Lunch-time Cathedral Concert

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31316, 11 March 1967, Page 14

Lunch-time Cathedral Concert

A large audience (which Included many boys from a private school) heard yesterday’s lunch-hour performance in the Cathedral. The singers were the boys of the Cathedral Choir conducted and accompanied by Mr C. Foster Browne, whose well-written unaccompanied motet, “Tenebrae factae sunt,” created immediately the appropriate Lenten mood. Beautiful blending in chords, faultless intonation in each of the four vocal parts, well-contrived contrasts and, above all, expressive feeling made this singing memorable.

There was a sense of relaxed ease in the long phrases and pure tone of Bach’s accompanied aria, “Flocks May Graze.” The singers were “thinking through” the organ interludes so that their subsequent entries were sure. In fact, one outstanding feature of the whole performance was the musicianly appreciation of rhythm; and nowhere was this more evident than in another Bach example, a duet from Cantata 78, sung in German. Between the Bach items came Handel’s “O Lovely Peace”: clear words, a spe-

cially good balance between the two parts, well controlled shades of contrast

A pleasantly fresh “Magnificat” by Dr. Herbert Sumsion, for a two-part choir of boys was followed by a Negro spiritual, most expressively sung unaccompanied. Noteworthy in both were the pure-toned phrases, apparently so easily controlled.

Schubert’s four-part setting of “The Lord is My Shepherd,” coming at the end of the programme, epitomised the fine qualities of the boys’ singing and Mr Foster Browne’s training, conducting

and accompanying. These choristers are fortunate in having progressed so far in their studies and experience and at so early an age. The next programme, consisting of an organ recital by Mr Browne, will be heard in the afternoon of Palm Sunday, commencing at 3 p.m. —V.G.

Dog Show—The president of the New Zealand Kennel Club, Mr S. Lusk, of Palmerston North, announced yesterday that the 1967 national dog show would be held at Palmerston North.—(P.A.)