Easter concert review

Our Easter concert was performed yesterday to a small but appreciative audience.

The Concertino women started with the Crux Fidelis followed by Tartini's Stabat Mater. The Stabat Mater had a false which just shows how easily something can wrong if you don't concentrate! Although the work is in 3-part harmony, the first note has the altos and second sopranos sharing an F with the first sopranos on an A. However we were given an F-A-C arpeggio to pitch to and we first sopranos naturally gravitated to the top note - because first sops always have the top note right? Once that was sorted we sailed on through, and made a pretty good job of it, although with the amount of words we traversed, it was hard to not to bury our heads in our music.

The full choir then sang three Easter works, including a piece by an unknown composer 'Do Not Be Afraid' which included a cantor part sung by Malcolm Williams and was very enjoyable to sing. Cellist Wayne Perniskie then played two lovely Romantic pieces.

Following a brief interval the choir with Dr Raymond White at the organ, performed Stainer's Crucifixion. We were very glad to have the organ as earlier in the week there had a been a bit of a panic when smoke was seen issuing from it! However all was well on the day. Clive Thompson and Michael Buick were the tenor and bass soloists respectively and both did a beautiful job. This choir member had to blink back tears after Clive sang with such haunting simplicity the last line 'And he he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost'.

The choir now has a well-earned break before rehearsals start for our Central Otago concert.