A dramatic thank-you to a ‘rock’ of Warwick choir

Saint James’s Singers: Music for Two Queens, St Mary’s church, Warwick, September 29.

WANTED: something dramatic to open the Saint James’s Singers thank-you concert for president Barrie Dugdale’s ten years committed service. And we got it - Handel’s Coronation Anthem – Zadok the Priest - with the astonishing skills of Fine Arts Brass adding piquancy to the performance.

Indeed, the programme was an exhilarating example of close collaboration between choirs (Junior Saint James’s Singers supporting their elders) and brass players with Simon Lenton’s virtuosic piccolo trumpet performance a fine memory.

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Alice Harvey, a Shottery pupil, distinguished herself with a tender rendition of Vaughan Williams’s 20th century motet, O Taste and See. Walton’s Coronation March: Crown Imperial – fastidiously fashioned with powerful individuality - raised the tempo following the supreme interpretation of Rejoice in the Lord Always – attributed to John Redford, a poet and playwright before becoming organist at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Walton’s Coronation Te Deum lifted the post-interval energy levels - the programme continuing to bubble with life with works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Rupert Parry and more Walton. Paul Mealor’s strikingly beautiful and intellectually illuminating Ubi Caritas et Amor (based on a Gregorian melody) was a second half highlight.

Finally, Julian Harris was able to let his chorus and Fine Arts Brass off the leash to build a suitably massive climax with Parry’s I Was Glad. A fitting tribute to the Dugdale ‘rock’ at Saint James’s Singers.

Clive Peacock

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