The Bach Choir has a distinguished history in Wellington since 1968, when it was founded by the gifted organist and musical scholar Anthony Jennings. Like all choirs, its fortunes have fluctuated: for the past two years it has regained its position, directed by Stephen Rowley; its recent achievements have included the B Minor Mass, Elijah, a concert of Handel and Purcell, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. It was an adventurous concert. In Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir the two choirs of about 20 singers each, were placed diagonally, at right angles to each other, facing the conductor.  But ideally it needed more...  Read More »

Because JS Bach's Mass in B Minor is such an established part of the choral repertoire, it's interesting to reflect on the somewhat piecemeal origins of the work - as an entity it was assembled by the composer in 1749, one year before his death, but parts of it were actually composed up to almost thirty years before, with some of these parts intended for other works - the Sanctus dates from 1724, and the Kyrie and Gloria come from 1733, used by the composer in one of his "Lutheran" Masses - though ironically the Latin settings suggest the Catholic...  Read More »

My colleague Rosemary Collier allowed herself to lament that so many choirs had scheduled their concerts in such a short span this month; and the overload continues. On Wednesday 11th there was a concert by the choir of Sacred Heart Cathedral, augmented by singers from Christine Argyle’s Nota Bene, who had joined forces with the Choir of Christchurch Boys’ High School, conducted by Don Whelan. They sang Widor’s Mass for Two Choirs and Two Organs; I heard about it too late and was very disappointed to have missed it. This past weekend, there have been two performances of Monteverdi‘s monumental Vespers...  Read More »

  The plethora of choral concerts this month is most unfortunate – even though the concerts themselves are certainly not!  In the past, Wellington choral conductors met to confer to avoid clashes.  But on this Saturday evening there has also been an earlier concert at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, by its choir, performing – Duruflé!   Although there is not a complete cross-over in the audiences for these events, nevertheless, all would obtain larger audiences if concerts were more spread out.   However, the downstairs part of St. Andrew’s Church was well-filled (upstairs was not open), despite there not being much publicity.   The Duruflé...  Read More »

A concert with two distinct parts: first, choral music from the 18th century with orchestra and soloists; after a long interval in which most enjoyable mulled wine and nibbles were served while a small string ensemble played charming music by Matthew Locke, a choral recital followed with a variety of pieces, some of them unaccompanied. Some of the excitement, and certainly the precision, of the orchestral introduction to the Handel work was lost in the over-resonant Cathedral acoustic.  However, the choir worked hard at overcoming this handicap. The first number, for chorus initially, involved complex counterpoint.  Attack was good, and the dynamics...  Read More »