South Nutfield Choral Society
For any amateur community choir, singing in a different venue from usual can be quite daunting. For South Nutfield Choral Society, the differences between our home church, Christ Church in South Nutfield, and St John’s are considerable, with space being the most impactful. We are used to a small, intimate church with a maximum audience of 130, seated on upholstered chairs. Cream-painted walls create a warm light and the church is easy to sing in with a generous, forgiving acoustic. While some choirs go on tour, we are more restrained; for the last couple of years we have been giving two performances of our biannual concerts, one at Christ Church and the other in another local church.
We had initially been reluctant to come to St John’s, mainly due to concerns about parking but also in part due to our perception that the church was dark and somewhat oppressive. We were wrong! The church was light and airy (in our defence, we had originally visited in winter) and the acoustic, while less warm than that of Christ Church, easy to become accustomed to. We could not have been made more welcome and Sarah went out of her way to make sure we had everything we needed and knew our way around. So all our anxieties were allayed and we were able to relax and enjoy the experience. Everything was set up in such a way that problems simply didn’t arise and I was most impressed by the CCTV feed to the organ, which was such a help.
The programme for our concert included Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, Sullivan’s The long day closes and Parry’s I was glad, as well as some additional solo items by Puccini and Ivor Gurney. For me, the Puccini Mass was a revelation; I owned a copy of the score but had little memory of it having once, many years ago, sight-read it in a performance to help out a choir that
was low on numbers. I was not prepared for the impact the piece had on me: one month after the second performance I still sing it around the house.
I suspect that many choir members fell as much in love with the piece as did I and they certainly poured their souls into performing it. They also loved singing the Sullivan partsong, which was something of an exercise in singing softly, and the Parry, which was quite the opposite! The large space of St John’s enabled us to make the most of these extremes of dynamic. We were blessed with wonderful soloists, Davide Basso, tenor, and Robin Whitehouse, who is really a tenor but possesses a wide range that enabled him to sing the baritone solos – and describe himself as a baritenor! After the interval, they delighted us with their performances of Puccini arias and, as an encore, sang a duet from La Bohème. They might have been a tough act to follow but soprano choir member, Rachel Anderson, effected the transition from Italian arias to English songs with her calmly evocative and deeply moving performance of Ivor Gurney’s Sleep. We were supported superbly by our regular rehearsal accompanist, Janneke Brits, on piano and Matthew Rickard on organ. I particularly appreciated the quality of both instruments, great assets to the church.
Everything ran smoothly and easily so it was a disappointment that we were unable to attract a larger audience. Of course, most of our audiences comprise friends and family of choir members; we cannot explain why but, whatever the reason, very few people came.
They did space themselves out around the church and were enthusiastic in their applause, creating a lovely, warm and positive atmosphere. We are very grateful to all at St John’s for making this such an enjoyable and stress-free occasion.
Sue Hughes
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