Press Release 29th October 2012
Bach Komm, Jesu, Komm!
Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
and settings by Vaughan Williams, Howells and Grainger
Saturday 1st December 2012, at 7.45pm Hampstead Garden Suburb Free Church, Central Square, London NW11 7AG
Finchley Choral Society’s Autumn concert will feature a selection of works by Vaughan Williams, Howells, Grainger and Bach including the double-chorus motet “Komm, Jesu, Komm!”
Johann Sebastian Bach composed this motet, a choral work for church use, around 1725 from a setting of hymnbook poetry by Paul Thymich. The choir is also singing Bach’s Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV61 which is a church cantata composed in Weimar for the first Sunday in Advent and first performed on 2nd December 1714.
Ralph Vaughan Williams discovered English folk songs and carols in 1904 were fast becoming extinct. He travelled the countryside, transcribing and preserving many himself, incorporating some songs and melodies into his own music. He was fascinated by the beauty of the music and its anonymous history in the working lives of ordinary people. 5 English Folk Songs and Fantasia on Christmas Carols are regularly performed today, this year marking 100 years since the latter was composed.
A Spotless Rose is one of Howell’s most well-known and enduring works – an unaccompanied choral piece composed whilst he was sitting in Gloucester train station in 1919! It is one of the Three Carol-Anthems.
Our concert theme of folk songs continues with Percy Grainger’s Brigg Fair which is one of his songs inspired whilst he was staying at Brigg in Lincolnshire in 1905. Grainger gathered and transcribed more than 300 original folk songs from all over the country.
FCS’s musical director, Grace Rossiter will conduct the programme, with the Florian Chamber Orchestra and organ accompaniment from the choir’s accompanist, Richard Harvey. FCS will be joined by soloists Olivia Clarke (soprano), Christopher Bowen (tenor) and Edward Price (baritone).
Finchley Choral Society was founded over one hundred years ago to give local people the opportunity to take part in high quality music making. It is now a thriving community choir presenting 3-4 concerts a year. The choir will be returning to the Free Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb. This impressive Grade 1 listed building, built by architect Edwin Lutyens in a similar style to St Jude’s, is one of the choir’s regular concert venues.
Tickets: £13.00, students £7.00, children £1.00. Available from FCS Box Office: 020 7263 3358, FCS members, on the door or from Les Aldrich Music, 98 Fortis Green Rd, London N10 3HN. Tel: 020 8883 5631.
Saturday 3 December 2011
Finchley Choral Society
St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill
Haydn Mozart Schubert
St Mary the Virgin is a strangely down at heel building of chipped paint, age settled dust on whitewashed pillars ... and a broken organ. But it has the feel of a congregation that puts its ministry before appearance.
Scheduled to provide accompaniment, the organ failure meant that Richard Harvey was instead given a wonderful Bechstein piano. There was also a last-minute substitution as the brilliant Elizabeth Poole took over the soprano roles. And, following a gloriously Happy Event on the eve of the concert, the regular conductor Grace Rossiter handed her baton to the multi-talented Patrick Russil.
In the first piece, the wonderful Amens of Mozart's Sancta Maria, mater dei had the audience's hairs standing on the back of our collective necks. His much better known Ave Verum Corpus managed in just 46 bars to delight everyone in St Mary’s. So much so that we forgot to applaud!
The two Mendelssohn works were welcome. The choir's rendition of his Prayer for Peace supported Robert Schuman's description of the work as ' a uniquely beautiful composition .. this little piece deserves to be known the world over.'
By Schubert's Mass in G, the choir was clearly fully recovered, in great voice and thoroughly enjoying the noises they were making. Their whispered Kyrie was soon joined by Elizabeth's remarkable soprano voice. Hayden's Te Deum was delivered with a fine, animated start - crystal clear and with strong purpose.
The lack of orchestra placed Finchley Choral society firmly centre stage. They worked hard and delivered all that the stand in conductor asked. But it was hard to avoid the conclusion that the presence of an orchestra, however small, would have added greatly to the enjoyment of the evening. Despite all this the choir really lifted itself to deliver a memorable series of performances demanded by this well-chosen programme.
For details of their concert on 24th March in Hampstead Garden Suburb, www.finchleychoral.org.uk
David Winskill. Ham and High.
FCS Summer Concert 2012
Handel
Jephtha
Available from FCS Box Office: 0207 263 3358
98 Fortis Green Rd. N10 3HN. 0208 883 5631
Haydn Te Deum in C
Mozart Sancta Maria, Mater Dei
Exsultate, Jubilate
Schubert Magnificat in C
Mass in G
Saturday 3rd December 2011
St. Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill
London NW3 3DJ at 7.45pm
FINCHLEY CHORAL SOCIETY
Soprano Emma Tring
Mezzo-Soprano Lucy Goddard
Tenor Robert Johnston
Bass Philip Tebb
Organ Richard Harvey
Conductor Patrick Russill
Tickets: £13.00, Students £7.00, Children £1.00
Available from FCS Box Office: 0207 263 3358
FCS Members, on the door, or from
Les Aldrich Music, 98 Fortis Green Road
London N10 3HN, 0208 883 5631
FINCHLEY CHORAL SOCIETY
Spring Concert Saturday 24th March 2012
Finchley Choral Society’s spring concert will feature a selection of ‘British Choral Classics’ including ‘The Blue Bird’ by Stanford, ‘I Was Glad’ by Parry (which was sung at The Royal Wedding in 2011), partsongs by Vaughan Williams and Finzi and ‘Old Joe has gone fishing’ by Britten.
This is from Act 1 Scene 2 of Britten’s opera Peter Grimes. The scene is set in the village pub, the Boar, while a violent storm rages outside. Grimes the fisherman, regarded as an outsider and object of suspicion by the villagers, enters and sings a visionary and mystifying aria “Now the Great Bear and Pleiades”.He is attacked by one of the villagers, but another villager, to calm the tension, starts up the sea-shanty “Old Joe has gone fishing”, which takes on the form of a round as the others join in.
FCS will also perform ‘The Gallant Weaver’, a setting of the Burns poem by MacMillan, which echoes the wistful dreamlike nature of the country side evoked in the poem, and another partsong (a style related to madrigals) - ‘As Torrents in Summer’ by Elgar. The text is by Longfellow and the gentle harmonies evoke the soft fall of summer rain , building up like the rush of strong water before gently receding.
An evening of beautiful and lyrical choral music conducted by Finchley Choral Society’s Musical Director Grace Rossiter, accompanied by Organist Richard Harvey.
FCS was founded over one hundred years ago to give local people the opportunity to take part in high quality music making. It is now a thriving community choir presenting 3-4 concerts a year. The choir will be returning to the Free Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb. This impressive Grade I listed building, built by architect Edwin Lutyens in a similar style to St Jude’s, is one of the choir’s regular concert venues.
‘This concert will have done much to confirm Finchley’s deserved and growing reputation. Rossiter is giving them the confidence to grow and the opportunity to take risks...’
David Winskill (Ham & High) on Beethoven’s Mass in C
Saturday 24th March 2012
Hampstead Garden Suburb Free Church,
Central Square, London NW11 7AG at 7.45pm
Stanford The Blue Bird
Parry I was Glad
MacMillan The Gallant Weaver
Vaughan Williams Three Elizabethan Songs
The Spirit of the Lord
Britten Old Joe has gone fishing
Finzi Seven part-songs - selection
Howells Like as the Hart
Grace Rossiter Conductor
Richard Harvey Organ
Tickets £13.00 / £7.00 students/ £1.00 children
Tickets are available from the FCS box office 020 7263 3358, FCS members, on the door, or from Les Aldrich Music, 98 Fortis Green Road, N10 3HN.
photo: Simon Weir-www.simonweir.com
Breathtaking sounds for the choir
make evening one to remember
Saturday 9th July 2011
Finchley Choral Society
The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill
Carmina Burana, Carl Orff
On the beach at night, Richard James Harvey
For many people Carmina Burana will ever be associated with a TV ad for Old Spice. Perhaps this is why is it sometimes regarded as a bit of a novelty piece: and it is - I can think of no other work on this scale that is remotely like it.
From the instant that the breath-taking O Fortuna breaks around round this lovely church, we know that we are entering a very different world of music. Orff himself describes the work as "Profane songs for singers and vocal chorus with instruments and magical pictures." A magical evening indeed.
Monumental understates this amazing piece and FCS (working beautifully with the excellent Finchley Children's Music Group) seized the opportunity to show how brilliantly they can handle such a complex and demanding work.
If Carimina Burana was a painting it would be a Breugel (think Carnival and Lent) or, in its really dark moments, a Bosch. Orff took his texts from a manuscript collection of the 13 century thus setting them to music 700 years after they were written. In it he has woven simple monastic echoes (without the polyphony of later ages), rustic dances and all the bombast he can muster using a seriously well equipped percussion section and little else.
One minute lyrical, another primal, the choruses adapted beautifully to the demands of the work. Conductor Grace Rossiter had instructed the choir, especially the men, to sing from the gut and to project as they never had before - at times they seem genuinely surprised by the sounds they unleashed on this appreciative audience. The work of the soloists was superb: I watched as one member of the audience was simply transfixed at the beauty of Jane Forbes' delivery of Stetit Puella.
The evening had started with the world premier of a work by Richard James Harvey to mark his 25 years as the choir's accompanist. Based on Walt Whitman's poem On the Beach at Night, it was a beautiful, reflective piece performed with much affection by this excellent choir.
Visit www.finchleychoral.org.uk for news of their December programme of works by Haydn, Mozart and Schubert.
David Winskill. Ham and High. Thursday July 14th 2011.
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire
From Britten’s Hymn for St Cecilia
Finchley Choral Society’s spring concert will feature a selection of unaccompanied choral works by Britten, Tippett, Verdi, Bruckner and Purcell.
Britten’s Hymn for St Cecilia sets words of a three part ode by WH Auden. Britten was born on St Cecilia’s day (22 November) and had long wanted to write a piece dedicated to St Cecilia – the patron saint of music and musicians. Britten's music to the Hymn embraces this idea of celebration. The piece was first performed on St. Cecilia's Day in 1942 – Britten's twenty-ninth birthday.
Tippett, a contemporary of Britten, composed the oratorio A Child of our Time between 1939 and 1941. The piece responds to the events in Europe at that time and the Negro Spirituals, which the Finchley Choral Society will perform, appear in the oratorio as the songs of victims of oppression. The set of spirituals features popular songs including Steel Away and Deep River and the work encapsulates Tippett’s own style, recognisably English, coloured with jazz and folk influences.
Verdi’s Hymn to the Virgin is a loving hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary scored for a cappella female voices. The concert will also include sacred setting by Bruckner and Purcell and will be conducted by the choir’s Music Director Grace Rossiter.
FCS was founded over one hundred years ago to give local people the opportunity to take part in high quality music making. It is now a thriving community choir presenting 3-4 concerts a year. The choir will be returning to the Free Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb. This impressive Grade I listed building, built by architect Edwin Lutyens in a similar style to St Jude’s, is one of the choir’s regular concert venues.
This concert will have done much to confirm Finchley’s deserved and growing reputation. Rossiter is giving them the confidence to grow and the opportunity to take risks...
David Winskill (Ham & High) on Beethoven’s Mass in C
Saturday 2 April 2011 at 7.45pm
Hampstead Garden Suburb Free Church
Central Square, London, NW11 7AG
Benjamin Britten Hymn to St Cecilia
Michael Tippett Five Negro Spiritual from A Child of our Time
Giuseppe Verdi Hymn to the Virgin
And choral settings by Anton Bruckner and Henry Purcell
Grace Rossiter conductor
Tickets £13.00 | £1 students/children
Tickets are available from the FCS box office (020 7263 3358) FCS members or at the door. Tickets can also be purchased from Les Aldrich Music, 98 Fortis Green Road, N10 3HN or call 020 8883 5631.
Finchley Choral Society
Christmas Oratorio
J S Bach
Hampstead Garden Suburb Free Church
Saturday 4th December 2010
Just hours before the start of this concert, the last traces of snow melted away from the Hampstead slopes. Had the magic of Christmas disappeared with the thaw? Not if the Finchley Choral Society had anything to do with it!
They, with the wonderful Florian Chamber Orchestra and a clutch of soloists, really kicked off the festive season with this performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio.
Musical Director Grace Rossiter
"...This concert will have done much to confirm Finchley's deserved and growing reputation.
Rossiter is giving them the confidence to grow and the opportunity to take risks..."
David Winskill (Ham & High) on Beethoven's Mass in C
FCS is a thriving community choir, performing 3 - 4 concerts a year.
We are 90 strong, and welcome singers of all ages. Entry is by a simple voice test.
Recent highlights include a "Breathtaking" (Ham and High) Carmina Burana
and the world premiere of On the Beach at Night by Richard James Harvey.
This season features 'Classical Elegance': Haydn, Mozart and Schubert in December,
'British Choral Classics': Parry, Elgar, Britten & Finzi part-songs in the spring,
and Handel Jeptha in June 2012.
Future attractions include Christmas Carol singing in aid of the North London Hospice,
Spring and Summer workshops, and a tour to Holland in November 2012.
Rehearsals - Mondays 7.45 - 9.45pm Moss Hall Junior School, Nether Street, West Finchley.
London N3 1NR. For more information please visit: www.finchleychoral.org.uk
or call the Membership Secretary on 020 8449 8135
