CHELMSFORD SINGERS
26 June 2010


Jim Hutchon writes:

To Chelmsford Cathedral for an inspiring evening of works from the Chelmsford Singers. This is a group that always delights, with crisp intonation and timing – the result of long hours of rehearsal under a demanding taskmaster.

Musical Director Peter Nardone conducted the choir in two Britten numbers – one of which, ‘Rejoice in the Lamb’, likened animals and musical instruments to God. The nonsense rhyme text was written by a 17^thC poet in a lunatic asylum.

Two main works occupied the bulk of the evening. The first was a set of five delightful and evocative songs by Essex composer Alan Bullard, where the Choir was joined by the Chelmsford Youth Choir under the baton of Simon Warne. The second half was taken up with Purcell’s ‘Come Ye Sons of Art’, composed for the wife of William III and completed only a year before Purcell’s death. This is a complex delight to the ear, with nine sections, each employing different vocal techniques, from counter-tenors to bass.

For me, the highlight of the evening was the short, beautiful and dynamic ‘Tu es Petrus’ by the renaissance composer Palestrina, which swept us bodily from Chelmsford to the heady delights of the Seminario Romano in 16^thC Rome.