It was a great pleasure to welcome the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire to this autumn concert. The Duchess has just accepted the presidency of the society and the choir gave both her and the large audience a typically varied programme of music, on this occasion drawn entirely from the classical era.
This was an interesting programme, mixing quite well known music with some works less frequently performed. It was also an evening built around the choir itself, although I would like to highlight particularly the very well sung contributions of Gabrielle Bricka and Anna Crooks from years ten and eleven of Lady Manners School. They sang respectively the soprano and mezzo-soprano solos and duets in the Magnificat and the Gloria. We are now well used to hearing the students of the Royal Northern College of Music, but these two young singers, still at school, acquitted themselves splendidly and received justifiably the warmest of ovations. Special mention should also be made of the very welcome return of Andrew Kirk as accompanist and also as soloist in the Bach-Vivaldi Concerto for organ in A minor. He is well known in Bakewell, although now based in Bristol, and his playing without fail gives a great deal of pleasure.
So to the choir, singing as usual under Richard Barnes' authoritative direction. They gave three works. Pergolesi's Magnificat in B flat major is scored for a variety of voices and combinations, painting the words of this familiar text with great skill and imagination, and given an elegant and confident performance. The Mass in the same key which followed, by the much less well known Johann Nepomuk Hummel, is written for full choir throughout. It comes in the tradition of the great Haydn masses and begins to pave the way for the more romantic music of the 19th century. It is an attractive work, the word painting is at times quite memorable and the changes of mood reflects the spirit of the text. But it is very demanding on the choir who get no rest. It was also written for high voices in the early 19th century and, as with so much middle European writing, it makes considerable demands on all the performers. It is, however, an immensely attractive work for the listener and the choir obviously found it good to sing.
Finally the Vivaldi Gloria in D major, the best known of the works in the programme, only rediscovered in the 1930's, and originally probably written for the famous Pieta in Venice where the performers would have been exclusively the girls, singing also the men's parts an octave higher. Given in its true form it has a robustness and vigour which everyone enjoyed. The two young soloists had quite substantial parts here and the choir needed to respond to a variety of moods in Vivaldi's writing.
Their response to Richard Barnes' direction was good, their singing confident, and they communicated their enthusiasm for all this splendid music to a very receptive audience.
John Tarn