Phillips Hall, Blackheath
Saturday 26 August 2017 at 5pm

In this festival of Romantic song, intoxicating German romanticism was matched by mulled wine served at the interval to warm hearts on a Blackheath winter’s day.

The program encompassed every type of choral writing from the popular Ave Maria, a Schubert Lied, to the gushing melodies of Mendelssohn’s large-scale Psalm 42, Wie der Hirsch schreit. Complementing these works the chamber choir sang Durufle ’s Quatre motets sur des themes gregoriens, and there was also a sneak preview of our Christmas concert with an extract from Rheinberger’s Star of Bethlehem, in a new translation by Rowen Fox. The concert featured soprano soloist Michaella Ye Zhang, who joined the choir for three of the works.
Our President, Tim Kaye, moved his three-manual Allen organ to the Phillips Hall to accompany the choir and also to perform Mendelssohn’s Sonata No 3, a staple of the organ repertoire. The work combines dramatic fanfare, Lutheran chorale and double fugue, with a touch of Lieder ohne Worte.
Scheduled for the winter weekend of the Blackheath Choir festival, in its off year, we served mulled wine in the interval to warm the audience, and we finished in good time for everyone to head off to dinner after the concert.