Our December concert was a proper challenge in true MacKenzie style. Five of Sir James MacMillan’s gorgeous Strathclyde Motets, plus four challenging Christmas and Advent motets by Victoria, Sweelinck, Scheidt and Peter Phillips – all this was crunchy enough, and the first half of the concert went off really well. Gerry Ruddock and Tim Hayward on piccolo trumpets accompanied us in Scheidt’s In Dulci Jubilo, making a glorious and electrifying sound, and Tim also played from the pulpit in MacMillan’s In splendoribus sanctorum. And the two of them were joined by our own Peter Twitchin moving seamlessly from singing tenor in the choir to play the chamber organ in Vivaldi’s lively Concerto for two trumpets.
The main work in the second half was A Boy was Born, an incredible tour de force by the 19-year-old Benjamin Britten consisting of a theme and variations, some of them of an extraordinary and growing complexity which had really challenged us in rehearsal. We were joined by the boys’ choir of St Columba’s College to sing the top line. We’d had very little time to rehearse with the boys and unfortunately their numbers were reduced by illness, which had also taken out the intended treble soloist.
So we girded up our loins and started, having laid off the mulled wine in the interval (destroys the sense of rhythm). The theme was fine – no problems there. The sopranos had to negotiate a tricky transition into Variation I (Lullay Jesu) – a relief when we were safely past that into cradle-rocking mode, although the cradle might have rocked a little irregularly towards the end of the movement. In Variation II (Herod) the men sang lustily and were definitely both “wild and wode”. In Variation III (Jesu, as thou art our Saviour) our own Ruth Potter bravely stepped in to sing the treble solo. Variation IV (The Three Kings) was a fairly stately progress for the Magi to Bethlehem, followed by Variation V (In the bleak midwinter) for the female voices and boys’ choir – a fantastic evocation in sound of snow falling quietly in a chill midwinter night. Gulp – now for Variation VI, and last – Noel! This feels to the singer like a roller-coaster ride, where if your concentration dips for a second you fly off and can never get back on again. And just when you think it’s about to end it takes off again up another slope with an even more breakneck drop the other side. Some of our singing might possibly not have been in quite the key that Britten intended but it was certainly animated and we did all reach the end at the same time.
In the words of John Manning in the Herts Advertiser: “It showed this fine choir at its best, even at the end of a concert of sometimes difficult music, and provided a fine start to the festive season. In all the evening was one of outstanding music, delightfully sung by a group of very experienced and well trained singers under an equally fine director.”
Next stop the King William the Fourth public house!
Catharine Jessop