Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 March 2012 22:13:04
Back on home turf at last. And back to the Thorne Mass of St. Thomas (my favourite congregational setting). A pity we only sing the Kyries in Lent and Advent, they deserve wider recognition. We were asked to sing 'If ye love me' (Tallis) very smoothly and it paid off - strangely we have a habit of singing in quite a staccato style, not sure where we picked that up from. We were joined by one of our student sopranos, returned from university for the holidays (already?), and also had a new bass joining this weekend, to balance the new tenor who joined a month ago.
Quite a good attendance at Evensong tonight, Spring must be on the way. Three good Lenten hymns (including 'Drop, Drop slow tears', tune by Orlando Gibbons, one of my favourites) and the Plainsong Lenten Prose from our new 'Ash Wednesday to Easter' Anthem books, ed. Dakers and Scott. The books look very promising and I shall enjoy singing through the other anthems during the Lenten and Easter seasons. I wondered why the vicar didn't join in the anthem as he usually does - but then all was revealed as he started his sermon by singing a solo (of a chorus he remembered from childhood). He must have been saving his voice, obviously.
I was glad that we 'sang something simple' today as everyone was still reeling from the wonderful Saturday night concert by West Devon Chorale (Bach, Bruckner, Britten, Lukaszewski) which would have been a hard act to follow. They kindly left their pencils behind in the choir stalls, so we made use of them tonight.