Postcards – Nottingham Chamber Singers

Carols we love

Our NCS ‘choiradmin’ asked members to name their favourite congregational / audience Christmas carol. A lively discussion ensued. Two postcards were planned from the contributions but as there won’t be an #MfEMondays on 22 December we’ve gone for something resembling a concertina of postcards.

Image of some of the group who’ll be carolling at Wollaton Hall
Saturday 20 December, 1.30pm

THE MUSIC

Demi: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (minor key carols are the best) and In Dulci Jubilo, one of the first things I sang in a chamber choir back in school.

Robert likes pretty much every carol but agrees with Demi about the use of minor keys.

[Editor’s note: Other minor key carols include Carol of the Bells, Coventry Carol and the verses of We Three Kings.]

Stephanie: O come, all ye faithful for me every time. Shivers down my spine on the chord used for “Word”, and the fabulous descant!

Rachel P: The ‘word of the father’ chord in O come all ye faithful – but as a purist I insist it cannot be sung before Midnight Mass and must be past actual midnight…. 🤣🤣🤣

[Well, quite! “Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born THIS happy morning!”]

Angela S: Very fond of Of the Father’s heart begotten – beautifully lilting tune and uplifting thoughts.

Christine (who sings soprano): Silent Night because I like the alto part! Of the Father’s love begotten for the splendid organ accompaniment of the last verse and the words, “We were made out of love and for love”.

Rebecca: I love how the alto line in It came upon the midnight clear starts off very “one-note alto” and then goes WILD by the end of the verse.

A PUZZLE

Andy C, who used to sail a lot, picked I saw three ships but he’s always been puzzled by it given Bethlehem is landlocked! He also pictured Mary and Joseph in the first ship but wondered who was in the other two!

[Answers on a postcard to ncs@music-for-everyone.org]

MEMORIES

Ian: My daughter was born late on Christmas Eve in the City Hospital. At 8am on Christmas Day, I had her in my arms as the Salvation Army began playing Silent Night. Then I had to head home and ate beans on toast for Christmas Dinner!

Jules: O come all ye faithful for memories of the cheeky nudge with my mum at midnight mass to see if we were going to risk the descant.

[Jules typed that in the choir WhatsApp group while on hold to HMRC. Hope she was singing it when they answered!]

Rosalind: For memories as a 9-year-old singing the solo verse 1 of Once in royal David’s city in the carol service and hoping I wouldn’t go flat on “Jesus Christ her little child”.

Richard: Torches – I’ve always loved it, fond memories of singing it as a choirboy aged 8.

THE MESSAGE

Andy F: In the bleak midwinter, the words of the last verse ‘What can I give him… What I can I give him, Give my heart.’ bring us to the very meaning of Christmas and my faith. Ange F and Ruth agreed.

Denise: I’m with Andy – have always loved In the bleak because of the last verse!

Robert: Likewise, and the last verse of O little town of Bethlehem – “Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today.”

Janice: In the bleak midwinter and the Sussex Carol for its sheer joyousness on the birth of Christ.

John: O come, O come Emmanuel. That longing we have for rescue, relief, deliverance or liberation when things are tough for us or those we love, and for those we don’t even know.

Rachel P: It came upon a midnight clear especially the words in the second verse ‘still through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurled, and still their heavenly music floats o’er all the weary world’. The descant is special too.

ENTERTAINING

[There’s always one, or maybe two, or…]

Jezz: It has to be The Cowboy Carol, followed by L.D.
“L.D?” asked choiradmin.
“Little Donkey,” came the reply!

[For those of you who’ve dreamt of singing the words ‘pink-a ping pang pong’ in a carol, here you go! https://youtu.be/poyCayCiyD4?si=K9x7HP1-b7OGkeqd ]

Iain: Gabriel’s Message – when “most highly favoured lady” is ‘accidentally’ sung as “most highly flavoured gravy”!

Robert: Quelle est cette odeur agréable – aka The whiffy carol.

A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

Mags: I love the beautiful carols that are singable in German as well as English so I can share them in harmony with my German family, my favourite being Stille Nacht, though O Tannenbaum is fun!

Val: I’d go with Stille Nacht, too. So soothing at this time of year.

OTHER FAVOURITES

Rachel B: The Coventry Carol and Jesus Christ the apple tree.
Sue: See amid the winter’s snow.
David S: For me, O Holy Night beats everything.

The opening movement of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio was suggested several times!

[We excel at deviation! While I’m here, Hely Hutchinson’s A Carol Symphony takes me back to bread skewered on a toasting fork browning before the log fire in my aunt’s sitting room. Germina would like to add how Fantasia on Christmas Carols truly begins her Christmas.]

And the most popular audience / congregational Christmas carol in NCS is…

It looks like O come all ye faithful takes third place, with Silent Night a close second. By a whisker – and where’s the little drummer boy when you need him – the top spot goes to In the bleak midwinter.

We sang this choir favourite during MfE’s Christmas is Coming concert in an arrangement by Gjeilo of Holst’s beautiful tune:

Nottingham Chamber Singers wish you
a Merry and Carol-filled Christmas!

Here are two lovely carols for you that we recorded in recent years, both in arrangements by that carol composer extraordinaire, John Rutter:

Sans Day Carol, arr. Rutter

Here we come a-wassailing, arr. Rutter

Notes:

A group of us will be singing carols in QMC main entrance 10.30am Monday 15 December, and another group at Wollaton Hall, Saturday 20 December between 1.30 and 3.00pm. Free entry. Scroll down the linked page for information: https://wollatonhall.org.uk/christmas/

You might like to read bass John’s blog post about Seven Favourite Christmas Moments for Organists.

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The most beautiful sound

If you were at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall on Monday 1 December for Tenebrae’s concert, you might have bumped into many present and past members of Nottingham Chamber Singers. The evening’s performance inspired soprano Annie to pen this week’s Postcard from the Choir.

It can be very intimidating joining a new choir where everyone seems to have known each other for years and is able to sing everything easily as they have done it before. That is how it was for me when I joined NCS (EOES) nine years ago.

I quickly discovered that these intimidating people were friendly and welcoming and I am now fortunate enough to join some of them at performances of the wide range of classical music Nottingham has to offer.

This week a group of us were excited to go and hear the wonderful Tenebrae who were visiting the Concert Hall with their Christmas programme, ‘In Winter’s House’.

(Imagine there’s a selfie here of some smiling NCS sopranos waiting for the concert to begin. We did take a photo but only Rachel H’s teeth were in focus and we didn’t think she’d thank us for posting it!)

What a breathtaking performance from Tenebrae! Precision accurate without losing any emotion or beauty.

All the singers have impressive solo voices, and when they come together as a choir the sound is glorious. I could continue with many superlatives! The highlight for me was Britten’s Ceremony of Carols for upper voices and harp accompaniment. They made it sound effortless. It isn’t – we’ve sung it!

The most beautiful sound to me is the sound of the human voice and I am grateful that these wonderful singers choose to share their gift with us and, in doing so, make the world a better place!

Annie shares her favourite item from the programme – Tenebrae singing ‘As Dew in Aprille’ from Ceremony of Carols.

Tenebrae are directed by Nigel Short, a former King’s Singer.

NCS = Nottingham Chamber Singers, formerly EOES = East of England Singers.

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Jumbo – the truth exposed

Alto Sue meets conductor Ang in an unusual place…

Why, you may ask, am I writing a Postcard from the Choir about the nickname of an elephant?

‘Jumbo’, is the self-storage company where items belonging to MfE, including music sung by Nottingham Chamber Singers, are kept in three units.

Wednesday afternoons are when Ang (Angela Kay MBE!) and I meet in Jumbo to whip hundreds of pieces of choral music into shape. The unit is filled with yards of shelving full of music in plastic bags and box files. Other copies are in carrier bags used to transport music between Jumbo and the MfE Office. There is a green plastic garden table to put music on and a few wobbly chairs.

We lug boxes, check the contents correspond to the labels and categorise the music into a) something one of the MFE choirs might sing again, b) something no one will ever sing again, or c) so browned with age that it needs to go. Our alphabetic skills are then tested until one of us recites the alphabet out loud to ensure ‘Au’ goes before ‘Av’, etc.

Ang building a new set of shelves,
hindered by me not knowing one end of a screwdriver from the other!

You might be wondering why we do it. Music copies are the life blood of all MfE groups, so they need looking after. We do try to get the music in order, but perhaps more importantly we have a good laugh – we’ve been friends for 50 years having met at college.

After a couple of hours we decide our brains are addled and we’re tired. We escape from Jumbo and head home for a lie down in a darkened room, safe in the knowledge that there is at least some order to the music, making it easier for conductors to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Buy a ticket for our next concert – St John’s Church, Carrington, 7.30pm, Saturday 29 November. Click here

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Are we there yet?

Nearly! We bet you’ve said or heard that on many car journeys, often when going on holiday!

Our autumn concert seemed far off in September, now suddenly it’s but a few days away! Saturday 29 November, 7.30pm, St John’s Church, Mansfield Road, Carrington, NG5 2DP.

While we enjoy singing for ourselves, nothing compares with the joy of giving a concert. But what does ‘giving a concert’ entail and mean?

Planning starts months before we begin to rehearse the music. A venue comfortable enough for an audience, with space for our number and a good acoustic is found. We think about parking, heating, refreshments, tickets and programmes as we want the evening to be welcoming.

The conductor selects a cohesive programme of music that suits the venue, offers interest and difference to the listener and is enjoyable for choir and audience alike. Music copies are hired, bought or drawn from the MfE library. Publicity is designed, tickets are made, marketing begins.

Rachel, who is conducting the concert, prepares her interpretation of the works and conveys this to us as we learn the notes, phrases and harmonies, tempi and dynamics, the words and meaning of the texts, how to blend with each other to sing as an ensemble, a choir of interconnecting and interweaving voices in sync and sympathy with each other.

All being well, personal practice and Wednesday rehearsals enable us to reveal the heart and soul of the music to the listener. While the performance is from us, it is for you – our new and regular audience friends.

We very much hope you’ll come and we look forward to seeing you on Saturday if you do. Booking in advance is recommended, but tickets are usually available on the door. The programme has wonderful melodies and harmonies, with poignant and intriguing words – listen out for ‘astrophysicists’!

For information and tickets, click here.

The programme also includes *Three Songs of Remembrance* by David Bednall, and Cecilia McDowall’s shining *Music of the Stars*.

Buy a ticket for our next concert – St John’s Church, Carrington, 7.30pm, Saturday 29 November. Click here

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Sharing the love of music making

Jules, one of the altos of the Nottingham Chamber Singers, writes this week’s postcard:

When I tell my two-year-old daughter that I’m heading out for rehearsal, she always says, ‘Mummy, you going singing with your friends?’ And she’s absolutely right. After more than ten years with this choir, these voices have become more than just fellow singers – they’re friends I’ve laughed and sometimes cried with, and I love the diversity of a group of people brought together by a shared love of singing.

Singing has woven itself into every part of my life. At home, I sing with my daughter – sometimes we “shake our sillies” out in the kitchen, and we always sing at bedtime as she goes to sleep. Those quiet moments remind me why I love music: it connects us, comforts us, and creates memories that linger long after the last note fades.

In rehearsal, the same magic happens on a larger scale. We gather, breathe together, and shape sound into something greater than ourselves. It’s a privilege to be part of that tapestry, week after week, year after year.

So yes, when I go out at night, I’m going singing with friends. And every time I return, I bring a little of that harmony back home. Recently my daughter’s started saying, ‘When I’m older I go singing with friends,’ and I hope she does and finds the same joy and connection that I have.

Buy a ticket for our next concert – St John’s Church, Carrington, 7.30pm, Saturday 29 November. Click here

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You might also enjoy this delightful BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Lost in Lullabies’. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002m977

Performing at the Last Night of the Proms!

One of our sopranos went to a choral workshop led by Bob Chilcott and sat next to Eloise Toone. Eloise shares our enthusiasm for choral singing and sings with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain (18-25 age group). She has kindly penned a postcard about an amazing experience she had in September….

On Saturday 13th September, I was given the incredible opportunity to sing in the Last Night of the Proms with the National Youth Choir, alongside Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor, performing Bohemian Rhapsody to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

We were initially emailed about the opportunity, and once selected we found out what we’d be performing. We went into rehearsals at BBC Maida Vale on the Wednesday, where we were told that we’d be singing with special guests, but we didn’t find out who until the press release on Friday morning. Needless to say, we were all very excited!

There was a real buzz amongst the crew and performers – everyone seemed so thrilled to be part of the night. Because we’d all grown up singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody, I didn’t feel as nervous as I would expect, and I was really able to take it all in.

It was a massive honour to get to speak to Sir Brian and Roger afterwards, and to say how influential their music had been to all the members of the choir. We also spent time talking to our soloist, Sam Oladeinde, who was so kind and talented, and I even got to speak briefly to Elim Chan (conductor) and Louise Alder (soprano), and to get a picture with Bill Bailey!

Watching the performance back and seeing myself up close on TV was truly a pinch-me moment, and the joy of the whole experience is something I’ll keep with me for a long time.

You can find this fantastic performance on iPlayer, BBC Proms. Click ‘Must Watch Tracks’ and find ’13. Bohemian Rhapsody’.

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Charles Hubert Hastings Parry

John pens a second postcard from time spent in Gloucestershire…

Parry’s big three pieces are ‘Jerusalem’, I was glad (sung at many royal occasions) and ‘Repton’ – the hymn tune used for ‘Dear Lord and Father’ of mankind’. In our next concert we are singing Parry’s Songs of Farewell, a collection of songs generally quieter in nature and with a valedictory feel.

Isabelle, Parry’s mother, died from TB twelve days after his birth having lost three other children in infancy. Hubert spent his childhood at Highnam in Gloucestershire, a country seat bought by his father Gambier after inheriting vast wealth from his own father, Thomas, a director of the East India Company. Gambier loved Italian art and decorated the ‘Holy Innocents’ church at Highnam accordingly.

Gambier’s frescoes of a “Doom” over the chancel arch of the church.
We visited it a few years ago. See here for current visiting arrangements.

Parry wrote the tune for ‘Jerusalem’ in 1916, with some misgivings over how it would be used. He was proved right and instead of withdrawing the song from public use he gave the copyright to the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

The tune sung for ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’ comes from his 1888 oratorio, Judith, where the text begins, ‘Long since in Egypt’s plenteous land our fathers were oppressed’. In 1924 the director of music at Repton School began to use Parry’s tune for the words of the hymn.

Wikipedia states Parry’s beliefs were Darwinian and Humanist, yet he set many Christian or Biblical texts, and Sir Thomas Beecham reputedly said Parry would have set the whole Bible to music if God had let him.

I’ll give the final word to his daughter who described her father as ‘unconventional, ascetic, a radical, a freethinker, a sensitive man who suffered bouts of depression’. As with Elgar, the superficial impression gained from some of Parry’s music is far from the true person.

Buy a ticket for our next concert – including Parry’s Songs of Farewell Click here

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National Musicians’ Church

Nottingham Chamber Singers’ soprano Helena goes to London:

I’d never known such a place existed! The name of this London church appears in many forms, but I’ll stick with the one used on its website, Holy Sepulchre Church. Located diagonally opposite the Old Bailey and near St Paul’s Cathedral, its north and south side chapels have contrasting dedications – to the south lies the regimental chapel of the Royal Fusiliers.

A young Henry Wood (co-founder of the Proms) learnt to play the organ at the church and at the age of 14 became the assistant organist. After his death in 1944 his ashes were interred in the north side chapel that until 1931 had housed the organ. Funds were raised to restore the chapel and in 1955 it was re-dedicated as the Musicians’ Chapel.

Each year after the Last Night of the Proms, the wreath placed on the bust of Sir Henry in the Royal Albert Hall is brought to the chapel and laid beneath a window dedicated to his memory. A festal evensong is held, which the church would like to claim marks the real last night of the Proms! Three other windows in the chapel are dedicated to Dame Nellie Melba, John Ireland, and Walter Carroll.

Below the patron saint of music – St Cecilia – and to the bottom righthand corner of the window, Wood is depicted between Byrd and Purcell conducting a Promenade Concert.

What a legacy! A window, a chapel and of course the BBC Proms, still going strong after 130 years. The Proms showcase many fine composers, conductors, instrumentalists and singers, while quietly and with gratitude musicians from the past are remembered and celebrated in the Musicians’ Chapel.

See:

Holy Sepulchre Church

BBC archive page about the Proms

Photos by Helena Durham

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Connections

John Hobbs, bass and sometimes pianist of the choir, explores the connections between a composition and two composers living and working in Gloucester.

1910 – what a year to be alive! A time when Elgar, Richard Strauss, Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, Debussy, Ravel, Mahler, Bartok, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Copland, Schoenberg and many other famous composers were adding new music to the classical canon.

That year saw the premier of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. In the audience were two Gloucester men – Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney. They were so struck by what they heard that they wandered the streets later, unable to rest.

The very first phrase of Howells’ Requiem, to be sung in our next concert, has a feel of the Tallis Fantasia, looking forwards and backwards at the same time.

Ivor Gurney had a troubled life – he served in the first world war and spent his final years in a psychiatric hospital. He was viewed as a composer of immense originality and promise. He wrote mostly songs and poetry. One of his best loved is Sleep.

Howells suffered the most intense grief when his nine-year-old son Michael died within three days of contracting polio. This shaped the rest of Howells’ life and lies behind much of his music, especially the Requiem, Hymnus Paradisi and his tune to the hymn ‘All my hope on God is founded’, known as ‘Michael’.

However I wish to share his most famous song King David which opens with the words ‘King David was a sorrowful man’¹ and also Master Tallis’ Testament, an organ piece with a similar feeling to that of the Vaughan Williams Fantasia

A fellow pupil of the cathedral organist along with Howells and Gurney was Ivor Davies, better known as Ivor Novello. Who’d have thought it!

Image: Herbert Howells window, Gloucester Cathedral, by Jules & Jenny from Lincoln, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

¹ As a choir and to mark our 40^th anniversary we commissioned Libby Croad to write a piece – The Nightingale – using this same text.

And here is a recording of Vaughan William’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis made in Gloucester Cathedral: BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis.

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Teamwork makes the dream work

This week’s postcard comes from Rachel Bacon, our rugby and singing loving first soprano.

If you’ve been watching the women’s rugby world cup over the last few weeks, you’ll have seen some amazing rugby, record breaking crowds and a masterclass in plaiting hair. You’re probably thinking ‘What on earth has this got to do with NCS?’, but bear with me.

If you follow any sort of sport, you’ll hear constantly about the importance of teamwork and respect for your fellow players. Aside from the fitness benefits of playing sports, there’s a lot talked about the benefits of teamwork to everyday life. But if you sing in a choir or play in an orchestra – indeed if you take part in any sort of group music making – you will also know all about teamwork!

In any musical ensemble it’s critical to a performance that all the different parts work together. You listen to the musical line, watch your fellow musicians, and (probably should have mentioned this before) work with the conductor to produce the performance that you’ve planned as a team.

Perhaps the difference is that whilst a sports team plays to win, and inevitably someone will lose (sorry, Canada), with music we’re all winners. No one has to go home disappointed. All the hard work leading up to a performance allows every participant, and hopefully the audience as well, to go home on a high.

That’s something a sports team can’t match.

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