Series of highs in the Low Countries
The Birmingham Festival Choral Society has enjoyed another triumphant summer tour, says
Christopher Morley
For one Bruges bride, her marriage ceremony will have a unique touch: a Wedding Anthem composed by Anthony Bradbury of Birmingham Festival Choral Society.
The tiny piece was performed by BFCS for the first time at the medieval city's magnificent Gothic Church of Our Lady as an encore at the company's first concert of its summer tour.
It had such an impact on one local listener that as soon as it had finished, he rushed forward, asking for a copy of the music so that it could be performed by one of Flanders' finest professional chamber choirs singing at his daughter's wedding at that church next week.
It was the icing on the cake for the choral society's triumphant summer trip to Belgium and the Netherlands.
In just over a decade, BFCS has made summer visits to several eastern European locations: Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Saxony.
In their latest, a little nearer home and perhaps not quite so exotic, the choir toured what we used quaintly to describe as the Low Countries, with Bruges, European Capital of Culture in 2002, the first port of call.
Before rehearsals started for the opening concert many choristers (and me) went up in the world, making the climb of 366 steps to the top of the ancient bell-tower. Those who made it just before the hour were able to observe the bells at close quarters as they played a prelude of Mozart favourites before striking the actual time.
In fact one could almost feel linked with Bournville and its famous carillon, as the smell of chocolate is wafted on the air here too!
The first concert was given on Tuesday in the Gothic Church of Our Lady, thronged with worshippers and sightseers as though straight out of a Flemish Renaissance painting. With the organ tucked away high up behind the rood screen there were the usual sightline problems between organist and conductor, but Emily Freeman, courier with the Rayburn Concert Tour company and herself a music graduate, popped her head above the parapet in order to relay the conductor's instructions during the brief rehearsal.
With a two-hour marathon facing them on a sultry afternoon, the choristers were understandably apprehensive, in the event they created something of a triumph.
A large audience sat enthralled throughout a stirring programme of Parry, Finzi, and Handel, but the greatest success proved in fact the 40 minutes of sustained reflective fervour which is Bruckner's ecstatic but demanding Mass in E minor.
These patiently built textures, flowering into the most heart-piercing harmonies, drew a response of immense concentration and dedication from BFCS under conductor Jeremy Patterson.
Intonation was conscientiously maintained, and the effect on the listeners was almost cathartic. One audience member, an English visitor formerly a singer in the highly-regarded Weybridge Singers, turned to tell me the hairs on the back of his neck were tingling. At the end he rose to give his own personal standing ovation.
Much hair was let down that night, before an early start Wednesday morning for Utrecht, where BFCS gave a lunchtime concert in the airy St Nicholas' Church.
One of the hazards of touring is the variation in acoustic and logistics between performing venues. Here, for all the magnificence of the organ both sonically and visually, the choristers found themselves swimming in a barreling acoustic which, after strong initial attack, left the remainder of the phrase to coagulate into a great wash of sound. This was almost authentically ideal for Parry's Coronation Anthem I was Glad, reproducing the famous Westminster Abbey ambience, but less successful for Britten's Jubilate Deo. Handel's Zadok the Priest came over magnificently, however, organist Kevin Gill building up great paragraphs of tension.
From Utrecht it was driving further across the Netherlands, and the creation of a massive rush-hour traffic-jam in the lakeside village of Loosdrecht as the coaches successfully negotiated the tight entrance into our hotel for the second half of the week.
This pretty little paradise for yachtsmen is a short drive from Amsterdam, where Thursday's free morning found BFCS members spoilt for choice: some opted for a canal tour, others took the opportunity to join Dutch cafe society, others decided to inspect the glories of the Rijksmuseum. Partly closed for the removal of asbestos found in the fabric, this magnificent building still manages to display countless masterpieces of Dutch art, with its emphasis upon light and upon domestic detail.
As we left, the sounds of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor resounded majestically from the covered roadway next door. A full church organ out in the street? In fact it proved to be an accordion trio, pedal notes supplied by a tuba, giving a remarkably polished account of this masterpiece.
Things then went downhill. One of the coaches developed a temporary problem before we could continue our journey to the medieval harbour-village of Monnickendamm, the heavens opened, and we reached the imposing church there (another St Nicholas) to discover the organ was badly in need of restoration and demanded muscular assistance to pull out the huge brass stops.
Unflappable as ever, Kevin Gill found ways round the problem, the programme was rearranged, and, at the end of an evening where the highlights were Sarah Busfield's achingly beautiful singing of Mozart's Laudate Dominum and an awe-inspiring account of the Bruckner in a warmly supportive acoustic, the performers were rewarded with a genuine and prolonged standing ovation.
Someone had the foresight to ring the hotel from the coach, warning them to keep the bar open against our late return - good thinking.
On Friday BFCS joined the select group of ensembles invited to perform in Amsterdam's imposing and spacious Westerkerk, and during this lunchtime concert all the threads of the week's music-making came together. At last Gerald Finzi's sublime Magnificat had the conditions in which to make full effect, and at last the first tenors' sterling climb to a top B in Bruckner's Kyrie received the recognition it deserved - though they would have preferred their applause 30 minutes later instead of in mid-movement.
Flowers all round, hugs, compliments from concertgoers spotting us unwinding in cafes, everyone radiating wonderful joy celebrating the glory of Birmingham music-making: the hard graft was over.
There was equally hard graft in the celebrations which went on the rest of the day and halfway into the night, but, for all the hedonism and tourism which are such important features of an enterprise like this, the singing is the chief concern of this huge family of enthusiasts, who had assembled from as far afield as London, Luxembourg and even Australia.
The Birmingham Post, 29th July 2003