The Festival Singers returned to All Saints Church for their autumn concert which included an interesting and varied programme of music.
The concert opened with C.V. Stanford’s ‘Songs of the Fleet’ written one hundred years ago when the fleet was very different to today’s.
‘Stand by to reckon up your battleships’ – as one of the movements was called – would be a much shorter job these days! Rob Goodrich, baritone soloist, joined the Singers in a piece that evoked different moods and scenes in naval life.
This was followed by the rather more well known Requiem by Gabriel Fauré. A technical problem with the organ meant the choir couldn’t hear it very well and the tuning suffered on occasion as a result, but the attention paid to the dynamics of the piece lead to some beautiful pianissimo singing at times.
The baritone soloist was joined by Lorna Kisby, a former semi-finalist in the BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year Competition who sang the famous Pie Jesu.
The second half of the concert began with a solo spot for the Singers’ very accomplished rehearsal accompanist, Kevin Vockerodt, who played two pieces by Brahms which were much appreciated by audience and Singers alike.
He was then joined by Mat Harrison to provide piano duet accompaniment to the Singers for Brahm’s Liebeslieder Waltzes. This consisted of eighteen short love songs sung in German by various combinations of male, female and mixed voices.
It would have been useful to have had a brief note on each of the songs in the programme as few of the audience would have been familiar with it.
It was, though, the best piece of the evening with the Singers, under the direction of Alan Childs, producing an excellent, solid choral sound.
An interesting concert of varied pieces which provided something to be enjoyed by everyone, and also demonstrated that organ and keyboard can provide as good support as a full orchestra. It is a pity that so few people came along to hear it!