The All-Night Vigil is a cappella choral composition of Russian Orthodox liturgy.It includes three styles of unaccompanied chant written for a four-part choir. Under the baton of their talented conductor, Matthew Hamilton, the choir handled the complex harmonies with great skill and sensitivity to the text. Even the notorious fifth movement was successfully accomplished by the low basses negotiating a descending scale culminating in a low B flat.

A highlight of the performance was Rachel Kershaw’s rich and beautifully controlled solo Bless The Lord,O My Soul. Her diction was immaculate aided, perhaps, by the fact that she studied Russian in school. The entire choir should also be complimented on their efforts with a very difficult language whilst maintaining a naturalness of performance.This was particularly evident in the textures and use of voices in the Six Psalms, a delightful rendition full of the sound of bells.

When Rachmaninov premiered his work in 1915 it was warmly received by critics and audiences alike. Reading Bach Choir upheld this response in providing a memorable Vespers.

Lynn Ellis

Henley Standard, Feb 10 2012

Anyone who has ever sung in a choir at Christmas time will probably know the Carols For Choirs series. The first one was published 50 years ago and contains 50 carols.

In festive celebration and as a fund-raiser, the Reading Bach Choir organised a marathon carol-sing. There was a workshop in the morning for those who were interested in rehearsing some of the lesser-known items and then a marathon sing in the afternoon, designed to sing every carol in the book.

The Minster Boy’s Choir came along to sing three items and there were two other small groups who added to the variety and helped to give everyone else a brief rest. Tea and mince pies were consumed, old friends made contact again and the music was directed by the choir’s own Matthew Hamilton who led the whole day with great musicianship and good humour, ably accompanied by Chris Cipkin on organ and piano.

The Reading Bach Choir are performing the Rachmaninov Vespers in Goring on February 4 and at the Minster church in Reading on February 11.

The Henley Standard, 19 December 2011

The concert blended early English polyphony with young innovative composer Nico Muhly. From there we were treated to the more familiar Mass For Four Voices by William Byrd, which was smooth, lyrical and expressive.

As an organ interlude we were presented with an appropriately unusual creation by the Estonian Arvo Pärt: Pari Intervallo. It was worth the effort of getting into this minimalistic yet descriptive piece although in reality “getting into” it was more a process of “drifting off into”. Organist Nicholas Shaw did a praiseworthy job of making the most out of the electric organ.

The female voices did great justice to the concluding item of the first half, the beautiful I Saw Eternity by Alexander Campkin. With close, high harmonies and gradual harmonic shifts reminiscent of Eric Whitacre, the music was perfectly matched to the text and painted vivid pictures in the listener’s mind.

The first two pieces of the second half, Jesum Autem Transiens (Robert Wylkynson) and O Christe Jesu, Pastor Bone (John Taverner) made for decidedly pleasant but unremarkable listening. My personal favourite item of the concert was Woefully Arrayed by William Cornysh, arranged by Matthew Hamilton. This piece was the true highlight of the evening as it was beautifully suited to the individual voices and overall style of the choir, which combined to achieve a bright and well-blended tone. It seemed obvious that the choir felt at ease with this piece and very much enjoyed singing it, which made it all the more enjoyable to watch and listen to.

The impressive modern organ work Alleluyas (for organ) by Simon Preston shook things up and roused the audience out of their happy daze, and the concert concluded, in a pleasingly cyclical manner with Muhly’s Bright Mass with Canons.

The modern works were juxtaposed nicely with their sources of inspiration. Clearly, the ambitious programme had been thoughtfully put together and the choir and its conductor were striving to achieve great new things.

The Henley Standard, 5 December 2011

The arresting opening piece was Johann Michael’s lively motet for double choir, Fürchtet euch nicht, which deals with the shepherds’ part of the nativity story. Johann Ludwig’s Das ist meine Freude, a motet for eight voices, only survived because the great Bach copied it for use in his own church some years later. In this delightful work, the three sections are linked by common themes, which appear in different time signatures to spectacular effect.

After an unusual organ piece by Fischer, expertly played on the full organ by Nicholas Shaw, the first half concluded with Bach’s motet for double choir Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied. The Reading Bach Choir was in its element and communicated its love of the music with energy, poise and enthusiasm, under their talented and empathetic conductor JanJoost van Elburg.

While the Bachs were running church music in northern Germany, Domenico Scarlatti was similarly busy in Rome where he composed his best known choral piece, Stabat Mater, a substantial 10-voice setting of a 13th century poem about Mary’s grief at the cross. There were spine-chilling moments throughout this convincing performance not least in the stunning solos from soprano May Chiu and tenor, Nicholas Richards. Delightful accompaniments for the choral works were provided on the chamber organ by Nicholas Shaw, along with Henrik Persson on viola da gamba and Kate Aldridge on violone. The period instruments underpinned the choirs exceptionally well, with the whole sound melding together in a most satisfying richness and depth. This was an excellent evening from a choir that deserves Berkshire’s continuing gratitude and pride.

Catherine Side.

Reproduced with kind permission of the Newbury Weekly News.

Reading Bach Choir wants to strengthen its bass section. The choir is lively, friendly and ambitious with a wide-ranging classical repertoire from renaissance to modern. The bass section is currently 8-10 strong and we would like to increase this, particularly with low basses.

If you have a good bass voice and are a reasonable sight reader, come and sample a rehearsal and see if you like us. We rehearse Tuesdays at Leighton Park School, starting at 7:30pm. For more information see our website or contact our membership secretary. (0118 947 0104)

members@readingbachchoir.org.uk

The choir was very much at home with these works, and gave the powerful and compelling performance which we have come to expect from them. They clearly enjoy singing under their Music Director, Matthew Hamilton, and it shows in the quality of their performance. The choir was accompanied by the superb Reading Bach Baroque Orchestra with organ continuo Tom Primrose, and enjoyed the talents of no less than six excellent soloists including the choir’s own Peter Shirley-Quirk. This was altogether a spellbinding concert, and they left us wanting more, which is how it should be.

With music and performance of this standard the choir’s next concert on 19th November at St Luke’s Church, Reading, is not to be missed!

Reproduced with kind permission of the Henley Standard.

His special gift to us this fine June afternoon was to introduce two composers from Holland, neither well known to many in the UK – Frank Martin, (b. Geneva, 1939) and Daan Manneke, whose Psalmes 121 and 122 began this exquisite programme.

Though the two psalms would seem to follow in sequence, they were written 40 years apart. RBC treated both with that wonderful clarity, balance and distinctness which distinguishes the really first class choir. The difference between the two settings was reminiscent of painters who progress by worrying less about detail and concentrate on the main artistic message of their work.

Though Swiss born, Martin was a celebrated composer, conductor and pianist who spent much of his time in the Netherlands. JanJoost led Reading Bach Choir in a truly gripping performance of his Mass, a work that is rooted in the 12-tone scale but reverberating throughout with the immense and beneficent influence of J.S. Bach.

This stood out particularly as the conductor ushered in the tiers of counterpoint in the bustling Gloria. RBC’s dynamics are likewise superb and if you find imagining colours and landscape helpful in listening to music, the sopranos in the Kyrie conjure up a bright blue merging into the broad landscape of the basses and tenors, lit by sun shining through dark clouds.

The rhythm of the Sanctus was also particularly striking, swinging back and forth like a giant censer. JanJoost himself spoke evocatively of mottles of light, precisely the effect produced by the June afternoon on the cream stone of Douai. (A fine recording of Martin’s choral work by Westminster Cathedral choir is on the Hyperion label, though a CD of this choir’s wonderful sound is well overdue).

This leaves only a little time to talk about the rest of their performance. Everything in the first part was sung in French – a most arresting contrast with the English of Britten’s Hymn to St Cecilia – followed by a rich interpretation of Britten’s music written for radio and based on the text of an extraordinary Auden poem.

Herbert Howell’s Requiem brought the concert full circle with a return to Psalm 121, and we closed in silence with the work of another contemporary Dutch master, Albert de Klerk – Pater Noster.

A gathering would be a good description of the afternoon, The more enterprising brought an impromptu picnic to add a certain lightheartedness to what was a performance of intense and moving spirituality.

Patrick Cogswell

Newbury Weekly News Thursday 12th June 2009

Reproduced with kind permission of Newbury Weekly News.