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.