“…And Birds do Sing”
VOICES
Tutor: Martin Westhorp
Location: St Bartholomew’s Church, Westhoughton
Reviewer: Janet Evans
…And Birds do Sing
This intriguing title was an appropriate introduction to Martin Westhorp’s workshop in Westhoughton on March 12th, as every piece we sang had some association with birds (or Byrd). The choir had more or less equal numbers of sopranos, altos and basses but, unusually, the largest section was the tenor section. St Bartholomew’s Church was an unfamiliar venue but proved to have a good accoustic and was enjoyable to sing in.
The first piece of the day was Bonjour, mon coeur, set for SATB by Lassus and containing a reference to “ma gente tourterelle”. Next we sang Il est bel et bon by Passereau. This qualified twice, since the words referred to “les poulleilles crient” and the composer’s name is French for “sparrow”.
Next we sampled two pieces from The Triumphs of Oriana: Edward Johnson’s Come, blessed Bird and John Bennett’s All Creatures Now. The opening words of the Johnson “Come, blessed Bird, and with thy sugared relish help our declining choir…” caused some mirth as the pitch of the choir sank rapidly. In fact mirth was inappropirate for this sad madrigal referring to the death of Bonnyboots, conjectured to be the Earl of Essex, who was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I and a renowned dancer. All Creatures Now is probably better known, with its reference to birds hovering over the queen. The nonsense words of Le chant des oiseaux by Clement Janequin made a good contrast to the preceding pieces.
After lunch we sang Byrd’s setting of Ego sum panis vivus, going up to the organ loft to test the accoustics of the church from a different angle. Returning to ground level we continued with Revoici venir du printemps, set for SSATB by Claude le Jeune. Its references to “the ducks delight in diving” and “the crane, on its forked flight” led to a diversion in the form of a tongue twister which we sang as a round. Although the tune was familiar I had never encountered the words and found it impossible to sing “may my dame’s lame tame crane feed and come home again” at the required speed.
Once again levity was followed by sadness, as we sang Thomas Ravenscroft’s arrangement of the haunting tune The Three Ravens. Martin experimented with swapping lines between choir sections, making the tenors and altos take turns at the “top‟ line while the sopranos sang the tenor line. This was very effective, but the tune thinned out rather when the altos were required to ascend to the heights of the soprano line.
More mirth arose from the English version (The Animals Improvise Counterpoint) of Contrappunto bestiale alle mente, by Adriano Banchieri. This was set for Cuckoo, Owl, Cat, Dog and Bass voice, with appropriate noises from all.
This was followed by three beautiful pieces – Jacob Arcadelt’s Il bianco e dolce cigno; The Silver Swan by Gibbons and an arrangement by Charles Clements of a Welsh folksong called Y Mwyalchen ddu bigfelen (The Blackbird).
Martin’s method of rehearsing each piece and then requiring us either to form a circle or to mix ourselves up (rather than being grouped in voice parts) to sing it through contributed to a most enjoyable day. We thank him for reminding us of old favourites and introducing us to potential new ones.
First published in April 2011 Newsletter
Photograph of St Bartholomew’s Church in Westhoughton by Margaret Clough, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3222743
