Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir

Our 2025-6 season reached a joyful and very upbeat conclusion with our final concert on Saturday July 18th in All Saints’ church, Leamington Spa.

On the face of it, the two choral works we performed couldn’t have been more different. The concert began with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, a jazzy, engaging but also in places very lyrical setting of Hebrew texts taken from several of the Psalms. The piece includes moments of dramatic contrast and vivid sound-painting, as when a tranquil account of Psalm 23 for treble and harp is suddenly interrupted by a fierce outburst from the men singing “Why do the nations rage?”. By contrast, the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé is a meditative, at times almost ethereal work, making extensive use of plainsong melodies and combining them with sensuous French harmonies, both in the vocal lines and also in the stunningly beautiful organ part, played by Colin Druce.

Yet as Jim Bate, our Musical Director, pointed out during rehearsals, both works end with a whispered ‘Amen’ which dies away to nothing - during which our very appreciative audience on Saturday seemed to hold their breath! The two composers were also rather different characters: Bernstein a highly prolific and hugely popular composer and conductor, never out of the public eye, while Duruflé was a reclusive perfectionist who published only a handful of works during his lifetime. Yet here too there is common ground, in the way each composer focussed on the traditions that meant most to them. Bernstein acknowledged his Jewish heritage in his choice of Hebrew Psalms, while also exploiting the jazz and popular idioms which had made him famous. Duruflé as a musical conservative looked to the mediaeval past of the Gregorian chants for his musical inspiration.

Further contrast was provided in the first half of the concert with a stunning performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Fantasia for Harp, given by Erica Sinclair. This technically demanding work, firmly rooted in the French Romantic tradition, was twice used as an examination piece by the Paris Conservatoire. It is nevertheless very accessible and enjoyable to listen to, and audience and choir alike gave Erica’s playing rapt attention. Erica also played in the Chichester Psalms, alongside Alex Henshaw providing the essential percussion, and Colin Druce on organ, rising above the challenges of the rather temperamental instrument in All Saints. George Webster from the Collegiate Church of St Mary in Warwick starred as our treble soloist in the Chichester Psalms, while Hannah Mary Taylor (soprano) sang the moving ‘Pie Jesu’ in the Requiem, and Ryan Evans (baritone) gave a powerful account of the solos in ‘Domine Jesu’ and ‘Libera Me’.

This concert was also very special in that it marked the return visit of our friends from the German-American Community Choir of Frankfurt. After 25 members of the RLSBC had travelled to Frankfurt at the end of June to sing the same repertoire in a concert there, 40 members of the German choir were able to join us in Leamington on Saturday. Our expanded numbers created a truly impressive sound in the acoustic of All Saints. We were particularly delighted to welcome Evelyn Ruf, the GACC’s Musical Director, to conduct part of the concert in Leamington. It was a real pleasure to get to know her and members of the choir through this exchange, a timely reminder that music knows no boundaries and is a guaranteed way of making new friends! Huge thanks to all the organisers at both ends of the exchange for all their hard work in making it happen, and to everyone who took part in the exchange and/or hosted our German visitors.

If you too would like the opportunity to make new friends through music, do consider joining the choir for the forthcoming season. We have some very exciting concerts planned (please click here for the full programme of events) and the first two Wednesday evenings in September are open rehearsals, which any potential new recruits are most welcome to attend without obligation (please click here for more details).

Photo: Erica and the choir in rehearsal before the concert