Rehearsing the joyful music for our concert in May to celebrate the
Queen’s Diamond Jubilee has certainly helped to banish any winter blues
during the long grey months. Every Monday evening the Memorial Hall has resounded
to the Coronation music of Handel’s ‘Zadok the Priest’ and Parry’s ‘I was Glad’.
Above all, it has been filled with Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’, the jubilant
final chorus of his 9th Symphony in D minor ‘The Choral’.
Beethoven took the words of the chorus from a poem written in 1785 by Friedrich
Schiller. It is a powerful exaltation of peace through brotherhood and after an
evening of celebration for the Queen’s long reign it will be a timely message
to be taking home especially as we shall be having a retiring collection in
support of The Royal British Legion.
On the 25th December 1989 to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, a
performance of ‘Beethoven’s 9th’, with its central theme of peace and love,
was conducted by Leonard Bernstein with a choir and orchestra drawn from
East and West Germany. Twenty years later it was performed at the BBC
Promenade Concerts immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.
It is a thrilling prospect to be singing this exhilarating chorus and a particular
challenge for the sopranos. At a rehearsal recently, our Director of Music, John
Langridge, said that if the sopranos had to sing any higher only dogs would
be able to hear them!.
The first half of the evening will begin with Benjamin Britten’s arrangement
of the National Anthem and will end with Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory.
Once again we shall be running a coach from the Market Square car park in Battle
to the concert and back. This is going to be a very popular concert: book your seats
for this FREE service as soon as
possible by phoning: 01424 772895.