journalist.

That’s enough rambling. Enjoy the long break and we’ll meet again on September 6.