CITY
OF BIRMINGHAM CHOIR CENTENARY
by
Christopher Morley
With the end of the First World War in 1918 men began
returning to normal civilian life. One of the many happy consequences was the
reconstitution of choral societies, deprived of male voices for so many years,
and the formation of new ones.
One such was the City of Birmingham Choir, founded in 1921,
and now, lockdown-postponed for a year, celebrating its centenary with a
concert also celebrating the sesquicentenary of Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose
150th birthday fell just a few days ago.
It is no coincidence that the Choir came into existence
almost simultaneously with the City of Birmingham Orchestra, and many of its
greatest triumphs have been in concerts presented with the then CBO, and
eventually with the renamed City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. That change of name came about in February
1948, thanks to the insistence of George Weldon, charismatic principal
conductor of the orchestra at the time.
Among the works Weldon conducted in this partnership of the
CBSO and CBC was Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha, once prominent in the choir’s
repertoire, but now largely neglected in the concert-hall. Other such museum
pieces included Bethlehem by Rutland Boughton (he who founded the original
Glastonbury Festival – how times have changed), which was the highlight of the
choir’s inaugural concert on November 28 1921 in Birmingham Town Hall, Joseph
Lewis conducting; The Golden Journey to Samarkand, Granville Bantock the
composer, Malcolm Sargent conducting (1929); and, a year later, another huge
composition by Bantock, Principal of the Birmingham School of Music and
Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham, Omar Khayyam, this time
conducted by City Organist GD Cunningham.
In 1933 Cunningham also conducted the concert celebrating
the re-opening of Birmingham Town Hall after refurbishment, the programme
including Blest Pair of Sirens (Joseph Lewis and Adrian Boult singing in the
chorus!) by Parry (not Elgar, as the otherwise entertaining recent history of
the City Choir “Singing for 100 Years” tells us).
One of the original objectives of the City of Birmingham
Choir was to be the performance of unaccompanied choral works, and indeed early
programmes did feature madrigals and part-songs – though with a total
complement of 185 voices, somewhat depleted in terms of altos and tenors, the
results must have been highly distorted from what the composers had imagined.
Far more spectacular has been the Choir’s enthusiastic
embracing of contemporary music. In 1922 it gave the premiere of Vaughan
Williams’ Mass in G minor, in 1938 it gave the UK premiere of Bloch’s Sacred
Service, and under David Willcocks gave the UK premiere of the Durufle Requiem,
the composer himself presiding at the organ.
And under the long and exciting conductorship of Christopher
Robinson (like Willcocks and Meredith Davies before him, and Adrian Lucas
since, a product of the Three Choirs tradition), there were stunning
performances of some of the most demanding works in the contemporary
repertoire.
Particularly notable were Messiaen’s La Transfiguration,
eminent pianist Peter Donohoe joining the idiosyncratic instrumental ensemble,
and, even more spectacular, Michael Tippett’s The Mask of Time, its choral
writing searching, dancing, wispy and reflective, and all accomplished so
professionally – by this amateur choir under an expert conductor, conducting
one of the world’s greatest orchestras who actually respected this choral
director, an accolade not many receive, believe me.
But the City of Birmingham Choir’s longstanding relationship
with the CBSO hit a huge buffer in 1973
The two organisations had enjoyed a frequent broadcasting
partnership, both on television and
radio (though regional relays were diminishing by this time), and a continued
partnership at prestigious concerts in Birmingham Town Hall. However, Louis
Fremaux, the CBSO’s dynamic principal conductor and music director, decided
that the orchestra needed its own chorus to enable it to programme demanding
works for chorus and orchestra, and accordingly he, together with Chorusmaster
Gordon Clinton, Principal of the Birmingham School of Music, launched the CBSO
Chorus in the autumn of 1973.
Rather than indulging in sulking wounds-licking, the City of
Birmingham Choir moved on to newer pastures, including increasing its
appearances in other venues both in this country and abroad. It also participates
in lucrative engagements presented under the Raymond Gubbay umbrella.
Links with the CBSO remain, however, with the pre-Christmas
performance of Handel’s Messiah remaining a time-honoured tradition. And on
Sunday afternoon, November 6, Adrian Lucas (already well into his 20th
year as the Choir’s popular conductor, conducts an all-Vaughan Williams
programme, culminating in the composer’s mighty, Walt Whitman-inspired A Sea
Symphony.
*Symphony Hall, 3pm. All details on citychoir.org.uk
ends