Conductor: Cathal Garvey

Soloists: Charlotte Baptie,

Stephen Godward and Nick Sales

Narrator: Don Crerar

Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra

Saturday 20th June 2015, 7:30pm

& Sullivan Spectacular

Selections from HMS Pinafore, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, The Gondoliers,

The Yeomen of the Guard and Trial by Jury

Gilbert Summer Concert 2015

2

3

Newbury Choral Society presents

A Gilbert & Sullivan Spectacular Selections from

Trial by Jury

HMS Pinafore

The Mikado

Interval

The Pirates of Penzance

The Yeomen of the Guard

The Gondoliers

Conductor: Cathal Garvey

Soprano: Charlotte Baptie

Tenor: Nick Sales

Baritone: Stephen Godward

Narrator: Don Crerar

Rehearsal accompanist: Steve Bowey

Please visit http://www.newburychoral.org.uk/concertFeedback/ to give us

your feedback on this concert.

The Programme

4

William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896. Gilbert wrote the librettos, lampooning the establishment and creating a unique ‘topsy-turvy’ world that appealed to the Victorian audience’s sense of the absurd, both reasons for the operas’ continuing appeal today. Sullivan’s music was tailor-made to Gilbert’s words, skilfully emphasising their power and evoking stirring emotions as well as laughter. These works are known as the Savoy Operas, after the theatrical impresario, Richard D’Oyly Carte, who built the Savoy Theatre in London in order to stage them.

This foray into the world of G&S tonight is a first for Newbury Choral Society, proving that even after 130 years it is not too late to try something new. In 1922, with conductor Bernard Ramsey, the choir sang Sullivan’s The Golden Legend, written following the huge success of The Mikado. When it was first performed in 1886, The Golden Legend caused quite a stir and soon became second in popularity only to Handel’s Messiah with Victorian choral societies.

Trial by Jury

Trial by Jury, a ‘dramatic cantata’, was first performed in 1875, as part of a programme in which Offenbach’s La Périchole was the main event. Gilbert had had a brief career as a barrister and found much about the legal profession to mock in his librettos. The plot concerns a breach of contract of marriage in which Angelina is suing Edwin for jilting her. Edwin tells the court that he became bored with her and is now ‘another’s lovesick boy’. The gentlemen of the jury admit that they were also cads when young, but claim that they are now reformed characters and have no sympathy with the defendant.

The Judge enters with great ceremony and regales the court with the story of how he attained his position. He fell in love with ‘a rich

Programme Notes by Jane Hawker

5

attorney’s elderly, ugly daughter’, grew wealthy due to the patronage of her father and then dumped her. The irony of his similarity with the defendant escapes him. After a few more twists and turns the opera ends with the Judge marrying Angelina himself, a scheme that fills everyone in the court with ‘joy unbounded’.

Chorus - Hark the hour of ten is sounding

Usher's Song and Chorus - Now, Jurymen, hear my advice

Edwin's Recitative. - Is this the Court of the Exchequer?

Edwin's Song and Chorus - When first my old, old love I knew

Chorus and Usher - All hail great Judge!

The Judge's Song - When I, good friends, was call'd to the bar

HMS Pinafore

HMS Pinafore, subtitled The Lass that Loved a Sailor, opened in 1878. Gilbert uses the plot device of mistaken identity to ridicule the British obsession with class and status. Josephine, the young daughter of the captain of HMS Pinafore, is in love with an unsuitably lowly able seaman, Ralph, but she is betrothed to Sir Joseph Porter KCB, First Lord of the Admiralty. On his arrival on board ship, accompanied by his sisters, cousins and aunts, Sir Joseph urges Josephine to ignore their class difference and follow her heart. Thinking that this will promote his own suit, he succeeds only in reinforcing her love for her sailor. However, once it has emerged that the captain and Ralph were switched as babies, Sir Joseph no longer wishes to marry the daughter of a member of the lower classes, saying that ‘love levels all ranks, but it does not level them as much as that’. His snobbery paves the way for Josephine and Ralph to marry. In Sir Joseph’s famous ‘patter-song’, Gilbert highlights a recurring theme in his work, that unqualified people can rise to

Programme Notes

6

positions of authority without merit and for spurious reasons.

Opening Chorus - We sail the ocean blue

Josephine’s song - Sorry her lot who loves too well

Chorus of Female Relatives - Over the bright blue sea

Chorus of Sailors and Female Relatives - Sir Joseph's barge is seen

Sir Joseph and Chorus - Now give three cheers

Sir Joseph and Chorus - When I was a lad...

Exit for Ladies - For I hold that on the seas

The Mikado

The Mikado, or The Town of Titipu, was first performed in 1885, two months after Newbury Choral Society’s first concert. At that time there was an exhibition in London called The Japanese Village, the culmination of a craze for all things Japanese since the opening up of trade between Britain and Japan from the mid-nineteenth century. A male dancer and a Geisha were engaged by the Savoy Theatre to authenticate the performers’ mannerisms. Gilbert was able to satirise British politics and institutions even more bitingly in the context of such an exotic setting.

The son of the Mikado of Japan, Nanki-Poo, has fled his father’s court disguised as a wandering minstrel. In Titipu he falls in love with Yum-Yum, unwisely setting himself up as a romantic rival to Yum-Yum’s guardian Ko-Ko, the fearsome Lord High Executioner. This leads to a bizarre series of bargains and conspiracies in which Nanki-Poo is forced to weigh up the merits of agreeing to be executed against taking his own life. The opera ends happily when the Mikado shows mercy to all and accepts his son’s marriage to Yum-Yum.

Programme Notes

7

Chorus of Men - If you want to know who we are

Nanki-Poo and Chorus - A wand'ring minstrel I

Chorus with Ko-Ko - Behold the Lord High Executioner

Ko-Ko with Chorus of Men - As some day it may happen (I've got a little list)

Chorus of Girls - Comes a train of little ladies

Chorus - Three Little Maids

Yum-Yum - The sun whose rays are all ablaze

Ko-Ko, Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum - Here’s a how-de-do!

Ko-Ko - Willow, Tit Willow

Ko-Ko, Nanki-Poo, Yum-Yum and Chorus - For he's gone and married Yum-Yum

Interval

The Pirates of Penzance

The Pirates of Penzance, subtitled The Slave of Duty, had its world premiere in 1880, simultaneously on Fifth Avenue, New York and Paignton in Devon. D’Oyly Carte’s touring company happened to be there with HMS Pinafore, and handily the sailors’ costumes doubled up for the pirates, with the addition of handkerchiefs on their heads.

The plot reaches new heights of absurdity. Trainee pirate Frederic, who should have been apprenticed to a ‘pilot’ but for a mishearing, is nearing the end of his indentures. However, on learning that he was born on 29th February, he realises that he has only had five birthdays with the pirates instead of the required twenty-one. Condemned to continue his piratical life, he encounters Mabel, youngest daughter of

Programme Notes

8

Major-General Stanley, while she and her sisters are exploring the Cornish coast. When the girls are captured by his fellow pirates, Frederic’s allegiance is torn, and he gathers together a group of hapless policemen to defeat them. In a final Gilbertian twist, it is revealed that the pirates are all former noblemen who have gone to the bad, but after swearing allegiance to the Queen are permitted to marry Stanley’s daughters, and Frederic and Mabel are united.

Mabel and Chorus - Poor wand’ring one

Major-General and Chorus - I am the very model of a model Major-General

Chorus with Sergeant and Mabel - When the foeman bares his steel

Sergeant and Chorus - When a felon's not engaged in his employment

Samuel and Chorus - With cat-like tread...

Act II Finale - Poor wand’ring ones!

The Yeomen of the Guard

The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and his Maid, was first performed at the Savoy Theatre in 1888. It took the pair longer to complete than any of their other collaborations, and is Sullivan’s most musically ambitious score. The sober setting and more realistic emotional tone were a change of direction that audiences were not certain to accept, but the encores on the opening night signalled that it was another hit.

Set in the sixteenth century in the Tower of London, the story centres on the planned execution of Colonel Fairfax for sorcery. Phoebe, daughter of one of the Yeomen, is in love with him, and she and her father hope to prevent the execution taking place. The action relies on Gilbert’s stalwarts including disguise, unrequited love, a secret plot to free the prisoner, an obscure point of inheritance law and a

Programme Notes

9

last-minute reprieve of the death sentence. But in contrast with other G&S operas, one of the principal characters, the jester Jack Point, does not get his girl at the end and the curtain falls on him dying of a broken heart and sighing ‘for the love of a ladye’.

Double Chorus and Second Yeoman - Tower warders, under orders

Fairfax - Is life a boon?

Point, Elsie and Chorus - I have a song to sing, O!

Elsie - 'Tis done! I am a bride

Act I finale - The prisoner comes

The Gondoliers

The Gondoliers, subtitled The King of Barataria, had its premiere at the Savoy in 1889. Following on directly after Yeomen, it was hugely successful at the time. The Prince of Wales saw it four times and Queen Victoria requested a private performance at Windsor Castle. However, it was to be their last popular work. This collaboration saw the souring of relations between the two men, leading to Gilbert suing Sullivan over financial matters during its run.

Gilbert set this opera in both Venice and the fictional kingdom of Barataria, with Spanish characters and culture thrown into the mix, once again making use of an exotic setting to satirise the British class system and to poke gentle fun at human foibles and vanities. At the centre of the story are two highly desirable gondoliers, Marco and Guiseppe, who have the pick of all the young ladies in Venice as their wives. Mistaken identity, due once again to baby-swapping, a possible case of bigamy, and secret lovers who happily turn out to be from the same social class after all, lead to a joyful finale with the sherry flowing and the assembled cast dancing the cachucha.

Programme Notes

10

Marco, Guiseppe and Chorus - For the merriest fellows are we/Buon giorno, signorine/We're called Gondolieri

Quartet - Then one of us will be a Queen

Marco - Take a pair of sparkling eyes

Chorus - Dance a cachucha

Final Chorus - Once more, Gondolieri

Programme Notes

11

Cathal Garvey hails from Ireland where he made his name as a choral and orchestral conductor. Cathal began his career as an Opera Chorus Master working for most of Ireland’s major opera companies including Opera Ireland, Opera Theatre Company, Anna Livia Opera Festival, Opera South and Lyric Opera. For these companies he worked on over fifty opera productions and has acted as Assistant

Conductor for several of them. He has also conducted several musicals in Cork and Dublin.

During his ten years in Dublin, Cathal conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Orchestra of St Cecilia, the Ulysses Orchestra, Irish Sinfonia, the Dublin Baroque Players, the Royal Irish Academy of Music Wind Ensemble, Dublin Concert Band, the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir, Bray Choral Society and from 2001 to 2006 was Principal Conductor of the Dublin Orchestral Players.

From 2004 to 2009 he was Musical Director of the Dun Laoghaire Choral Society with whom he had a highly successful tenure, covering a wide range of sacred music and oratorios. During this time he was a noted champion of British music, conducting many works by Elgar, Delius, Britten, Tippett, Stanford (Irish!) and Vaughan Williams.

Since moving to London in 2009, he has conducted Southern Sinfonia, London International Orchestra, Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra, I Maestri, London Repertoire Orchestra, London Medical Orchestra, King's College London Symphony Orchestra and Morley College Choir. He is also Musical Director of Newbury Choral Society and Billingshurst Choral Society and for two seasons was Chorus Master and Assistant Conductor at Grange Park Opera. He is currently on the conducting staff of the Royal Academy of Music.

Cathal Garvey — Musical Director

12

Cathal began violin and piano studies in his native Cork at an early age, continuing at the Cork School of Music and later reading music at University College Cork. After completing his Masters Degree in Conducting he studied for two years at the prestigious College of Moscow Conservatory.

As a violinist, he has played with the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland and with numerous professional orchestras, including the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the German-based Philharmonia of the Nations. He currently works as a freelance player in London. He has sung and toured with many choirs, among them the Irish Youth Choir, University College Cork Choir, Madrigal '75 and the College of Moscow Conservatory Choir.

Cathal Garvey — Musical Director

13

Charlotte Baptie - Soprano

Soprano Charlotte Baptie trained at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich where she was awarded the Director's Prize for Excellence. She was supported by a Trinity College London scholarship and selected for the English National Opera’s mentor scheme.

Charlotte recently completed her first No 1 UK & Ireland tour (ATG/BB Promotions) with West Side

Story, playing the role of Rosalia & first cover Maria.

Credits include Geraldine in Free As Air at Finborough Theatre, Phyllis in Iolanthe and Melissa in Princess Ida (Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company), the title role in Peter Pan (Norwich Theatre Royal), Dodo in The Merry Widow (Royal Festival Hall) with John Wilson and the Philharmonia Orchestra, Belinda in Dido and Aeneas (Black Robin Opera), Athos (alternate) in The Three Musketeers, Edith in The Pirates of Penzance (Charles Court Opera), Noemi in Cendrillon, First Fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Blackheath Halls), Micaela in Carmen, Ilia in Idomeneo (Trinity Laban), Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Rose Maybud in Ruddigore, Josephine in HMS Pinafore, Young Sally in Follies (Trent Opera), Johanna in Sweeney Todd and Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof (Nottingham Festival Opera).

Radio includes BBC Radio 2's Friday Night is Music Night: Ivor Novello Special 2014 with the BBC Concert Orchestra (featured soloist).

14

Nick Sales - Tenor

Nick's recent opera performances have included his debut for Welsh National Opera where he sang the title role in Mozart's Mitridate, re di Ponto (under the baton of Sir Charles MacKerras), Journalist/Glazier in Philip Glass's Orphée for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Don Ramiro, La Cenerentola at Teatro La Fenice, Venice. Other recent

performances include Almaviva, The Barber of Seville for Longborough Festival Opera, cover, Felice, Poliuto for Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Alfredo, La Traviata for Opera Project, Belmonte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Frutillar, Chile, Cavaradossi, Tosca for Heritage Opera and Focus Opera and Don José, Carmen for Focus Opera.

Between 2005 and 2010, Nick worked extensively in Germany, where his roles included Ferrando, Cosi fan Tutte for Komische Oper, Berlin, Don Ottavio, Don Giovanni in Luebeck, Lurcanio, Ariodante, Italian Singer, Rosenkavalier, Froh, Rheingold and title role in Handel's Belshazzar in Halle.

His concert work has taken him all over the world, including performances in Vietnam, St Lucia, Dubai and Qatar, as well as in fourteen different European countries, the highlight of which was his debut at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, where he sang Rodriguez in Massenet's Don Quichotte.

His extensive Gilbert & Sullivan experience includes the roles of Nanki-Poo, Fairfax, Marco, Ralph Rackstraw and Frederic for the Carl Rosa Opera company, and Nanki-Poo and Ralph Rackstraw for the International Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company, for whom he will sing the Duke of Dunstable in this summer's festival in Harrogate.

15

Stephen Godward - Baritone

Stephen Godward was born in Nottingham and studied at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama under Richard Standen. He has studied with Pamela Cook.

He has performed in many professional theatres around the country and specialises in the Mozart buffo roles having played Figaro, Papageno, Leporello and Don Alfonso. Stephen has a busy

concert schedule and this takes him far and wide.

He has sung many roles including, La Boheme, Aida, Turandot, The Bartered Bride, Carmen and L’Elisir d’Amore as well as countless musicals both old and new.

He has performed in all fourteen of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas in many different venues around the country, in Canada, the USA and Spain and has appeared with ‘Gilbert and Sullivan for All’ and The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company.

In 1998, 1999, 2010 and 2013 he won ‘Best Male Performer’ and ‘Best Supporting Role’ for his Colonel Calverley in Patience at the International Festival of Light Opera in Waterford. In 2005, he won the award for Best Male Voice at Waterford.

Stephen has sung the world premieres of Betty Roe’s and Ursula Vaughan-Williams’ two chamber operas A Canterbury Morning and A Flight of Pilgrims in Leicester, London and Canterbury Cathedral.

He has received critical acclaim (Opera magazine) for his performance of Judge Turpin in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd which he has played in seven different productions, the most recent at the Lakeside, Nottingham.

Future plans include Elijah, Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem as well as The Pirates of Penzance in Buxton Opera House, Iolanthe, and The Yeomen of the Guard in Harrogate.

16

Don Crerar - Narrator

Don hails from Edinburgh, but has lived for the last thirty-five years in North Hampshire, so almost feels like a native. He was a jobbing actor for twenty of those years until he got a proper job in IT, but he still pops up occasionally in episodes of Bergerac and True Crimes on UK Gold. He also did a season of ‘Gotcha’s for Noel Edmunds, for which he is still receiving therapy, and has appeared twice at the Watermill Theatre – once professionally,

and once as the bridegroom at his own wedding reception.

He has been a regular in the chorus with Kennet Opera for the past decade or so, and has also enjoyed a long association with Newbury Chamber Choir for whom he regularly contributes the non-singing interludes. This, however, is his first outing with Newbury Choral Society, and he is absolutely delighted this evening to be introducing some of the best-loved, unashamedly enjoyable music ever written.

17

Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra is one of London’s leading non-professional orchestras. The players come

from many different professions, including architecture, arts administration, the BBC, IT, law, media, medicine, publishing and teaching, for some seriously enjoyable music-making. CGCO has performed in various London venues, including St Paul’s Church Covent Garden (the actors’ church), St John’s Smith Square, St James’s Piccadilly, Southwark Cathedral, St Peter’s Eaton Square, St Peter's Notting Hill and St Jude’s-on-the-Hill, Hampstead. The orchestra has a wide repertoire of classical and modern music. Concerts have included the UK première of Iscariot by the American composer Christopher Rouse, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste (Bartók), Weill’s Violin Concerto, Dumbarton Oaks and Pulcinella Suite (Stravinsky), cello concertos by Barber, Korngold, Milhaud and Shostakovich, Rhapsody for Viola and Orchestra (Martinu), Night Music (Colin Matthews) and Robert Simpson’s Symphony No. 7.

Raising money for charity has always been important for CGCO. Accompanying choral societies is one of the orchestra’s activities, and enquiries for collaborative concerts are always welcome. Several players also participate in chamber ensembles. The orchestra has appeared several times at the Proms at St Jude’s in Hampstead, and in June 2008 it was one of the training orchestras in the BBC2 television programme Maestro.

CGCO has a policy of inviting guest conductors, and previous conductors have Included Nicholas Daniel, Daniel Harding, Joan Enric Lluna, Robert Max, Peter Stark, Benjamin Wallfisch and Howard Williams. Previous soloists have included Nancy Argenta, William Bennett, Nicolai Demidenko, Nicola Eimer, Joy Farrall, Emma Johnson, Ralph Kirschbaum, Colin Lawson, James Lisney, Marie Macleod, Eniko Magyar, John Reid, Paul Silverthorne, Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Raphael Wallfisch and Sarah Williamson. For more information please go to cgco.org.uk.

Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra

18

Steve Bowey - Accompanist

Steve studied organ and piano from an early age, playing the organ regularly at the churches of St. Francis’ and St. Andrew’s in Coulsdon. After studying Engineering at Salford University he moved to Newbury to work for Vodafone. In 1991 Steve was appointed as accompanist of the Cromwell Singers and became their musical director in 1993. From 1992, he was Director of Music at St. Mary’s

Church, Shaw-cum-Donnington, and regularly accompanied local choirs, including the Douai Choral Society, the Downland Chorale, the RSCM Southern Cathedral Singers, Berkshire Maestros youth choirs and Worcester College, Oxford.

In June 1995 an opportunity at work took Steve to live in Holland. On returning to Newbury in 1997 he returned to St. Mary’s, Shaw-cum-Donnington as organist. In 2001 he was appointed Musical Director of the Sandham Singers.

In 2006 Steve joined the Royal College of Organists, and in July the following year took the examination for Associate (ARCO) in which he was awarded the Limpus prize for performance, as well as the Sowerbutts and Samuel Baker prizes. After further study, he was awarded the Fellowship diploma (FRCO) in January 2011. He was appointed as accompanist to Newbury Choral Society in 2011 and also to the Newbury based Cecilia Consort in 2014. He is a regular performer in the NDOA lunchtime recital series and has also given recitals in Thaxted, Caterham, Manchester and Farnham. He teaches organ and piano and enjoys working with the many choirs in Newbury and the surrounding area.

19

Newbury Choral Society

Womankind on bicycles and tenors under the bedclothes

In our 130th year we have been looking back at our extensive archive material and marvelling at the thought that, while the world has changed immeasurably during the lifetime of the choir, the joys and tribulations of performing live music have remained the same. Here are some excerpts from a history of the choir written for a souvenir programme of November 1934, Newbury Choral Society’s ‘Jubilee Celebration Concerts’. Mr E.L. Staples, one of the Society’s Founders and its Honorary Secretary for the first twenty years, writes:

Previous to 1884, no effort to make choral singing in Newbury a permanent institution seems to have met with much success. At sundry times, a chorus would be got together for the performance of some particular work (often a Handel oratorio) and then the concert an accomplished fact, the singers would disperse, and the word for the time being was ‘as you were’.

Shortly after the late J.S. Liddle had been appointed organist to the Parish Church … a few zealous amateurs had come to a decision that they would be satisfied with nothing less than a properly constituted Choral Society. Not a spasmodic affair of fits and starts like they had known, but something perennial, lasting through the years and going on from strength to strength. That was just their idea.

In the autumn of 1884, a meeting was held of all those interested, and the scheme was received with enthusiasm. A small committee was appointed to arrange preliminaries and draw up rules, etc., and Mr Liddle was installed as conductor. It would not be true to say that the committee and conductor always saw eye to eye over the music question – far from it – and there was sometimes a pretty stiff fight over it, but somehow a spirit of conciliation or compromise ruled in the end, and it is pleasant to record that nothing like a rupture ever took place.

The selection of music in a Choral Society, apart from technical questions, is always likely to be a difficult and contentious affair. The field of choice is

20

Newbury Choral Society

so vast and individual tastes and opinion differ so widely. Apropos of this, one influential member of the committee … wrote to the Secretary saying ‘he hoped the choice of music for this the first concert would not be an unfamiliar one, but that we should stick to something known and popular. Let me quote you the motto of the Onslow family, festina lente (hasten slowly)’.

If only those ‘zealous amateurs’ could have known that the Choral Society would indeed go from strength to strength, and that 130 years later it would still be attracting well over a hundred members who share the same love of music and the same drive to perform to the highest standard. Mr Staples goes on to give the readers an impression of how different life was in the 1880s compared with the achievements and technologies of the modern era in which he was writing, the 1930s:

Now let us take a rapid survey of old Newbury fifty years ago. There were no ‘buses or motor-cars, no golf or lawn tennis, no water company or drainage system, no electric light or typewriter, no cinema, gramophone or telephone, while aeroplanes, wireless and television were primeval forests probably. Just a few of the brightest and best of womankind were struggling to ride the not very perfect bicycles of the period. Should the gentle reader consider the fact not important enough to mention here, he or she must be reminded that writers on social subjects refer to it as the beginning of the movement known as the Emancipation of Woman (sic).

Mr Staples continues with a description of the first concerts on 27th January 1885, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Disaster struck at noon:

There came a bolt out of the blue in the form of a telegram from the professional soprano engaged for the solo parts, telling us she was too ill to come, and worse still she had sent no substitute … Then a ray of light flashed through the darkness. Why should not two ladies of the chorus step into the breach? They did. The audience in the afternoon appreciated their plucky efforts and gave them generous applause, for they sang

21

Newbury Choral Society

capitally and earned the gratitude of the Society. For the evening concert, a professional lady singer arrived from Windsor.

Another ‘date of supreme importance’ was in April 1898 when Sir Charles Hubert Parry came to Newbury to conduct a performance of three of his works, Invocation to Music, The Lotos-Eaters and Blest Pair of Sirens. The chorus was augmented by ‘trusty singers from neighbouring towns’, the orchestra bolstered by professional players and the soloists chosen by Parry himself. Mr Staples writes intriguingly:

A rare and fascinating orchestral effect was produced by muted horns in The Lotos-Eaters, an effect never before heard in Newbury and all too rare anywhere. One lady in the chorus said it was like beautiful tenor voices singing under the bedclothes. Really a good simile though a rough and ready one.

Only one incident was in danger of marring the concert, but the show must go on:

The last of the works, Blest Pair of Sirens, was going grandly and working up to the final glorious climax, when lo! some of the London players are seen hurriedly leaving the platform, anxious not to miss the last up train … The surprising thing about it all was the attitude of the composer, who seemed to be the one person unperturbed, and with his geniality of disposition regarded the affair as just a sporting chance with the luck gone against him.

You can find out more about Newbury Choral Society, its history and forthcoming events, at www.newburychoral.org.uk.

22

Back cover photograph:

Mr J.S. Liddle conducts Newbury Choral Society and the Newbury Ama-teur Orchestral Union in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, at the

Society’s 30th Anniversary Commemoration Concert in the Corn Ex-change, Newbury, in November 1913.

23

Honorary Life Patron: Lady Knill Chairperson: Liz Wallace Secretary: Nat Smith Treasurer: Tracy Smith Concert Manager: Mike Barthorpe Rehearsal accompanist: Steve Bowey

SOPRANOS ALTOS

Rachael Atkinson Rebecca Berger Helen Bomgardener Marion Croxford Ann Doyle Lucy Fitt Sarah Foley Janet Freer Gill Hitchcock Murrie Jackson Lauraine Leigh Lynne Moore

Debbie Murphy Margaret Owen Kathryn Pollard Ros Preuss Sue Sim Tamsin Slatter Sarah South Maggie Stewart Patricia Stewart Fenisia Stopher Julie van Haperen Caroline Whiting

Katharine Andrews Margaret Baker Hilary Banks Denise Barthorpe Jacquie Basker Jane Burgess Jacquie Cooper Helen Douglass Nicola Foster Lily Green Lynnette Harper Jane Hawker Gwenda Hutchinson Kiki Kettunen Ceinwen Lally

Mary Lawler Emma Leader Viv Masson Bridget Purr Barbara Riggs Ann Shepherd Sally Sinclair Margaret Smith Nat Smith Tracy Smith Ann Turner Ann Vodden Liz Wallace Penny Webb Margaret Wright

TENORS BASSES

Peter Angwin Mike Barthorpe Bill Bateman Tom Brown Matthew Evans Derek Harwood

Jim Needham Richard Papworth Neil Rendall Andrew Salisbury Jeremy Wright

Gerald Atkinson Robin Basker Peter Bell David Bomgardner Mike Braide Greg Choules David Craig Gordon Crowe David Gavins

Brian Harper Paul High David Hunt Richard Moore Brendan Murphy Andrew Parker John Raban Adrian Slatter

Newbury Choral Society Members

24