Having completed all risk assessments necessary, we had our last rehearsal at All Saint’s Church and have come back home to HQ! I’d like to thank those working for the church in Newport for welcoming us for a few weeks – the space was wonderful to sing in and we made some good progress, so we are all very grateful for having the opportunity to work there.

Back at HQ, we have learned new pieces, improved our singing technique and enjoyed time back here. We have had the opportunity to reminisce on our history which has been useful in order to remind ourselves of the special memories created in our past, and no doubt we can create new ones in the future! I personally am looking forward to begin concerts in the local area and beyond.

We have also welcomed back some old faces and have been pleased to see some new ones. Just a reminder – we rehearse on Thursday 7-9 pm and Sunday 6-8 pm if you would like to see us practice or even join the choir! If you are considering joining but are unsure of your own singing abilities, then fear not; we are here to have fun and I will help you along the way!

Composers of the Month

Georges Bizet (25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875)

Georges Bizet (born as Alexandre César Léopold) was born on October 25, 1838 in Paris. Bizet’s father was an amateur musician, who had one published song to his name, while Bizet’s mother was an esteemed pianist. Bizet’s maternal aunt was no less than a musical genius; she had been teaching at the Conservatoire de Paris at the tender age of thirteen. When Bizet was a child, he was given piano lessons by his mother, who would later on also train him in music theory. Bizet also used to eavesdrop on his father’s music lessons and would display a natural talent in singing and memorization. Bizet’s parents were convinced that their child was good enough to excel at the Conservatoire de Paris while he was only nine. Bizet was interviewed by the horn virtuoso Joseph Miefred, who helped the young Bizet enrol at the institute despite the minimum age requirement (a child had to be ten years old to be enrolled at the Conservatoire, however, in Bizet’s case an exception was made). Inside six months of enrolment, Bizet was already turning heads. He won the first prize in solfege, a feat which had greatly impressed the French Pianist Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann. After the win, Bizet was largely trained by Zimmermann, who gave Bizet various lessons in fugue and counterpoint. He also studied under the French Pianist Antoine Marmontel, and under his tuition, Bizet won the second prize for piano in 1851, and the first prize in piano in 1852.

Compositions from Bizet’s time at the conservatory included two sopranos, his songs Petite Marguerite and La Rose et L’abeille. He also transcribed two of Charles Gounod’s works for the piano, these included La none sanglante and his Symphony in D Major. At the age of seventeen, Bizet also wrote his own full scale Symphony in C Major. Bizet competed for the prestigious Prix de Rome in both 1856 and in 1857. The award was not given in 1856 due to unsatisfactory entrees, however, in 1857, Bizet would win the award. He chose to submit his cantata for Amedee Burion’s Clovis et Clotilde. Bizet spent the next five years of his life reaping the benefits of the grants that he received due to the award. Of these five years, he spent the first two in Rome, the third in Italy, and the final two in Paris.

Despite his brilliant composing skills, Bizet had relatively little success during his life. It was said that his compositions were largely ignored because of the main opera theatres preferring the classical repertoire to that of the works of the romantic era. Nonetheless, Bizet’s works would garner massive popularity towards the end of his life, and especially after his death. Two of his opera’s, Les pecheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth were slow in gaining appreciation; however, they would go on to become extremely popular. There were obvious exceptions to this rule, for example, his opera Djamileh had an extremely successful premiere. His last opera, Carmen, had major production difficulties and it left Bizet confused about its future. However, it would prove to be extremely successful after his death. Georges Bizet died on June 3, 1875 of a heart attack. He died as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

Here are Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Jonas Kaufmann performing his Pearl Fishers’ Duet ‘Au Fond du Temple Saint’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2MwnHpLV48

Herbert Howells (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983)

Herbert Howells decided at a young age that he wanted to compose music and then sought out musical training. His most important teacher was the cathedral organist at Gloucester, Herbert Brewer, and he became Brewer's assistant. At the age of 20, he entered and won an open scholarship competition at the Royal College of Music.

His main teachers were Charles Wood in counterpoint and Charles Villiers Stanford in composition. He is said to have been Stanford's favourite pupil and Stanford conducted Howells' Piano concerto No. 1 at a Queen's Hall concert in 1913. Meanwhile, Howells' Mass in Dorian Mode was sung in Westminster Cathedral. In 1916, his piano quintet became the first work to be published under the Carnegie Trust.

He obtained a position as a sub-organist at Salisbury Cathedral, but had to give it up because of ill health, which had already kept him out of military service during World War I. He was not expected to live, but did recover and in 1920 was able to resume his career. He started teaching composition at the Royal College of Music in 1920.

His compositional style quickly emerged: it is in the tradition of modal, folk-based music that is sometimes called "English pastoralist," continuing the trends of Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams. His imagination was often stimulated by particular places and by people he knew. This holds true even for his large body of church music, which was not inspired by religious sentiments ("I am not a religious man any more than Ralph was," he once said). It is probable that he wrote so much church music simply because he liked choral writing and his style is rich and melodic.

Although he wrote a substantial amount of fine instrumental and orchestral music, his choral and other vocal music is considered the work most likely to keep his memory alive. His masterwork is usually considered to be the Hymnus Paradisi, a quasi-requiem he wrote out of the grief suffered when he lost his nine-year-old son in 1938. It is a visionary work, with the kind of deep but quiet feeling that is also associated with Frederick Delius.

He received other teaching appointments as well. After Holst's death in 1934, Howells was chosen to succeed him as director of music at St. Paul's School and in 1954, he was named King Edward VII Professor of Music at the University of London. He was made Commander of the British Empire in 1953 by Queen Elizabeth II. He retired from his St. Paul's position and the University of London post in 1964, but retained his professorship at the Royal College of Music and held classes there almost right up to his death at the age of 90.

Here is his Christmas choral piece A Spotless Rose performed by King’s College Cambridge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfAlAz-zFlU

Giuseppe Verdi (10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901)

Giuseppe Verdi was the most important Italian composer in the 19th century. He wrote 32 operas. Many of them got world famous, eg La traviata, Aida, Il Trovatore and Otello.

Verdi was born in 1813 in Roncole, Lombardy. His musical talent was recognized early: he scored his first paying music gig at the age of eight years old. His schoolmaster, music teacher and church organist died, so Verdi took over his organist duties. By the time he was 12 years old, Verdi was studying music, composition, Latin, the humanities and rhetoric. However, he was denied entry to a conservatory in Milan at the age of 19 for “being too young”. He decided to become a private pupil of Lavigna.

At the age of 26 he wrote his first opera (Oberto), which was performed at La Scala. After another opera that flopped and the death of his wife and children, the 27-year-old wanted to give up composing.

Verdi could be persuaded by the leader of the Scala to write another work and Nabucco was instantly a sensational success. The piece “Va pensiero” became the anthem of the Risorgimento, the Italian striving for freedom. While working on Nabucco he met the singer Giuseppina Strepponi, they fell in love with each other and they decided to live together (to the chagrin of the villagers in a wild marriage). He married her in 1859.

The so called galley years followed Nabucco in which he composed operas regularly and often under time pressure. Many of these works quickly prevailed. These middle years culminated at the beginning of the fifties in the trilogy Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La traviata.

Verdi was always a politically minded person. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. However, he never attended the meetings and soon resigned. He wanted to assert himself in the then opera Mecca of Paris and decided to write operas for the Grand Opéra. He wrote, for example, Les vêpres siciliennes and Don Carlos for the Paris Opera House.

Throughout his career, Verdi kept working on operas based on Shakespeare’s plays. Yet he composed one of his masterpieces – and one of the world’s most popular operas – Otello (1887) a decade after he officially retired. His other completed Shakespearean operas include Macbeth (1847) and Falstaff (1893), which was based on Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor. He also contemplated works based on King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest. 

Oh – and Verdi couldn’t read English.

More than 14 years passed since Verdi wrote his last opera Aida, until his publisher Ricordi inspired Verdi to collaborate with the librettist Arrigo Boito. This led to the late works Simon Boccanegra, Otello and Falstaff (the latter at the age of 86!), which, like Wagner did, left the classical number opera and aimed at a musical drama. Verdi as well wrote religious works in his late years, though he was not a religious person. His wife died in 1897 and Verdi followed her four years later.

Messa da Requiem:

After Gioachino Rossini's death in 1868, Verdi suggested that a number of Italian composers collaborate on a Requiem in Rossini's honour. He began the effort by submitting the concluding movement, the "Libera me". During the next year a Messa per Rossini was compiled by Verdi and twelve other famous Italian composers of the time. The premiere was scheduled for 13 November 1869, the first anniversary of Rossini's death.

However, on 4 November, nine days before the premiere, the organising committee abandoned it. Verdi blamed this on the scheduled conductor, Angelo Mariani. He pointed to Mariani's lack of enthusiasm for the project, even though he had been part of the organising committee from the start, and it marked the beginning of the end of their friendship. The composition remained unperformed until 1988, when Helmuth Rilling premiered the complete Messa per Rossini in Stuttgart, Germany.

In the meantime, Verdi kept toying with his "Libera me", frustrated that the combined commemoration of Rossini's life would not be performed in his lifetime.

On 22 May 1873, the Italian writer and humanist Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi had admired all his adult life and met in 1868, died. Upon hearing of his death, Verdi resolved to complete a Requiem—this time entirely of his own writing—for Manzoni. Verdi travelled to Paris in June, where he commenced work on the Requiem, giving it the form we know today. It included a revised version of the "Libera me" originally composed for Rossini.

Here is the full Requiem performed by the BBC Proms Youth Choir and the Orchestra of the Age of enlightenment, conducted by Marin Alsop. See if you can spot me in the corner singing bass at any point…! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pVYB6IaiFc

I hope you enjoy these extracts – I know the last one is 90 minutes, but I believe it is well worth the listen. Here’s to another month of good practices!