1985-87 and several challenges
When planning the 1985/6 season, the orchestral management scheduled a performance of Tippett's Child of our Time towards the end of October. Geoff Hughes pointed out that it would only allow us seven rehearsals, the absolute minimum for such a difficult work, but reluctantly agreed to it. When the full programme for the season came out, Geoff noticed that the opening concert included Beethoven's Choral Symphony. So he contacted the orchestral management and asked which choir they had booked. The answer he got was that they had forgotten that a choir was needed!! So the Beethoven had to be squeezed into our schedule. Brian Wright was conducting the Tippett, and it was explained to him why we were under-rehearsed. He was very sympathetic, and also mentioned that it was a good job we were not doing another Tippett work, The Mask of Time. Compared with that, he said, Child of our Time is "as easy as falling off a log". We performed it in Poole and Bristol. The first time went OK, but the second was a bit iffy. At one point our cue was to stand when the soprano soloist came in, but she started a bar early, which could have thrown us, but we survived.
The orchestra had not scheduled anything for the chorus in the first months of 1986, so the committee booked St Peter's Church to perform Mendelssohn's Elijah, a piece I had never sung before. Some very good local soloists were invited, and Christopher Dowie, deputy Chorus Master, played the organ. St Peter's is a large church in the centre of Bournemouth with a fine acoustic, but was not normally heated at all during the week. As a concession to us they had it on throughout the previous day so it was just about bearable, but the soloists had not been warned and were dressed as for a heated concert hall. The soprano, in her backless dress got so cold, that a lady in the front row lent her her cardigan.
After Elijah we had two very big concerts to prepare for. In early May the chorus returned to the War Requiem, this time with Richard Armstrong conducting. I spoke to him after the chorus rehearsal that he attended and introduced myself as a fellow Old Wyggestonian, but he apologised that he did not remember me.
Then towards the end of June we joined up with Portsmouth Festival Choir for a complete performance of Berlioz' opera The Trojans as part of the Portsmouth Festival. The work is in five acts and lasts for about four and a half hours. This was a huge undertaking and we probably never really got on top of the piece. The conductor, Roger Norrington, took, as far as I remember, about three choir only rehearsals, and made it clear after the first one that we were not up to scratch, and if he was sensible he would cancel the concert. One of the problems was that our scores just had the chorus parts and only minimal cues. One scene started with 81 bars rest and no cues at all. The copies were well used with all sorts of markings, and even in places German transliteration of the French.
The concert was on a Sunday and we only had the one full rehearsal with the orchestra the previous day. So it didn't help that the coaches got stuck in traffic and we were over half an hour late. This of course meant that there were parts that were barely rehearsed, if at all. Nevertheless the choir rose to the occasion and it was a memorable event for all the right reasons. Though it was only a concert performance, they did the most they could to bring out the drama in the music by having singers and players popping up in different parts of the concert hall. The choir managed to cope with the many tricky sections, and I particularly remember the closing pages of the second act where the women sang brilliantly a passage that they had had great difficulty with in rehearsal.
The next September we were back at the Bournemouth International Centre for a Military Music Pageant. It was enjoyable to watch the marching displays, particularly the Gurkhas, and to listen to the United States Air Force in Europe Band. We did a few party pieces, including the Hallelujah Chorus. As we started, a few people at the back felt they should stick to tradition and stand up. They were followed by some more sitting in front, and the effect was like a slow moving Mexican wave, until by the last page everyone was on their feet.
In November we welcomed back Sir Charles Groves for Elgar's The Apostles. This was completely new to me, and I wasn't too keen on it to start with. For the singers there are too many short sections, particularly in the first part, so that you can't get a feel for the work as a whole. However once I had performed it from beginning to end I really fell in love with it, and it is possibly my favourite Elgar. I was most upset once when somebody I had a high musical regard for described it as dire. Admittedly there are a few longeurs, and it is controversial in the way the composer treats Judas Iscariot sympathetically. But there are several passages where Elgar is at his most imaginative. In the second part, much of the text would be familiar from the Bach Passions, but his approach is totally different. The trial of Jesus takes place off stage, and His death is described not in words but with a solo cello and a huge crescendo and diminuendo in the timpani. The final movement is a dialogue between earth and heaven, and while it might seem hackneyed in places, there is so much that is enjoyable about it that it makes it into my top ten bass bits. Sir Charles certainly showed what a fine work it is.
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