A Saturday morning event in Fulwell Methodist Church.

Why not join the Society in a social event which comes with a raffle and stalls, while enjoying the tea/coffee and a chat

Please come a little earlier than usual to ensure that scores can be given out in time for the rehearsal to begin promptly at 7.30 p.m.. You will also need £6.00 to cover score hire.

A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster.

A concert to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee including Handel’s Coronation Anthem.

The Bishopwearmouth Choral Society’s traditional December concert proved to be the perfect early Christmas present for an enthusiastic and appreciative audience.

Conductor David Murray chose an all-Beethoven programme: a popular overture and two rarely-heard choral pieces. It proved to be an inspired choice. Beethoven may not be so well-known as a composer of choral music but this concert by Murray’s terrific group of singers demonstrated that anything a musical genius puts his hand to will always reward the listener.

The concert began with a performance of the Coriolan Overture. The grandeur and tragic heroism of the piece were movingly conveyed by the orchestra and it proved to be the perfect introduction to the concert.

The Mass in C suffers in comparison with its more well-known counterpart, the Missa Solemnis, but it is a great work in its own right. The unaccompanied opening of the Kyrie, the ecstatic joy of the Gloria and the poignancy of the Miserere arestern tests for any choir – Murray’s singers passed with flying colours.

The soloists (Katherine Moore, Sara Parry, Edward Lee and Martin Robson) were excellent throughout. They displayed a genuine sense of teamwork and clearly enjoyed singing unfamiliar repertoire.

Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, which brought the concert to a rousing conclusion, is a bit of a highbrow hybrid – part sonata, part concerto and part chorus. The testing piano part was superbly played by Eileen Bown with a fantastic display of virtuosity which was simply stunning. The orchestra, especially the woodwind and horns, played with great feeling but it was the choir which really
delighted the audience. The warm applause that followed the exciting finale to the piece was richly deserved.

The Bishopwearmouth Choral Society continues to be a musical beacon in Sunderland and this concert was a shining example of de-light.

Keith Nixon

A Wednesday evening concert at Ewesley Road Methodist Church, Chester Road, Sunderland.

Come and join the Young Singers in celebrating Christmas in conjunction with the Bishopwearmouth Choral Society Chamber Choir and featuring a young artiste from the Sage Music School. No ticket is required but any donations will be gratefully received. There will be refreshments after the performance.

Beethoven poster

If you are fortunate, you should now be able to see the latest picture of the choir – the one showing everyone with David Murray and Eileen Bown in the front row – but if you are still seeing the original version (with only part of the choir)  you will need to take a little action to put things right. In ‘computer speak’ the problem is that your computer is retaining some parts of the websites you look at in its cache or temporary files so that it can load them more quickly the next time you visit that site again. There is nothing wrong with your computer – just a matter of how it is set-up.

The simplest way to correct this appears to be to first delete bishopwearmouth.co.uk from your Favourites list (where of course you have it to look at regularly) and then to empty your cache! If you are using Internet Explorer 9 this is done by going into ‘Safety’ at the top right hand side of your browser window and then choosing ‘Delete Browser History’. In that window, ensure that the ‘Temporary Files’ option is checked and press the ‘Delete’ button in that window. After exiting from that, you can relook at www.bishopwearmouth.co.uk and when it come up (showing the new photograph) you can re-add it to your Favourites and all will be right with world – or with the web-site at least.

If you are using earlier versions of Internet Explorer or other browsers there will be a similar procedure for emptying your temporary internet files – which is a good idea to do regularly in any case to try and avoid this sort of glitch – if this is actually a problem for you. All of the information you can see will still be correct – this problem only seems to affect some of the visual aspects.

Our apologies for this difficulty which is not avoidable from our end. Our web-designers have done their bit to update things but unfortunately this does not mean that your computers will automatically pick up on them, depending on how they are set up.

If you are fortunate, you should now be able to see the latest picture of the choir – the one showing everyone with David and Eileen in the front row – but if you are still seeing the original version you will need to take a little action to put things right. In ‘computer speak’ the problem is that your computer is retaining some parts of the websites you look at in its cache or temporary files so that it can load them more quickly the next time you visit that site again.

The simplest way to correct this appears to be to first delete bishopwearmouth.co.uk from your Favourites list (where of course you have it to look at regularly) and then to empty your cache! If you are using Internet Explorer 9 this is done by going into ‘Safety’ at the top right hand side of your browser window and then choosing ‘Delete Browser History’. In that window, ensure that the ‘Temporary Files’ option is checked and press the ‘Delete’ button in that window. After exiting from that, you can relook at www.bishopwearmouth.co.uk and when it come up (showing the new photograph) you can re-add it to your Favourites and all will be right with world – or with the web-site at least.

If you are using earlier versions of Internet Explorer or other browsers there will be a similar procedure for emptying your temporary internet files – which is a good idea to do regularly in any case to try and avoid this sort of glitch – if this is actually a problem for you.

A Saturday evening concert in Sunderland Minster.

Conducted by David Murray.

Soloists : Soprano – Katherine Moore, Alto – Sara Parry, Tenor – Edward Lee, Bass – Martin Robson, Piano – Eileen Bown.

Tickets are £12 in  Nave (£6 concessions for full time students and UB40s), £8.00 in Gallery (with limited view) and accompanied children under 16 admitted free. Obtainable via this website or info@bishopwearmouth.co.uk and from online ticketing at http://wegottickets.com/BCS

Beethoven wrote his Mass in C Major (Op.86) as a commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy in 1807. This continued a tradition established by Joseph Haydn who had composed one mass per year for the Esterházy family, from 1795 to his health failing in 1802, to celebrate the name day of the Prince’s wife, Maria. Although by this time his status as a composer was assured, Beethoven was less experienced in sacred music and had never before set the words of the Mass. He was to do so only once more, over a decade later, in the Missa Solemnis, which often overshadows this work.

The Prince did not appreciate the mass and Beethoven left his house in a rage. Although still one of the least often performed of Beethoven’s larger works it is now recognised as a long underrated masterpiece.

The Choral Fantasy in C Minor for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra (Op.80) was composed in 1808 and was written as the finale of a concert, which was to premiere his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies as well a performance of a portion of his C major Mass, to unite the different musical elements (piano solo, chorus, and orchestra) highlighted in the concert night. A poet was commissioned to write the words to fit the already written parts shortly before the performance.

At the first performance Beethoven himself played the piano part but the performance itself “simply fell apart” a result most likely attributable to insufficient rehearsal time.

His Coriolanus Overture Op. 62 was written in 1807 to Heinrich Joseph von Collin’s 1804 tragedy. The structure and themes of the overture follow the play very generally. The main C minor theme represents Coriolanus’ resolve and war-like tendencies, while the more tender E-flat major theme represents the pleadings of his mother to desist. Coriolanus eventually gives in to tenderness, but since he cannot turn back having led an army of his former enemies to Rome’s gates, he kills himself.