Requiem – Sheffield Bach Society

Thomas plays Poulenc

Sheffield Telegraph 19 September 2018

Sheffield Bach Choir is thrilled that Thomas Corns, Director of Music at Sheffield Cathedral, will play at their ‘French Connection’ concert on 6 October. “I’m very much looking forward to playing Poulenc’s Concerto” said Thomas. “It’s the first time I’ve performed with one of Sheffield’s major ensembles as a soloist since my appointment – and it’ll be in the Cathedral where I work!”

thomas corns 1 Prize-winning graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, Thomas held organ scholarships at Cambridge and St Paul’s Cathedral and has performed on TV and radio. Thomas feels privileged to be nurturing the centuries-old tradition of choral singing in this wonderful venue. “I enjoy working with the talented boys and girls who come from across the city to be choristers, and with the professional musicians and students of the choir.”

The choristers will join the Bach Choir to sing Duruflé’s Requiem, Faure’s well-known Cantique and Poulenc’s exquisite Salve Regina, with mezzo soprano Joanna Gamble and baritone Thomas Asher. Singing with the altos will be Thomas’ wife Claire, who joined the choir shortly after their arrival in 2017.

As a child Thomas was inspired by the organ playing at Wells cathedral where he was a chorister. “Good organs often have a tremendous expressive range but they are also impressive instruments” he explained. “Playing a cathedral organ to thousands of people on an important occasion can feel like a big responsibility – but it’s also great fun!”

Staying with the organ theme, two days later the choir’s music director Simon Lindley presents a free recital at Nether Green Methodist Church on the magnificent Father Willis organ, which was almost certainly played at his grandparents’ wedding in 1916. “Henry ‘Father’ Willis built organs in St Paul’s cathedral, the Royal Albert Hall and Windsor Castle, as well as the somewhat smaller but no less fine example now at Nether Green” said Simon. “My grandmother Elsie May lived on Gladstone Road, Ranmoor, but moved to Leeds after her marriage to Rev Francis Joshua Lindley”. Music and ministry run in the family; Simon’s sister Ruth was a singing tutor who sang in the London Oratory Choir, his late father was a minister and his cousin Lisa lives in Sheffield and sings with Sheffield Bach Choir.

The recital is organised by the choir with Sheffield & District Organists’ and Choirmasters’ Association, of which Simon is President-Elect, in commemoration of the Armistice Centenary, which the choir will also mark by presenting Karl Jenkins’ Armed Man at the cathedral on 17 November. “This recital includes works by Elgar, Butterworth and Vaughan Williams” explained Chris Walker, Chair of Sheffield Bach Choir. “It will be a wonderful evening rounded off by a free buffet. We hope readers will come to hear Simon play the organ that has such a special place in his family history – especially since it’s his 70^th birthday two days later!”

The recital is free, with a retiring collection for choir funds; details from www.sheffieldbachchoir.org.uk.

Tickets for the cathedral concert from www.sheffieldbachchoir.org.uk, www.wegottickets.com, Sheffield Cathedral shop, or at the door.

Sheffielder’s family link to choir concert composer

JULIA ARMSTRONG Published: 17:10 Friday 01 June 2018

John Barnard, a keen mountain climber and skier living in Stannington, who is also researching his family history, is looking forward to hearing a rarely-performed Requiem composed by his grandma’s great-grandfather, to be sung this June by Sheffield Bach Choir.

John, who was brought up in London but came to Sheffield 40 years ago, was a researcher at the university before starting a scientific software business with a colleague whose wife sings with the choir, writes Anne Adams.

“I’m very much looking forward to hearing the Bach Choir’s performance,” said John “I have only heard one previous performance, given by the Bristol Chamber Choir, which my ancestor Robert Pearsall helped to found”.

Pearsall (1795-1856) was brought up in Bristol but lived and died in a mediaeval Swiss castle he bought and restored while pursuing his musical interests. His son Robert was a cavalry officer and fencing master who drowned in mysterious circumstances in a London canal. One of his daughters eloped aged 16, her husband later unexpectedly becoming Earl of Harrington; his other daughter painted a portrait of her father which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

Pearsall composed his Requiem to commemorate the Abbots of the St Gallen monastery in Switzerland, but sadly a civil war intervened and Pearsall never heard his work performed. The manuscript was largely forgotten until 2005 when it was finally published by the Church Music Society.

Sheffield Bach Choir will sing the Requiem on Saturday, June 9 as part of their commemoration of the 1918 Armistice, and in support of the annual Broomhill Festival. “We are pleased and proud to present this expressive and beautiful Requiem by one of the greatest English musicologists of his day.’ said the choir’s music director Dr Simon Lindley. “His setting of the mediaeval carol, In dulci jubilo, remains very popular, and is frequently included in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Cambridge”.

Baritone Quentin Brown from Leeds will sing a group of George Butterworth’s songs to texts from Housman’s famous A Shropshire Lad, as well as a number of popular ballads including Yorkshire-born composer Haydn Wood’s Roses of Picardy. Wood famously related that the melody came to him as he was going home on a London bus one night, and he jumped off the bus and wrote down the refrain on an old envelope while standing under a street lamp.

Also on the programme at St Mark’s Church.are Parry’s Songs of Farewell and Blest Pair of Sirens, Vaughan Williams’ Te Deum and Bairstow’s Lord, Thou hast been our refuge. The choir will be accompanied by organist David Houlder on the St Mark’s Organ, now magnificently restored by Wood of Huddersfield.

Tickets cost £12 (£10 concessions), available from http://www.sheffieldbachchoir.org.uk or at the door on the night. John will be rushing back to secure his seat after chairing a meeting of his ski-mountaineering club in Hathersage. As for Pearsall’s castle – it’s now the Schloss Hotel Wartensee, a hotel and gourmet restaurant in Rorschacherberg, Switzerland.