Botley Choral Society

A Lovely Concert of a Wonderful Work

Botley Choral Society gave their second performance of Mozart’s C minor Mass to a packed All Saints church in Botley on Sunday evening the 17th March 2013. This was a lovely concert with their singing ranging from pretty good to excellent!

The chamber orchestra was “especially assembled for this event” and began a little uncertainly, but they recovered magnificently, and we heard beautiful choral singing to accompany the soprano soloist, Jocelyn Somerville, and to give us a superb “Gloria in Excelsis”. The entry onto the scene of soprano Helen Bailey raised the performance further, in her duet “Domine Deus”, but particularly in the solo “Laudamus Te”---watch her, this young lady will go far!

The layering of dynamics and intonation of the “Qui Tollis” are very difficult to sustain, but the choir did very well, especially with the pianissimo passages. The two sopranos returned with tenor, Adrian Green, and blended well in the “Quoniam” trio before the chorus brought the first half to a close with a rousing “Cum Sancto Spiritu”.

The “Credo in Unum Deum” suffered a few untidy entries, but in the “Et incarnatues est” the upper woodwind got their tuning together and played this wonderful soprano solo section beautifully. The choir obviously enjoyed singing the “Sanctus” in this 8 part masterpiece—here, unlike in the Credo, they all watched the baton, and the result was a wonderful, full choral sound, superbly tight and together. The “Benedictus” is a quartet for the soloists. Ed Hawkins, bass - a fine voice - joined the 3 others. We look forward to hearing more of him at a later date. This wonderful work ends with a return to the “Osanna” fugue from the “Sanctus”. The first time it was good, the second time superb! Maestro David Burgess directed and controlled the whole proceedings with his usual consummate skill and aplomb. BCS have in him a musician of high quality.