1979-1981 and promotion to second bass
For the first concert of the newly renamed Bournemouth Symphony Chorus it was another work I had sung before, and rather more recently. The Poole Proms in September opened with a concert that included Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes who had also been on the rostrum when I performed it with the Croydon Philharmonic Choir earlier in the year. It was fortunate I knew the piece, as we didn't have much rehearsal time.
Our next concert was a work that I knew well but had never sung - Brahms German Requiem. I had heard Leicester Bach Choir perform it when I was a teenager and had gone out and bought a recording. Our conductor was Norman del Mar, and I remember his conducting technique well. In the first half the Orchestra played Messiaen's l'Ascension which I only knew as an organ piece. In the last movement which was quiet and slow he would crouch down and leap up when he wanted a particular emphasis. Unfortunately this meant that his feet would come back down hard on the floor (he didn't use a podium) before a sound came from the orchestra, which rather ruined the aural effect.
Then in December it was my first experience of the tradition that was the carol concerts. On Saturday we performed in Bournemouth and then on Sunday in Poole. The programme and format were the same in both places, the main difference being that the first audience had an average age about 20 years greater than the second. Geoff Hughes conducted and compered it. At the start he would bound onto the stage and greet the audience. He would have a list of particular groups that were present, and would call them out and they would cheer back.
One of the highlights of the evening was always when the children were invited to come on stage to sing Away in a Manger. Sometimes there was not enough room for all the children on the corner of the stage allocated, and they would spread along the front of the orchestra. On one occasion a young boy got onto the podium, so Geoff put the baton in his hand and guided his arm so that he was effectively conducting. It turned out that he was the son of one of the violinists, who thanked Geoff afterwards for giving the boy such a thrill.
By tradition the first weekend of January saw performances of Messiah in Bournemouth and Poole, with a guest conductor. I had never sung the whole piece before though I knew several choruses. On this occasion the conductor was Roger Norrington. We only had two chorus rehearsals, so I had to learn it fast. On one of the days after Christmas, when I was staying with my parents, there was a live radio broadcast. But as there was only one warm room in the house I had to listen with headphones while everyone else was watching television. I was just about able to concentrate and I hope I was able to contribute to the performance.
In March we sang a piece that was completely new to me but I have since got to know very well - African Sanctus by David Fanshawe. The work is a setting of the Latin mass interspersed with recordings that David made travelling in Egypt, Sudan and Uganda. I wasn't too sure at first whether I liked it, because the piece depends so much on the percussion and the pre-recorded tapes, and the chorus parts sound strange in isolation. In particular the last movement seems just to repeat old material. For the final chorus rehearsal, the composer came and gave us plenty of guidance which really helped. At the end plenty of the choir wanted him to autograph their scores, which he was happy to do. The only problem was that his signature is a work of art and takes about a minute to complete, and the caretaker who was trying to clear the room was not at all happy.
The first part of the concert consisted of him, appropriately addressed in "Englishman abroad" shorts and pith helmet, describing his journey in Africa making his recordings, and what inspired him to write the work. The performance of the piece in the second half was very well received. And I got to understand the last movement, in the way that different layers of percussion are introduced to make a highly effective ending to the music.
The attraction for me of joining the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus was not just the quality of the singers, but the opportunity to sing music that was not part of the standard choral repertoire. I wanted to be able to perform works that were beyond the scope of an amateur orchestra, so would be prohibitively expensive for a choral society to promote. There were also pieces like the Beethoven Choral Symphony that were basically orchestral pieces but required a choir, in which case the orchestra would engage the choir to take part.
In the summer of 1980 there were two opportunities to sing the Beethoven Choral Symphony under the baton of the German conductor Volker Wangenheim, who had not worked with the Chorus before. He rather patronised us to start with. The first passage he asked us to sing he stopped us after a short while and said "Zat vas absolutely fantastisch but..." and listed a few things that were wrong. We then sang a bit more and he repeated the phrase highlighting more errors. After the third time he came out with the phrase, the whole choir burst out laughing. Luckily he saw the joke and the choir warmed to him and gave a good performance.
Another piece that really requires a professional orchestra is William Walton's cantata Belshazzar's Feast, which was the opening work of the 1980 Poole Proms. It requires a very large orchestra and is definitely a challenge to sing. It only lasts about 40 minutes, but is flat out for a lot of the time, so it would not be fair to ask a choir to programme it in with another major choral piece. On the other hand it goes very well with a piece like the Elgar Cello Concerto, or on this occasion Wagner's Meistersingers Overture and Borodin's 2nd Symphony. It was already in the chorus's repertoire, so I picked it up fairly easily among singers who knew the work, though I am not sure how confident I was when it came to the performance.
About six months later, the choir was invited to send a small number of singers to augment a choir that was to perform the work in Bristol. It was a special concert to mark the retirement of the distinguished Welsh bass Sir Geraint Evans. It was to take place in the Colston Hall in Bristol, and was to be recorded by HTV West. So a group of experienced singers was selected who rehearsed it on their own.
However a week before the concert was due to take place, a message came through to the Chorus secretary that they would like as many singers as possible. So anyone who was free was invited to come in on the Saturday evening to run through it before the all-day rehearsal and performance on the Sunday. Not surprisingly it was unbalanced, and in the bass section there were about seven firsts and only one second - Sandrey Date. I had always put myself forward as a first because I thought that was where my range was most suited, but I offered to sing second to support Sandrey on the bottom line.
Next morning we made our way to Bristol, where we had a piano rehearsal in the morning and were joined by the orchestra in the afternoon. Not surprisingly we were pretty tired by the time the concert started, but there was great anticipation for this special event. The orchestra was the BSO and the conductor was Sir John Pritchard.
The work has a very dramatic opening with the male chorus declaiming the dire things that were to happen to the people of Israel. As we were coming to the end of the passage, a door at the side opened, and a man wearing headphones came out, walked up to the stage and asked the conductor to stop. It turned out they hadn't started the recording! So we had to prepare ourselves to sing it again with equal drama as though it was for the first time. After that it all went well and Sir Geraint bowed out in style. So ended a really enjoyable but rather exhausting day. I watched the recording when it was eventually broadcast. It was the first time I had seen myself singing on television, and it was somewhat disconcerting that they showed me in close-up when we were singing "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting"!
One outcome from the day was that I immediately moved from first to second bass. I had felt comfortable with the lower register and was told by Sandrey that my voice was more suited to it. I approached Geoff Hughes, the chorus master, at the very next rehearsal, and he agreed.
This all happened in the middle of a very busy season. In November we had sung Tippett's Child of our time, again with Volker Wangenheim. He admitted that he had never heard of the piece till he was asked to conduct it, but found it very moving. Though it is not set in any particular place, he acknowledged that it was inspired by events that had happened in his own country. Then between Christmas and Easter, as well as the unscheduled Walton, we had contrasting works, Carmina Burana again and Bach's B Minor Mass.
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