Doncaster Choral Society performed as part of Doncaster's Cultural
festival 2006. Included in their repertoire was Karl Jenkin's Mass
for Peace
Doncaster Cultural Festival 2006
Review
For some years now Doncaster Choral Society has contributed to the
Doncaster Cultural Festival, held this year on Sunday 16th July and
which featured a variety of choral presentations: the juvenile
Barnburgh Spanish Choir, the extrovert offerings of the Quirky
Choir; the delicious miniatures of The Cusworth Singers (twice); and
the Doncaster Choral Society, relishing, as doubtless did its
audience, the benign coolness of the Museum & Art Gallery’s William
Appleby Room.
In its half hour slot the latter recalled two of its triumphs of the
2005/06 season. I particularly welcomed the opportunity to hear two
Renaissance motets, Viadana’s triumphant Exsultate Justi and
Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus, having, through absence from Doncaster
that weekend, missed hearing them in the May concert at the Minster.
I was delighted with the well-balanced sonorities secured by Alan
Eost from the 35 voices available on the afternoon, even if the
church acoustic envisaged by Palestrina etc. could obviously not be
replicated. Karl Jenkins has extracted a five movement suite from
his Armed Man – a Mass for Peace, performed complete in November
2005 and in this it was good to be reminded of its accessible, yet
striking invention, not least the martial qualities (rightly)
accorded to the familiar words of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei in
particular.
P.L.S.
