This year over 250 singers attended, as we focused on our current work in preparation, J S Bach’s great Mass in B minor. Those of you who have sung it before will know this is not a work for the faint-hearted, and it was with some trepidation that we launched ourselves into endless runs of semi-quavers taken at break-neck speed – but by goodness what a thrill to sing this magnificent work as a part of such a large choir.

Members of the Choir had been very busy baking cakes and these were available at the breaks in the workshop and proved to be very popular!  It was great to see so many ‘returners’ to the Workshop, people who come back to sing with us year after year, as well as so many new faces.

The Workshop finished with an abridged run through of the choral elements of the Mass, and after that we all left, happily into a chilly Bath evening.  The whole thing was summed up by Chairman Mervyn Harris in the Choir programme for the day where he said: “We run these day-long annual  workshops for a number of reasons, not least because it enables us to sing with lots of other people – both familiar and new, from near and far – knowing that the common joy of singing together has brought us all here.”

Next year’s workshop will take place on Saturday 26 January 2013 in St Michael’s Without in central Bath.  The work to be studied will be announced shortly, and we look forward to seeing you there for what is always a simply fabulous day.

This joyful annual event reminds us all that Christmas is now pretty close: time for present buying is short, so we better get busy.

The music is good too, presided over, after his absence last year, by Nigel Perrin, in genial mood.  We started with Bach Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light, which established the quality at the outset, the choir placed around the Pump Room bearing candles.

Then a pleasantly eclectic mix of carols, old and new.  I particularly enjoyed the Chilcott  Midwinter, flowing and rhythmic,  For Him all Stars Have Shone, and his brilliant setting of the Sussex Carol, full of life and urgency. Also the very tender  Ave Maria  by Basque composer Javi Busto  and a new carol by choir member Bernard Wight, One Mighty Day,  jazzy and syncopated and great fun to sing.

And it was good to hear Peter Wishart’s Alleluya, A New Work is Come on Hand again,  bouncy and pulsing with energy.  Marcus Sealy played with his customary unobtrusive excellence throughout –  though I did miss the oboes in The Shepherds’ Farewell.

The Junior Choir did their stuff under Jamie Knights, including a piece of his own, Peaceful the Wondrous Night, sung with the adults, lilting and pleasantly tuneful, incorporating the Silent Night theme.

The guest artist from Wells Cathedral School on Wednesday was harpist Kirsty Chaplin, with a lovely rippling Italiana and John Parry’s Sonata, with its Welsh folk tune Dafydd y Gareg Wen motif, beautifully played with graceful fluency.

The concluding Twelve Days of Christmas came over with jaunty robust good humour, followed by a splendid Tom Lehrer-like caricature encore, in which most of the participants came to a sticky end. Great fun.  So, as usual, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening’s music, the choir in good voice  which was just as well, because the audience seemed noticeably short of singers, when our turn came.  But I did my best.

©Peter Lloyd Williams Bath Chronicle Friday 17 December 2011

Bach: Mass in B minor

Lucy Hall – Soprano
William Purefoy – Alto
James Geer – Tenor
Stephen Varcoe – Bass

Music for Awhile Orchestra, leader Margaret Faultless
Marcus Sealy – Organ Continuo
Nigel Perrin – Conductor

Howard Goodall’s setting of the Requiem, premiered in 2008, is a work of eloquent and moving contrasts, bring together Latin text: Biblical words from Revelation: Newman’s Lead Kindly Light and a selection of poetry. It is set for a combination of organ, piano and harp, with soprano and baritone solos, giving the choral writing an ethereal quality, yet allowing considerable dramatic expression. Stephen Varcoe’s warm baritone brought meaning to the text, every word crystal clear and Isobel Buchanan’s mature soprano gave another poignant dimension to the poem In Flanders Fields.

The work has a palpable unity in its fusion of pathos and sorrow, infused with hope at the final In Paradisum, sung with a controlled intensity which was very moving. The choir’s pianissimo singing was wonderfully effective, enhancing the expansive robust Lead Kindly Light – what a lovely setting.

And the Lacrimosa for chorus, baritone and soprano solo, has a tenderness, with the harp and organ accompaniment setting off the choral sound to perfection. Marcus Sealy played the organ, Jamie Knights the piano and Kate Watt the harp, in a performance which reached a level of serious musical excellence. Conductor Nigel Perrin couldn’t have asked for more – but he will.

The first half Totus Tuus, written by Gorecki for Pope John Paul II, was another triumph of controlled soft singing, the final Maria floating up into the Abbey roof.

Tavener’s Svyati, with Gabrielle Yuen on the cello, and cavernous bass drone, has an almost hypnotic effect, using the Trisagion from the Orthodox liturgy with an elemental symmetry unique to Tavener.

We also had Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque, sung a capella, quaintly discordant, quiet yet powerful and Part’s Beatitudes, with the organ, full of colour and harmonic interest, the tintinnabuli effect introduced with infinite subtlety: all notable for concentrated potency and attention to Nigel Perrin’s precise direction: fine singing indeed. Marcus Sealy’s rendering of Peeters Toccata, Fugue et Hymne sur Ave Maris Stella showed us the splendid range of the Klais organ and his continuing artistry at the keyboard in this lively piece, played here with panache and musical understanding.

As we left the abbey, there was a perceptible undercurrent of satisfaction, both for a high quality evening’s music, and the two charities, the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes to which the concert was dedicated.

©Peter Lloyd Williams Bath Chronicle 10 November 2011

The City of Bath Bach Choir present

BANUWA!

Festive songs for Summer

Bob Chilcott: Aesop’s Fables
Eric Whitacre: Three Flower Songs
Jonathan Dove: The Passing of the Year
Edward Elgar: Songs from the Bavarian Highlands
Mike Brewer: Festive Songs from Africa

Bring a picnic and join the Choir in the Centre’s grounds after the concert

Arriving at Fiumicino Airport in the afternoon of 21 October we were met by Bob, who directed us on to a coach and took us to our centrally located hotel.  We had no sooner arrived than Musical Director Nigel Perrin insisted on an hour’s rehearsal, in the only available – but small – room. This succeeded in trapping in some other hotel guests as our rehearsal room blocked their exit from the hotel. Our first impromtu captive audience!

Sant' Agnese, Piazza Navona, Rome

Saturday dawned a very acceptable 18° and we had the morning for sightseeing before arriving at our concert venue, the magnificent church of Sant’Agnese in Piazza Navona.   Sadly, that morning Bob had discovered that the church organ was broken, so we had to quickly re-arrange the concert to comprise all unaccompanied choral works.  However, we sang to a packed church and much applause. Later that night an enjoyable choir party was held at a local restaurant, after which a sizeable proportion of the choir decided to go on to the Trevi Fountain, which resulted in a real impromptu recital, much appreciated by the ‘captive Trevi audience’. More applause!

On the Sunday morning, we enjoyed the privilege of singing Mass at the Venerable English College in Rome – a quite unforgettable experience and we were all most grateful for the hospitality and friendship shown.

Sightseeing for the rest of the day and on Monday morning, was followed by a return to the airport and an afternoon flight home. We all reflected on having had a great weekend of sights, singing, camaraderie and fun.

Choir members on the coach to Rome airport

Apart from some rather laconic contrapuntal jazz there wasn’t much Bach about this splendid evening – but it served to show how flexible this choir can be. One also wondered whether there is anything to which the evergreen Nigel Perrin cannot overlay his stamp of precision and near-perfection.

The evening was in four parts: Five Tippett Negro Spirituals from A Child of Our time: Beautifully crafted, emotionally charged and sung with a pent-up passion.

Excerpts from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Roald Dahl’s words narrated by Perrin himself. And sung by the Junior Choir conducted by Adrienne Hale and accompanied by Jamie Knights: Perrin’s superbly animated narration with his silken diction was a joy in itself and how nice to see next year’s singers being brought forward. A little tentative, maybe, but abundant enthusiasm – and commendable discipline.

Pacific Song, by David Fanshawe, whose widow, Jane “worked the knobs” of a lack-lustre sound projection in which Polynesian waves crashing on a sun-drenched sandy shore sounded somewhat like indigestion. But, truthfully, singers in this hemisphere seldom recreate that lazy Southern Hemisphere swing. It didn’t really work.

And then the Duke Ellington Sacred Concert: Nothing short of brilliant.

From the captivatingly extrovert Andy Williamson, leading the jazz quintet from his saxophones – ever before heard such a mellow, gentle purr of a sound from a baritone sax? – to the foot-tapping high-stool sitting Perrin the whole was a wonderful marriage of classical choir and the Ellington genre.

©Reg Burnard of the Wiltshire Times
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Alas it wasn’t picnic weather, but the music more than made up for the chill wind blowing outside and the opening Tippett Spirituals were a revelation. Sung a capella, without scores, this was a quite beautiful sound, the concentration intense, the dynamics elegantly shaped and the soloists from the choir each making a distinctive contribution. It was a profoundly moving performance which got the rapturous reception it deserved. The effort involved in learning the five pieces was its own reward.

The Junior Choir ~ rather diminished in size ~ said goodbye to their conductor Adrienne Hale with a suitably cheeky performance of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs: and Nigel Perrin’s blood-chilling narration of Roald Dahl’s grisly words added to the fun.

For David Fanshawe’s Pacific Song, we had, very appropriately, Jane Fanshawe handling the electronics. Fanshawe’s is a distinctive quite idiosyncratic voice and the piece is reminiscent of his African Sanctus, relocated to Tonga, with original native voices interpolated alongside the sounds of the sea, drums and triangle. Pacific Song was the only part of a larger work he completed before his tragically early death in 2010, and it has a totally authentic nostalgic charm

Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert showed us a very different side of the Bach Choir ~ a tribute to their versatility, with the Big Buzzard Quintet, in great toe-tapping form, providing a vivacious jazz accompaniment. The whole performance was summed up in the opening Freedom section. The choir sang with genuine freedom and joyfulness: and the combination of improvisation from the players ~ piano, bass, drums, trumpet and saxophones ~ together with the flexibility of the singing, yet retaining its shape and discipline, was exciting and potent. It had all the rhythmic energy associated with Ellington’s style ~ and we had a reprise. It brought the house down. Exactly the right music for a summer evening, full of life and vigour, yet with a touch of seriousness too. Pity about the weather.

Peter Lloyd Williams of the Bath Chronicle

Jackie first joined the CBBC in 1957 and recalls singing ‘nothing but Bach’ with Cuthbert Bates. She left to have her family and re-joined in 1986 with Denys Darlow and recalls singing the Herbert Howells Stabat Mater as her first concert.

Mervyn thanked Jackie for all her work in recent years as choir ticket secretary and presented her with some flowers.