The spacious interior of All Saints’ Church in Leamington echoed to the sound of voices, trumpets and drums on Saturday 28th March, as we celebrated three years of the reign of King Charles III with a programme of music associated with royal occasions.
The concert began with Handel’s The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, played by our orchestral partners for the evening, the Beauchamp Sinfonietta. This instrumental interlude from the oratorio Solomon, with its lively violin passages and contrasting oboe solos, describes the bustling preparations for the Queen’s state visit. In Handel’s original score, the movement is just labelled ‘Sinfony’; it was Sir Thomas Beecham who gave it its rather more colourful title, and popularised it as a standalone concert piece.
This was followed by Handel’s Four Coronation Anthems, written for the coronation of King George II in 1727. The first, Zadok the Priest, opens with a sustained crescendo of rising violin arpeggios over repeated chords for lower strings and woodwind, building to the climactic entry of voices, trumpets and drums. Although Handel’s setting of this text from the Old Testament is the most well-known today, Thomas Tomkins had already written a version for the coronation of King Charles I in 1626, and Henry Lawes for King Charles II in 1661. The words had been in use since the crowning of Edgar as the first King of England in Bath Abbey in 973. The other three anthems mark subsequent steps in the coronation liturgy: the crowning itself, the anointing and coronation of the queen, and the recognition of the king as rightful ruler. This is bold and extrovert music, perfectly suited to the reverberant acoustic of Westminster Abbey for which it was composed, and it certainly filled All Saints!
The second half of the concert began with a Concerto Grosso by Corelli, a composer who spent much of his working life in the courts and palaces of Rome, played with poise and elegance by the Beauchamp Sinfonietta. This was followed by Mozart’s Coronation Mass, which was not composed specifically for a coronation, but adopted by the Viennese royal family for state occasions after it was performed at the crowning of Francis II as the last Holy Roman Emperor in Frankfurt in 1792. This work starred our four soloists, all of whom have interesting and varied careers as vocal soloists and ensemble singers. Evelyn Byford (soprano) is a scholar with Ex Cathedra and a lay clerk at Worcester Cathedral. Samantha Hill (mezzo soprano) has a passion for accessibility in classical music and incorporates British Sign Language into some of her performances. Dale Harris (tenor) has sung for productions at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, and Harry Brookes-Owen (bass) is currently working for Göteborg Opera in Sweden. Their lovely voices blended perfectly in the quartets and duets of the Mozart.
It was a thrilling experience to sing this joyful and uplifting music, and our audience’s enthusiastic response made it clear that they thoroughly enjoyed it too. Our thanks as always to our Musical Director Jim Bate for his inspirational leadership, unflagging enthusiasm and sheer hard work. We look forward to singing Mozart with him again in June, when we shall study the Requiem in a full day ‘Come and Sing’ workshop. Do join us if you can!
