Croydon Philharmonic Choir
When I returned to Britain in 1976 I got a job in Croydon. I was anxious to re-join a choir and decided to go for the big time. I went for an audition with the BBC Symphony Chorus, but it shouldn't have been a surprise that I failed, as I had gone for such a long time without singing anything more serious than rugby songs. So I set my sights slightly lower. I went to a performance of the B Minor Mass by the Croydon Phil in the Fairfield Halls, and in the programme it stated that they were always looking for new singers. I arranged an audition and this time I passed.
The first concert I took part in was Christmas Carols. I enjoyed singing with them, but I went away thinking that there were only two pieces we sang I would be interested in performing again, "Once in Royal David's City" and "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" . Most of the others were rather trivial. The one that I particularly disliked was Malcolm Sargent's Cowboy Carol, particularly the words. The first verse of the bass line goes:
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight ping-a-ping ping pang pong
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight ping-a-ping ping pang pong
When I pong pong pong pong pong pong pong
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight ping-a-ping ping pang pong
However things looked up the next term with The Dream of Gerontius. The choir had a long tradition of Elgar, performing his major works back in the 1930s when his music was much less popular. The choir secretary was the niece of Ivor Atkins, who was one of the composer's champions, and she ensured that the tradition was continued.
The first rehearsal the conductor, James Gaddarn, ran through the whole work. As many of the choir had clearly sung it several times, and I didn't really know it at all, it was a bit overwhelming, but I quickly got to like the piece. We performed it twice; the first time was in the Fairfield Halls in front of a good audience; the second was in the Royal Festival Hall, a privilege to perform there, but a rather small turnout.
For the summer term we did something rather different, a concert performance of Bizet's opera Carmen. That was fun to perform, and the many soloists did well at doing what acting they could on the front of the stage. The only thing that went badly wrong was the children's choir at the beginning of the final act. They stayed seated as the rest of the choir stood up, and when the conductor brought them in, instead of singing they just got to their feet, and didn't utter a sound for the whole of the section they were supposed to be singing.
I can't remember what we did in the autumn term of the next season, other than that the Christmas Carols were rather better. Then for our spring concert we did St Matthew Passion. This was the fifth choir I had sung it with. It was quite heavily cut because of time constraints, and when we were going through the score, I kept on saying to myself, "you can't miss that out, it's one of the best bits". There are rather a lot of "best bits" in the work.
It was great to be able to do it again. When it came to the day of the concert, James Gaddarn told us that he had had no less than three of his soloists, including the Evangelist, withdraw during the last week, including one that morning. The replacement evangelist was Alastair Thompson, who had just resigned from the Kings Singers to pursue a solo career. He was excellent and this was the start of a new successful stage of his career.
For our summer concert we had the unusual but surprisingly effective combination of Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. Because of the difficulty of learning the pieces in a comparatively short time, the rehearsals were fraught, but the performances clearly worked out well. The orchestra hired for the concert was the Royal Philharmonic. As it happened this was the first time they had played Carmina Burana so they decided to programme it into one of their Fairfield Halls concerts the following February and invited the choir to sing it.
In one of the rehearsals for the summer concert, the secretary read out a letter from a young conductor asking how many members of the choir would be interested in performing the Beethoven Choral Symphony. A significant proportion of the choir put up their hands, but there was no immediate follow-up, and it was assumed that the project had not got off the ground. Because the summer concert came in late May, there was always time for further practices that term to have an early look at music we were singing the next autumn. However these were optional and only around half the choir would attend. It was at one of these that it came to light that the performance was going ahead after all. Of those who had offered to take part, many were absent, and several of those that were present had by this time made other arrangements for that day.
So at the appointed time about 20 of us from Croydon turned up to rehearse, only to discover we were about half of the total choir. We ran through the music and learnt it as best we could in the short time available. The orchestra and soloists were all music students or recent graduates, and the players were not going to hold back. Normally when the work is performed the choir numbers well over a hundred. On this occasion the 30 or 40 of us didn't stand a chance of being heard.
As mentioned above, the choir had been invited to sing Carmina Burana with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in February 1979, but by then the choir was working towards a major event. A new work had been commissioned from Elizabeth Maconchy. It was a cantata on a subject that she believed had never been dramatised in music, the story of the medieval scholars and lovers Eloise and Abelard. She had been asked to write a piece for a good amateur choir. This was a great opportunity for the choir to project itself as pioneers of new music, in line with the reputation it had gained with Elgar's music in the 1930s. Top soloists - Hannah Francis, Philip Langridge and Tom McDonnell - and the English Symphony Orchestra were engaged.
Unfortunately it was not a complete success. The main problem was that it was very difficult, and in a style that many singers were not familiar with. I really liked it, particularly a chorale like movement "O Quanta Qualia" at the heart of the piece, and there were some dramatic moments. At the same time there were sections where it was difficult for the chorus to integrate with the accompaniment. The opening was particularly problematical. It was in 4/4, but the first bar consisted of two crotchet triplets, the first beat being a rest, and the choir came in on the 5th note of the pair of triplets. So the conductor was beating 4 and we had to come in between the 3rd and 4th beats. That would be no problem in the middle of a movement, but for the opening notes it did not lead to unanimity or confidence.
The other problem was that a significant number of the choir did not really like it. There were some who might not have felt it their cup of tea, but were willing to give it a go, but a larger number than usual dropped out. And what upset me more than anything was when a colleague of mine who had no particular musical interest told me beforehand that she had heard from three different people that the concert was not going to be very good.
The composer (and her daughter Nicola Lefanu, also a composer) attended about three rehearsals leading up to the concert, and also gave a public talk about the piece. She was very helpful in describing the thinking behind some of the passages, but it was a struggle right to the end. I remember leaving the final choir rehearsal, and seeing on the conductor, James Gaddarn, the face of a very worried man.
The performance itself was very well received, maybe more because we had tried our best than the quality of the performance. It was recorded by the BBC and broadcast around midnight a few weeks later, and the recording is available on CD. The choir sang it again a year or two later, with a bit more confidence. Whether it has been performed since I cannot say, which is a great shame.
This was my lost concert with the choir. The company I was working for in Croydon decided to move me to their head office at Wimborne in Dorset, which I was very pleased about. Apart from the Fairfield Halls, Croydon didn't have much going for it for me, but I enjoyed my time in the choir and made a number of friends, including Ian Le Grice, the accompanist who was also a superb organist.
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