Postcards – Nottingham Chamber Singers

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

Interested in joining the choir? Click here

Become a Friend of NCS Click here

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

Interested in joining us? Click here

Buy a ticket for our next concert Click here

Become a Friend of NCS Click here

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.

Interested in joining us? Click here

Buy a ticket for our next concert Click here

Become a Friend of NCS Click here

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.

Interested in joining us? Click here

Buy a ticket for our next concert Click here

Become a Friend of NCS Click here

Music of the Stars

Rachel Parkes, who will be conducting our concert at St John’s Carrington, 29 November 2025, has chosen a programme that includes Cecilia McDowall’s Music of the Stars. The score contains a ‘Composer’s note’ that conductor and singer can use to deepen their understanding of both text and the music, resulting in a richer performance for the audience.

Just as we commissioned Libby Croad to compose The Nightingale for our 40^th anniversary, so James Petersen, a member of the Chamber Singers of Iowa City, commissioned Music of the Stars to mark the choir’s 50^th season.

James and his partner suggested a commission that could “celebrate the power of music in these difficult times”. To acknowledge the racial issue that surround us, the texts offered were all written by people of colour. For the middle movement, the composer found and adapted writing from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (b.1958).

1st movement: ‘Music of the Stars’, a poem by Brian Odongo (b.1994), evokes ‘dark night clouds’ illuminated by ancient radiant stars as they watch over mortals’ adventures below. Compelled by the horrors unfolding in Ukraine as she worked on the piece, McDowall wove into the poem words from a Ukrainian folksong.

2nd movement: For ‘The hardest thing’, an explanation of ‘light’ and how we perceive it, the composer aimed to bring a more conversational style to her setting of Tyson’s prose.

3rd movement: Of the poem ‘The Gift to Sing’ by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), McDowall wrote, “These heart-warming words bring an affirmation of what the power of singing can do for us all in times of difficulty.”

Cecilia McDowall, Music of the Stars, pub: Oxford University Press, 2023

Interested in joining us? Click here

Buy a ticket for our next concert Click here

Become a Friend of NCS Click here

Something for Everyone

Wasn’t the Last Night of the Proms from the Royal Albert Hall fantastic yesterday? We were treated to an eclectic and exuberant programme with superb instrumental players, singers and soloists joyfully conducted by Elim Chan. A thrill for participants and audience alike.

Bill Bailey’s rendition of Leroy Anderson’s The Typewriter was great fun, and Alison Balsom’s final performances outstanding . And those dresses?! Wow!

But what of the choral works?

The BBC Singers brought tranquillity and beauty to Lucy Walker’s Today. Lucy said of her work: “This piece, though small, aims to serve as a brief but poignant musical reminder that hope can overcome struggle.” Quite a contrast followed with the UK premiere of Arthur Benjamin’s Storm Clouds cantata written for a bigger choir, so the BBC Singers were joined by the BBC Symphony Chorus: “…the piece segues from its pastoral opening to its driving middle section, culminating in the cymbal crash intended to serve as an accomplice to murder”.

What an experience for the National Youth Choir! They joined the other choirs, tenor soloist Sam Oladeinde, Alison Balsom, and the legendary Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor for a Proms first: Bohemian Rhapsody. “…[a] delirious pile-up of genres and styles is Mahlerian, Ivesian and Berio-esque … and one of the most popular tracks in history”.

Not forgetting the inclusion in the programme of opera, musicals, folksongs, hymns and anthems. Such is the joy of choral singing – something for everyone, every voice type, every genre of music and for every age.

Take a look at the singing and instrumental opportunities offered in Nottingham by Music for Everyone and come for a play or sing:
Adults: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/adult-music/
Children and Young People: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/youth-music/

Interested in joining us? Click here

Buy a ticket for our next concert Click here

Become a Friend of NCS Click here

Sourcing copies to sing from

This photo was taken at our Nottingham Chamber Singers 40^th anniversary party in July. Here we’re singing the first movement of Handel’s Dixit Dominus. There seems to be some mischief going on with our first sopranos!

You can see that the four of them have the same edition copy – Novello. Sourcing music for a choir can be a challenge. Being part of Music for Everyone means we can draw on the MfE library at no cost. Choir members usually own a few regularly used items such as European Sacred Music, 100 Carols for Choirs and English Romantic Part Songs.

At times we have to hire music, which we do through the Nottingham Performing Arts Library and other lending services or choirs. Charges are rising, so this can affect what we can afford to borrow and the duration of the hire. Hiring is still cheaper than buying 40+ copies, though sometimes by not a lot. Members might choose to buy scores for music they particularly like or works that reappear in our repertoire. They can then write in them liberally!

Several publishers can have the rights to a particular work – Novello & Co, Bärenreiter-Verlag and G. Schirmer all publish Dixit Dominus – so we can end up with multiple editions. Some scores use section letters, others bar numbers and often the pagination is different between versions. Navigating multiple editions takes up valuable rehearsal time. And then there are pencil markings and rubbings out in copies, but more of those another time!

Interested in joining us? Click here

Buy a ticket for our next concert Click here

Become a Friend of NCS Click here

And we’re back – Season 41

We’re always glad of the summer break, particularly after a season as busy as our 40th. We put on extra performances, sang hugely varied repertoire, gave a concert one sweltering 33 Celsius Saturday and rounded it all off in July with a party and a Desert Island Discs of music we couldn’t live without!

But now we’re glad to be back to start all over again with new music, a new member and seeing each other after 8 weeks apart. Rehearsals resume in two days’ time, Wednesday 3 September.

About the photo… trying to organise 40 people of varying heights and get the photographer into the picture while hoping the camera doesn’t fall off the stand is no mean feat! We’re not quite there yet (not everyone remembered to bring concert dress) but we do love how this image shows a true representation of who we are as a choir – a friendly bunch, having a laugh together and unable to think of anything better to do on a Wednesday evening than to sing our socks off!

Interested in joining us? Click here

Buy a ticket for our next concert Click here

Become a Friend of NCS Click here