Take one of the finest youth choirs in the UK, place them in one of Tuscany’s most glorious cathedrals, Lucca’s San Martino, and hear them singing a wide repertoire ranging from renaissance through baroque to Britten and one has all the ingredients for a lovely evening of music, full of joy and beauty.
Taplow Choirs was founded in 2004 by Gillian Dibden and Philip Viveash as a centre for local singers and to bring together children and adults wishing to build their singing skills. They have become a centre of singing excellence in the area.
There are four Taplow choirs: children’s choir, boys’ choir, girls’ choir and the youth choir.
The Taplow youth choir, formed in 2006, currently has seventy five members, aged between 15 and 18. It was awarded BBC Radio 3’s “Youth Choir of the Year” in 2008 and won the prestigious ‘Music for Youth’ award in the same year. The choir participated in the International Choral Competition in Tallinn, Estonia, in April 2009, and won 2nd prize in the Youth category. Regular visitors to the Windsor Festival, the choir also sings Evensong in St. George’s chapel, Windsor castle every year. It participates in the young singers program with the Gabrieli Consort, and has performed Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’ with the Consort at the Royal Albert Hall.
The choir’s Music Director, Gillian Dibden, has a long career in music, especially working with young people. In 2009 she received the MBE for her work with young people and children’s choirs. We were able to meet Gillian after the concert and she felt that this year’s choir intake was one of the best she’d had. We fully concurred.
Every other year the Taplow youth choir goes on a European tour and this year it was Italy’s turn to be feasted by their singing. Florence and Siena follow on from Lucca where the concert in the Cathedral formed part of the “Music in the Cathedral” series of events.
Here, in Lucca cathedral, is a snippet of the choir singing that sweet Henry Purcell anthem ‘Rejoice in the Lord Alway’. The cathedral’s accoustics lent themselves particularly well to this anthem.
And this piece, ‘Ave Virgo Sanctissima’ by the Spanish Guerrrero, shows how well the choir performs renaissance polyphony:
This section from Faure’s consoling requiem was most affectingly sung:
It’s rare enough to hear one of my favourite composers, Gerald Finzi, in the UK; to hear him in Italy is really special. “Come Away, Come Away, Death” (the words are from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night) is the first item in Finzi’s song cycle ‘Let Us Garlands Bring’ composed in 1942 for Vaughan-Williams’ 70th birthday. The highly bizarre note intervals are a real challenge to any singer but the soloist did pretty well, I feel.
The Allegri ‘Miserere’ is the piece that fourteen year old Mozart heard during Holy Week and wrote down entirely from memory. It was beautifully performed with the famous stratospheric sections sung from the cathedral pulpit by a select group from the choir.
Here are the concluding items in the wide-ranging repertoire the Taplow Youth Choir sings
It’s somewhat unfortunate that the audience was rather less than the forty members of the choir, despite very widespread publicity. There were clearly more British in the audience than Italians, although Elio Antichi, director of one of Lucca’s most notable choirs ‘il baluardo’, was present and was astounded by the quality of sound from such young singers. Perhaps Monday night is not a very good weekday for a concert in Italy.
However, I am quite sure that Florence has received this lovely choir with much greater presence. Youth choirs from the UK have truly much to teach their Italian youth counterparts.
(For other concerts in the “Music in the Cathedral” series of events see http://www.musicaincattedralelucca.com/).
PS In the UK I studied the Javanese court gamelan orchestra with distinguished teacher Nikhil Dally. I learnt about the concert through him; his daughter is an alto in the Taplow choir on its Italian tour.