It is not often that I find myself humming music from a concert which I went to a week ago.  Mostly, the music I have experienced in the interim, either heard on the radio or sung for myself at Choir practice, takes over.

But last Friday proved to be an exception.  The Royal School of Church Music had held its annual conference here in Sydney and as its finale they put on a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Sydney Town Hall.  Anne and I had mulled over going, decided against for a variety of reasons, and then were persuaded to go with friends.

The St Matthew Passion is never stunning or enjoyable.  The story it tells, of betrayal, mob rule, a cruel, agonizing death, and disruption amongst friends, hardly fits those adjectives.  But a good performance is deeply satisfying, both musically and emotionally.  And that is exactly what the RSCM delivered.

All the performers, choirs, soloists and orchestral players, were excellent.  The conductor, David Hill, co-ordinated and inspired everyone not only to produce beautiful music, but to tell the story in all its glory and its agony.  Sitting just two rows from the stage, we could see his movements and facial expressions as if we were ourselves performers, making for an unusual degree of involvement in the proceedings.

For me, listening to the Passion was enhanced by its being sung in English.  Occasional jarring of language which does not quite match the music is more than compensated for by being able to follow the narrative.  No doubt David Hill has taken that approach over from his predecessor as conductor of the Bach Choir in London, Sir David Wilcox, whose annual Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday performances of the Passion at the  Royal Festival Hall are the stuff of musical legend.

The Passion is such a rich work of art that something new strikes you every time you hear it.  For me, this time, one thing I had not noticed before was the contrast between the two arias with violin obbligato accompaniment.  One is smooth and lilting, with the violinist’s movements seeming to align gently along with the music.  The other is strident and angry, with the violinist’s bow arm in particular making rapid jagged movements, somehow emphasizing the extreme pain represented in the music.

There was perhaps one disappointment.  The Town Hall was barely half full.  Perhaps due to a lack of publicity the word had not got around,  Such a shame, as it was a performance to remember.  Maybe our Publicity Officer, Kerry, who seems to have secured us a full house again in a few weeks’ time, might like to help them get a fuller audience for their next production.

Singing the Pergolesi Magnificat brings back a trio of memories for me.

They are all associated with friends who sing tenor.  Good tenors, I have to say, like my best man of fifty years ago, Chris, whose choir, as you may have seen a couple of weeks ago, has just sung almost exactly the programme which M W Choir will perform in a few weeks time.

And then there is Richard, with whom I both worked and sang for a while.  The more we MWC men have sung the Sucepit Israel from the Magnificat, the more it rings bells in my mind.   The penny has finally dropped.  Richard persuaded me to join him in a concert of duets, including Sucepit Israel, as part of an Arts Festival in the village where we used to live.  I do not do solos – but somehow a set of duets seemed OK.  It turned out to be quite nerve-wracking, but we had more compliments than complaints, so it cannot have been too bad.

And then that reminded me of Mark – a most wonderful first tenor in the choir in Salisbury.  He lived in an out of the way village with no public transport and he did not drive, despite the fact that he made a living from developing night-vision goggles for the military.  I happened to pass his door on my way to Salisbury, so I willingly took him there and back every week.  When re-audition time came, another nerve-wracking episode, I figured that the conductor would have to treat me leniently as, were he to dispense with my services, he would also loose that excellent and scarce resource, a quality first tenor.

Oh yes – I have just realized that should be a quartet, not a trio.  My younger brother, David, showed no interest in music as a youngster – he was a consummate sportsman, both cricket and soccer.  But when he moved to Cardiff (Wales, not New South Wales) and then retired, he somehow found himself in a Male Voice Choir – as a first tenor, eventually singing the high solos.  The choir must be quite good as it is called on to entertain VIP visitors to international rugby matches at Cardiff Arms Park.

So – it is quite something for me, as a lowly baritone, to have been associated with four top tenors! Quite a quartet!

It was great to be back at Choir last night – singing is one thing I really miss when Anne and I are travelling.  And I was reminded last night just how lovely is the whole of Vivaldi’s Gloria – not just the rather hackneyed first movement, but the whole piece.  It is wonderful to both to sing and to listen to.

A curious co-incidence happened on our travels.  My best man of fifty years ago and I do not get together very often, but we managed it on this trip – a delightful lunch in a Georgian house within the precincts of Ely Cathedral.  Chris is a really good singer, a rare and valuable first tenor, unlike my middling baritone, and he has sung with a number of prestigious choirs in his time, including the City of Birmingham Choir under Simon Rattle.

Chris now sings with the Stamford Choral Society.  We always compare singing notes when we meet up and this time was no different.  I asked him what SCS were singing at the moment, and he replied that they were starting a summer break, but that they had had a concert the previous week.  So then I asked what they had sung.  The reply was the Vivaldi Gloria, the Pergolesi Magnificat and some Bach motets.  “Snap!” I retorted, especially when one of the motets turned out to be “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.”

It would be good to have Chris join MWC for this next concert – I did invite him but, as he pointed out, he would hardly be home from one rehearsal before it was time to set off for the next!

Which section of yesterday’s program has been buzzing around in your head all night?

It seems that an occupational hazard of singing in a choir is that the night after the concert one or two phrases go round and round in you head and refuse to go away.

For me, the most magical moment yesterday was in the Nelson Mass.  It was not a phrase as such that caught me, but a short sequence which was uncharacteristic in a concert full of busy music..

At the end of the Credo there is a huge “Amen” with orchestra bowing and blowing as hard as they can and the choir at absolutely full pitch.

Then silence.

Then the choir comes in with a very quiet “Sanctus”, building to a crescendo with a big orchestral chord, and then dying away.

Then silence again before the sequence repeats.

What a way to stress the awesome nature of the Almighty – a truly numinous piece of composition.   And in this Mass where Haydn does so many things differently, it is entirely fitting to introduce a feeling of awe and reverence in this way.

It seemed to work a treat – you could have heard a pin drop during the silences.

It seems that the audience appreciated our efforts throughout the program, from all that was said afterwards.  And it was particularly kind of the weather to stay fine for the post-concert drinks and nibbles.  As someone commented to me over a glass of red wine “What better way is there to spend a Sunday afternoon?”

How is your breathing?

Mine is dreadful.  I am always taking a breath in the middle of phrases when singers around me seem to be carrying on regardless.  And last week’s rehearsal, with the soloists adding their glory to our singing, showed me up really badly.

For example, I noticed that in a piece where I could just about manage two bars’ singing before gasping for breath, the soloists were typically singing for four, five or even six bars, apparently effortlessly and without any strain on their bodies.

How do they do it?

Then Anne and I went to hear the Sydney Philharmonia Choir sing JS Bach’s Magnificat and Mozart’s Great C Minor Mass (sub-plot – is MWC really good enough to sing music like this – we are? wow!!) and the soloists there showed me up even more, only I was not actually singing – well, maybe just very, very sotto voce, under my breath. Sarah Macliver, Fiona Campbell and David Greco (yes, the same David Greco who has sung with MWC) effortlessly filled the huge cavern of the SOH Concert Hall with bar after bar of delightfully resonant sound, sometimes in long flowing phrases and sometimes in florid repeating runs up and down the vocal register.  And all without apparently taking a breath in the middle of a phrase.

How do they do it?

Even more amazing is the story of Charity Tilleman-Dick, an American singer who has just died at the young age of 35.  She had embarked on a career in opera when she was diagnosed with a condition which required a double-lung transplant.  While she was re-learning how to, amongst other things, breathe, the new organs failed and she had to have a second transplant.  She recovered both her health and her career, which lasted until her premature death.  

Click here if you would like to read more of her story and hear her sing – yes, with uninterrupted, long, flowing lines showing that she really did learn how to breathe again.  Quite an inspiration to those of us who are challenged in the breathing department.