From Katzenjammers to Eton – where could classical music take your weekend?

By Julia Hudson

I have just joined a new choir. Based in St Gabriel’s, Pimlico, they are a relatively new chamber choir made up of ex-choral scholars in their twenties, and, pleasingly, appear as fond of riotous nights out as they are of singing. Two weeks ago, after just one rehearsal, we sang a stunning Evensong at the beautiful Southwark Cathedral, followed by an evening of much merriment at Katzenjammers, a German beer hall in London Bridge. While I’m sure my weekend activities are of infinite fascination to you, this also illustrates very succinctly a crucial point about classical music-making. There are, I imagine, very few hobbies where in one week a group of people largely unknown to one another could come together both socially and musically with such resounding success. What is it about making music that has this effect? In my view, it is the discipline required, where every musician is concentrating wholeheartedly on each other and on the conductor, responding to every gesture seen and nuance heard, combined with the satisfaction generated by a really excellent outcome. No choral piece or orchestral work could be executed by one person, however great their talent. Yes, the same can be said for a sports team, but I think music has the edge because their efforts result in a performance for the benefit of others, rather than an introspective battle between two teams.     

Continuing on the theme of my weekend pursuits, last Saturday I travelled with the rest of the Southern Sinfonia team to Eton College, where we were performing with the Windsor and Eton Choral Society. The programme was the stuff of dreams, featuring the Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs, Poulenc Gloria, Ravel Mother Goose Suite, and the unspeakably beautiful Bernstein Chichester Psalms, which latter I haven’t been able to stop listening to since hearing them live at the Last Night (even better, without the Government restrictions suffered by the Proms the wonderful Alex Banwell sang the treble solo). With an orchestra of 60 players and Alexander Hohenthal leading brilliantly, the blend and cohesive nature of the sound, as well as its sheer quality, was remarked on by many of my neighbours in the audience.

So much of the music Southern Sinfonia perform is sacred music; choral society repertoire tends to be made up of the classics, Handel’s ‘Messiah’, Bach St John Passion, and the Verdi Requiem, to name a few. Church, more specifically cathedral, music in the UK is a tradition which is very special; although there are fine choirs internationally, such as the Vienna Boys’ Choir, we are the only country which has the culture of cathedral schools and celebrates trebles (young, male, unbroken voices) to such an extent. As a result, much of our music has been written for this all-male setup (trebles, male altos (countertenors), tenors and basses). In very recent years, cathedrals all over the UK have been introducing girls’ choirs to complement and reduce some of the daily service workload for the boy trebles, as Canterbury Cathedral announced on Wednesday. Like many of our orchestral players, these children are steeped in musicianship from their youngest years. In my view, this involvement in music is invaluable; it gives a sense of being part of a greater whole, pride in what they do and a discipline and conscientiousness which stands them in good stead in later years. This week, The Independent featured research from the University of St Andrews, which highlighted “musicians’ improved reaction times and their increased capacity to “inhibit task irrelevant information” (aka, to stay focused). “[The results] suggest that higher levels of musical training might result in more efficient information processing in general (indicated by faster overall speed across tasks without accuracy tradeoff), and confirms earlier reports indicating a positive link between mental speed and musical ability,” says Dr Jentzsch.”

In a country where the educational system is constantly under scrutiny and criticism, and social behaviour of the young being questioned, surely this should be embraced, rather than sidelined; as Jentszch says, “in times of economic hardship, funds for music education are often amongst the first to be cut.” And, as well as giving you second-to-none skills of concentration and wonderful memories of beautiful buildings, once your voice has broken and you’ve hit your twenties you’ll still have people to socialise with.

Are you doing anything this weekend that relates to classical music? To let us know, comment below or join in the discussion on our Facebook and Twitter pages!

On Friday 18th October, Southern Sinfonia is celebrating Brahms and Britten in Newbury’s beautiful St. Nicolas Church with our concert ‘The romance of Brahms meets Britain's Britten’. To find out more and purchase tickets to this wonderful event, click here.

To see more beautiful images of our concert this weekend, visit our brand new instagram page. You can also find out more about Southern Sinfonia on our website.