Hallelujah, Amen

Sunday 29 Nov

“Sing Messiah in Oxford” has now been crossed off the “To Do” list. And it was excellent fun (and exhausting, as well).

There were 45 or so in the choir, with half of them having only attended this weekend’s two compulsory rehearsals (I did one extra on Thursday). The conductor had organised a dozen or so professional musicians for the orchestra, and we had three excellent soloists with the bass particularly good (he took a couple of the alto solos because, for some reason, there was no alto soloist 🙁 ).

The quality of the orchestra made it so much easier to be confident of the singing. The musicians really were excellent. There are some tricky allegro bits that were done as fast as I’ve ever heard them done and it was all under control. My only personal regret is that by the time we’d had an afternoon rehearsal (on top of yesterday’s three-hour session) I was so warmed up that it was a bit hard to pretend to be a tenor any more: my low Ds and Es were long gone, and they’re needed from time to time, although the top tenor A in the “Amen” chorus was a breeze! Oh, and I’m afraid to confess I got lost briefly a couple of times (perhaps I should have done a little more rehearsing rather than trusting to imperfect recollections of past renditions (which were mostly alto renditions anyway) and my less than expert sight-singing). Fortunately I was able to recover before too many bars had passed.

I know it’s almost too famous for its own good, but Messiah is a great work to sing. Handel is, for the most part, kind to the different chorus parts and treats them equitably (no monotonic alto parts along the lines of “I am a humble alto, and this is all I do: I often have one note to sing, though sometimes I have two”!). There are different moods and styles (within the Baroque context), the intervals are not too abrupt, Handel is more cheerful than Bach, and it’s just good fun to sing. My favourite bit is the set of the last three choruses, which make such a grand climax to the work (and if you can get a soloist who can capture the mood, “Thy rebuke hath broken his heart” is spine-tingling).

There was a reasonable audience in attendance and they seemed to enjoy it. More selfishly, I did too! Anne also joined in singing alto, and John was in the audience with a friend of theirs, but I think he might get involved in a forthcoming performance of the St John Passion being organised by this conductor (I’m very tempted to do this myself, but it’s in the first part of next year and I can’t see work allowing me to extend my study leave! 🙂 )

The photos show the exterior of St Matthew’s Anglican Church, Grandpont (Oxford), taken yesterday, and then the interior during the rehearsal for orchestra and soloists this afternoon. The church is only 100-150 years old.