Concerts

Report on Wingrave Singers Midsummer Recital  held on 18 June 2011

The Wingrave Singers were tempting fate by including “Midsummer” in the title of their recital
on 18 June.   The date may have been right but the weather was not. However
the warmth of the audience's reaction to the fare served up by the singers and
their friends was in sharp contrast to the chill outside.

The music was interspersed with witty words by the contemporary poet Wendy Cope. The link between the poems and the music was not always obvious but the mixture worked exceptionally well, with the choir,
seemingly, enjoying the evening just as much as the audience.

The choir, ably conducted be Alexander Campkin, was collectively, in very good voice, particularly in those pieces that are in its more usual style. 'Ave Verum Corpus' by William Byrd and the two pieces by Thomas
Tallis 'If you love me ' and 'O Nata Lux' were all very well sung. The Hallelujah Chorus was sung with
verve and gusto and Gershwin's 'Summertime' and 'Blue Moon' by Rodgers and Hart
provided a good balance to a most enjoyable programme.

Good as the music was, the evening will be remembered for the dramatic reading of the eight Wendy Cope poems. John Alexander set the tone with The Performers, Jennifer Armstrong, tripping delicately, followed
with The Appreciative Listener. Ray Charman read The Critic, while Alexander Campkin (a very professional conductor) gave us The Amateur Conductor. Peter Arnold read The Traditionalist and Richard Keighley
The Radical. Virginia Stride read The Widow quite beautifully and brought a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye of quite a few. The Drinker was read by Nick Butland and was appropriately followed by the
Choir's enthusiastic rendering of 'Good Ale'. Sylvia Francis created a tickle amongst the audience with The Cougher. Janet Frost gave us First Date She and Alan Frost First Date He. The concert was on the very evening that Alan and Janet were celebrating forty years of marriage and Alan added a personal
touch by recalling that the poem he read well described the first of many concerts that they had enjoyed together.  All the poems related to characters, so readily recognized, drawn from concert performers and audiences.

Alexander Campkin and Colin Spinks provided something of an oddity with 'Clapping Music' by Steve
Reich –   clapping their hands to different rhythms, managing to keep time throughout and finishing on the right beat!

Colin Spinks, at the organ, played Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to conclude the programme.

At the beginning of the evening we were asked, in the interest of time, to save our applause to the end. The quality of the singing and the reading was such that most in the audience could not resist showing
their immediate appreciation and enjoyment of all the pieces that went to make
up a happy, thoroughly enjoyable and memorable evening.

RH