SPRING
CONCERT
Chelmsford
Singers at St Luke's Tiptree
01.04.17
In
the Victorian church at Tiptree, a fascinating evening of
unaccompanied song settings, inspired in part by the earliest days of
the Chelmsford Singers, ninety years ago.
James
Davy and the Singers began with an early Weelkes madrigal, but
from then on it was music from the twentieth century: folk song
settings from Vaughan Williams, including a powerful Lover's Ghost,
and the well-known,
if unseasonal, Wassail Song. Another folk song enthusiast, who
also drew
inspiration from the Essex countryside, was
Gustav
Holst, contributing six settings, including an intricate There Was a
Tree, an energetic Blacksmith and, before the rollicking sea shanty,
a moving I Love My Love, with a
tellingly
fragmented refrain.
Huddersfield-born
Robert
Cockcroft, newspaperman, organist and composer, was
represented by Three Yorkshire Folk Songs, culminating in a
toe-tapping, nonsensical Acre of Land.
Frank
Bridge's Five Part Songs set poems, including Shelley's Autumn. The
same poet's Music When Soft Voices Die was beautifully sung here, as
was the Tennyson's whimsical Bee.
The
acoustic here is bright and supportive, ideally suited to a programme
where words are important, and the interweaving of the parts needs to
be clearly defined.
The
choir's 90th
Anniversary celebrations continue with a Gala Concert in Chelmsford
Cathedral on July 1st,
with two crowd-pleasers, Britten's Saint Nicolas and Orff's Carmina
Burana.
