Una fantastica collaborazione con il coro Ex Collegio, con base a Oxford.

Questa pagina racconta, «così come si sono svolti i fatti», la storia del nostro tour nel Regno Unito, che ha riscosso un grande successo.

Mercoledì 2 settembre

The choir travelled to St Margaret’s Church, North Oxford to arrive on Wednesday evening. In the church to greet us were the members of the Ex Collegio choir, ready with tea, biscuits, home-made cakes and friendship.

Most, including our maestro, Stefano, fortuitously met up in the vast spaces of Fiumicino airport as they were travelling on the same British Airways flight. Some had chosen other flight options, some were already in England and Thomas drove from his home in Switzerland. Our onward travel plans were complicated by the vastness of Heathrow, with its 5 terminals, meaning poor Teresa was waiting at the meeting point at Terminal 2 (she’d flown with ITA airways) while Chris and Stefano were waiting for her at the meeting point in Terminal 5 (having flown with BA)! But it all got sorted and everyone arrived on time … except Roberto, who had taken an early flight and gone to London to visit the British Museum, but his onward trip to Oxford was bedevilled by issues with the London Underground, meaning he arrived just when our first rehearsal was finishing!

A word is due about Ex Collegio. They were formed in 1981, when a group of graduate students at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, who had been singing together in the college chapel choir, decided to continue singing together after graduating. They found other like-minded young people and started a program of singing the services in a cathedral somewhere in Britain in the third week of August each year, when the cathedral choir was on summer holidays. Led by Tim Venvell for their entire existence, they have sung in nearly all the great cathedrals in England – many of them several times. In time they married, many of their partners also joining the choir, then had children, who, as they grew up, also sang with the choir. As a choir they are rather unique in that they are not linked to one place, although there is a cluster in the Oxford / High Wycombe area.

In recent years they decided to spread their wings geographically, going first to Salzburg and then to Rome, where they joined with the NCS to sing the Dvorak Mass in D, the Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, and some other Russian pieces. This tour is the reciprocal visit of the NCS to the UK to help Ex Coll celebrate their 45^th anniversary and to give the NCS its first opportunity to tour outside Italy.

Back at St. Margaret’s Church we started rehearsing the pieces we would sing on the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th of September in London, High Wycombe and Oxford, respectively.

At the end of the rehearsal, the NCS members were taken off to the homes of the hosts, because most of the choir were being generously hosted by Ex Coll members in their spare bedrooms, etc. We cannot thank the Ex Coll members enough for their generosity, which made the tour do-able at an acceptable cost.

Thursday 3rd September

The day began with an excellent tour of Oxford conducted by Robert Gullifer, the retired headmaster of New College School, a preparatory school located in the heart of Oxford, and so an expert on the city! Robert was the chief UK organiser of the UK tour and was instrumental in getting us the prestigious singing venues – we owe him a great deal!  The tour was very useful for those who were not aware of how the Oxbridge College system worked and illuminated some aspects of the rivalry between the colleges for bragging rights (oldest, biggest, most famous, etc.)! In the afternoon and evening, we continued rehearsing, with a short interruption only to take a “pot-luck” dinner, where everyone contributed something and we had far too much to eat and drink!

Friday 4th September

From our various locations we headed up to London. Most managed a little tourism in London before meeting at Westminster Abbey for a free tour of the cathedral, made possible because the Receiver-General is a friend of Ex Coll (in fact, had the timings been different we might have been able to sing Evensong at Westminster Abbey, which would have been an incredible privilege). The tour was conducted by the abbey’s professional tour guides and included taking us to the Jerusalem Chamber, which is not normally open to tourists, and is where Henry IV died, as recounted by Shakespeare.

Then to St George’s, Hanover Square, Londra, between Soho and Mayfair. Built between 1721 and 1725, in the early Georgian classical and English Baroque architectural styles it has a towering portico stretching across the pavement. It is known as Handel’s Church, because he worshipped there when he was living just around the corner in Brook Street until his death in 1759. This was the church of choice for society weddings from the Georgian through to the Edwardian period, and many famous weddings took place here, including those of various Georgian members of the royal family, Percy Bysse Shelley, George Eliot, Lord Alfred Douglas, Benjamin Disraeli and Teddy Roosevelt (later to become President of the USA). Its popularity for this purpose slowly declined through the 20^th century, possibly because those in high society no longer lived in the parish (for more details see the church website).

The Evensong service at St George’s was well-attended (mostly by the choir’s friends and relations!) and presided over by a priest from St Peter’s Church, London Docks, a friend of one of the Ex Coll singers, thus “keeping it in the family”.

The music of the service:

• Organ Prelude: Marco Enrico Bossi (1861 – 1925) Chant du soir (op. 92)
• Introit: Thomas Tallis (1505-1585): If ye love me
• Preces and Responses: Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
• Psalm 23: Setting by Sir Henry Walford Davies KCVO OBE (1869 – 1941)
• Office Hymn: Let All the World in Every Corner Sing : Words by George Herbert (1593 – 1633), music by Basil Harwood (1859 – 1949)
• Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in C: Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 – 1924)
• Anthem: Spirito Santo, amore by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 – 1594)
• Offertory Hymn: Praise my soul the King of Heaven: Words by Henry Francis Lyte (1793 – 1847), music by John Goss (1800 – 1880)
• Organ Postlude: Vincenzo Antonio Petrali (1830 – 1889) Sonata Finale

The choir was conducted by Tim Venvell and the organist was Stefano Vasselli.

We received lots of compliments for the service, but the chief comment was about the jolly postlude that Stefano played – everyone wanted to know who had written it (it is worth listening to a recording of it on YouTube).

Many of us met up with friends and relations to go to dinner in London and then to make our way back to our various host homes.

Saturday 5th September

In the late morning our hosts took us to All Saints Parish Church in High Wycombe to rehearse the mass and other pieces we were to perform that evening. The church is of Norman origin but has been heavily restored and updated over the years, the major restoration being by George Edmund Street, who designed both All Saints and St. Paul’s Within the Walls, in Rome.

The orchestra was the Instruments of Time and Truth, a professional orchestra with many young musicians, who played superbly. Our choral efforts were beautifully merged with the delightful singing of the four young soloists, Caroline Blair (S), Madeleine Perring (MS), Stephen Walker (T) and Thomas Bulter (B). The program also included the famous Beethoven Romance in F, played by a highly-talented 20-year-old violinist, Vivek Dinesh.

After a break for dinner, we came back and performed the concert to a packed church. It was a great experience for us to play with such a talented orchestra and with such great vocal soloists – all young people building their careers in music.

 The program was:

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791): Ave Verum
• Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Insanae et Vanae Curae    
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in F major, Op. 50
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791): “Great” Mass in C minor

The concert was conducted by Tim Venvell (except for the Ave Verum, which was conducted by Stefano).

As at all 3 of the venues, we kept meeting ex-NCS singers who were now back in England – many merry trips down memory lane.

After the applause had died away, it was all hands to the pump to dismantle the staging that some of the Ex Coll people had put up on Friday morning, and to return the church to a fit state for Sunday’s Eucharist.

Sunday 6th September

It was a free morning for most, but Robert and Chris spent it fixing up the POS device to take ticket payments for the afternoon’s concert, and preparing a poster billboard.

By early afternoon we were all in Keble College’s magnificent and enormous chapel, practicing the pieces for the concert. The college was built in the 1870s by William Butterfield, who designed the whole college in the Italian neo-gothic polychromic style that we see used in All Saints and St. Paul’s Within the Walls. Its red and blue brick with white marble layers was not generally admired at the time, and one critic went so far as to call the college “the ugliest building in the world”, and a “Destroy Keble Society” flourished for a while. But it does its job well – in 2017, its alumni achieved the distinction of being the only team ever to win the Christmas University Challenge trophy on BBC2 without the opposition (Reading University) scoring a point!

The chapel’s side chapel contains the original Holman Hunt painting called “The Light of the World”, a replica of which, painted by the artist, hangs in St. Paul’s, London. Many of us admired this before taking our places for the final concert of the tour, which had this music:

• Two spiritual madrigals by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 – 1594): Spirito santo amore and Figlio d’immortal Padre
• Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901): Pater Noster
• Lorenzo Perosi (1872 – 1956): O Sacrum Convivium
• Two arrangements of traditional Afro-American spirituals by Stefano Vasselli (1969 – ): Deep River and Ev’ry time I feel the Spirit
• Maurice Duruflé (1902 – 1986): Requiem

The concert was conducted by Stefano Vasselli and the organ was played by Richard Carr, the Ex Collegio regular accompanist, and himself the son of Ex Coll singer John.

The Requiem’s very well-known Pie Jesu is normally sung by a soprano soloist, but in keeping with the “family” atmosphere (many of the Ex Coll members are related to each other in some way!) and as the weekend for them was one of celebration, the solo was sung by Jen Reynolds and her two daughters, while the baritone solos were expertly sung by Ian Brown from Ex Coll.

As the concert progressed, the westering sun shone ever more-directly through the West window of the chapel and brightly illuminated the choristers at the East end, unfortunately leaving Stefano to conduct rather in shadow – all we could see was a pair of floating hands – but it was enough!

We sang very well and the audience was very appreciative – the tour had come to a triumphal end.

Tour Postlude

That evening, most of the combined choir gathered in the King’s Arms for a liquid refreshment before heading off; some Ex Coll people to their homes but most off to restaurants for a final meal together. The principal actors in both choirs met in Brown’s restaurant for a traditional Sunday Roast, and some very nice compliments were passed in all directions. The NCS committee presented Tim and Robert with 1837 engravings of Rome – or at least they would have done if Chris hadn’t left them in his bedroom! But they were mentioned, and Chris’ host promised to deliver them to the intended recipients in the ensuing days!

Most NCS travelled back to Rome on Monday, without any serious issues, but those who had decided to stay an extra day or two to see a bit more of the UK ran into a major failure of the Air Traffic Control computer system across the UK and an airport strike at Gatwick, so had long delays getting home.

Final shared opinion: it was a great experience that we would love to repeat sometime in the future.

It just remains for us to say an enormous thankyou to our NCS choristers, the Ex Collegio choir and the two musical directors, Stefano and Tim, as well as the main organisers, Robert and Chris.

And if you want to see more images and some videos, please check out the gallery, below.