{"id":3096,"date":"2016-07-10T08:30:05","date_gmt":"2016-07-10T07:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=3096"},"modified":"2016-07-10T08:30:05","modified_gmt":"2016-07-10T07:30:05","slug":"choristers-of-canterbury-cathedral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=3096","title":{"rendered":"Choristers of Canterbury Cathedral"},"content":{"rendered":"

St Nicolas, Pevensey, Saturday 9 July 2016<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Canterbury<\/a><\/p>\n

The arrival of the Choristers of Canterbury Cathedral will surely be recalled as a high moment in the celebrations of the 800th<\/sup> anniversary of St Nicholas Church, Pevensey. Introduced in relaxed fashion by their musical director Dr David Flood, they provided outstanding musicianship and exemplary singing for all too short a time.<\/p>\n

They opened with Michael McGlynn\u2019s modern setting of Maria matrem<\/i> with its crisp, soaring lines floating around the building, before the gentle sentimentality of Handel\u2019s Did you see my lady. <\/i>There were two items by Vivaldi \u2013 a bright setting of Tecum principium<\/i> with its extended coloratura, and the canon duets of Virgam virtutis. <\/i>Between these we heard Caccini\u2019s Ave Maria, <\/i>which is popular and familiar, even if it is not by Caccini!<\/p>\n

Guy Steed, who accompanied throughout, gave the choir a break with an organ solo from Bach, playing the G minor Fugue and demonstrating the strengths of the St Nicolas organ.<\/p>\n

The first half concluded with two short excerpts from Britten\u2019s Missa brevis. <\/i>This was outstanding even by the choir\u2019s own standards and made us realise how well Britten writes for boys\u2019 voices.<\/p>\n

The second half moved away from the liturgical to let us hear another side of the choir\u2019s repertoire, opening with two familiar duets \u2013 the Flower Duet from Delibes\u2019 Lakme<\/i> and the Barcarolle<\/i> from Les Contes d\u2019Hoffmann. <\/i>If the tempi for both were on the fast side, the accuracy was splendid.<\/p>\n

Timothy Noon\u2019s Evocation to a friend <\/i>was written for the choir and draws on their strengths for part-singing and the gentle clash of voices.<\/p>\n

\"cant<\/a><\/p>\n

After another brief organ solo – part of a Fantasie<\/i> by Saint-Saens \u2013 we came to the final set of items drawn from more popular music. As David Flood noted, the choir have to learn these in addition to their normal repertoire as they are not part of the daily liturgy! They opened with This little light of mine,<\/i> moved on to Puttin\u2019 on the Ritz <\/i>(though they showed good taste by pronouncing all the final g<\/i>s!) America<\/i> and concluded with Time to say goodbye.<\/i><\/p>\n

All too soon they were back on the coach for Canterbury, with a 9.30am rehearsal ahead before the Sunday liturgy.<\/p>\n

It had taken four years to get the choir to Pevensey but it was certainly worth the wait and a tribute to all concerned. A wonderful evening which will be remembered for a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St Nicolas, Pevensey, Saturday 9 July 2016 The arrival of the Choristers of Canterbury Cathedral will surely be recalled as a high moment in the celebrations of the 800th anniversary of St Nicholas Church, Pevensey. Introduced in relaxed fashion by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3099,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096\/revisions\/3099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}