No - not another reference to the guy in the White House...This is a first post about the Welsh Baroque Orchestra and their wonderful concert of Vivaldi Arias and Concertos from the Ospedale della Pieta here at St Catherine's this evening. (There will be more to come.)
Fantastic!
Such a privilege to host these guys, such a delight to hear them play and make wonderful use of our acoustic in a totally different way to our usual musical fare. Violin concertos, cello concertos, flute - as you can see - and then arias from Juditha Triumphans, a Psalm and another vocal piece that escapes me because my programme was snaffled!
However: I do have DVD, and once I have found some time I will post excerpts here. They were great, and it just goes to show that we don't only do jazz & worship songs! The Hallelujah and the final Amen from tonight's show will certainly be finding their way here & onto our church website vey soon.
We had a decent crowd: Pontypridd isn't, I suppose, a Vivaldi kind of place. (What is a Vivaldi kind of place? Venice.) But I hope we get this great period orchestra back, because they are excellent, and it is great to have an orchestra like this coming out of the capital and playing in venues like ours. A real treat.
PS - Just made it before midnight. So talking about music means it's not just Van der Sar breaking records today. 19 is the most postings I've ever done in a month.
6 comments:
It was a fantastic evening, and at £2 for those in full time education what a bargain!
I must confess the arias were not to my taste, but the concertos were fantastic, and the psalm-amen (in the words of a great spiritual leader) blew me away.
I couldn't come due to the kids but please put the cello up on your blog. How on earth could you have such classy music one day and Graham Kendrick the next?
Horses for courses my dear.
And I'm not the biggest fan of all his songs, but here's a thing or two:
1. 20 odd years ago GK was at the forefront of advancing worship music in this country. So what's his crime now then. Age?
2. I hadn't even got down the aisle at the end of the service before I had a complaint about Shine Jesus Shine. From a lovely Christian person, a regular attender & worshipper, an occasional commenter on this site who I will leave nameless. But all those visitors in church this morning - they knew the song (it's a school hymn these days) & joined in, and even smiled as they did so; I had no complaints from them. So perhaps it served a good purpose & the committed church member might have been patient for a moment, rather than grant me my first moan before I'd got to the back of church.
3. Mark: from the couple of occasions I have had the pleasure of meeting him, Graham Kendrick is a really nice and godly guy, and if I ever serve the Lord half as well as he does - I shall be a better man than I am. Forgive me for putting up your comment for one purpose and one purpose only - but it's this:
May I beg everyone from church: if we are talking about each other, if we are talking about people we know, if we are talking about "famous" people, if we are talking about people we have never met - let's be generous. Let's say nice things nicely.
Life is too short and too valuable for cheap comments. People read them, hear them, see them, feel them. Let's be builders not snipers.
For the record: this morning was totally different to last night. I loved both, and felt the right music was in the right place. And for its purpose and for the people we had in, helping them sing & be a part of our worshipping community, I felt Shine Jesus Shine was a classy song & I'm glad it's there. We'd be much poorer without it.
Sorry, I hadn't meant to sound like I was agreeing with the colomnist... the last time I try to use hyperbole in an attempt to be ironic...
I think all musicians in the churh play a valuable role, regardless of their musical tradition, and regardless of my own tate. A role which I couldn't hope to emulate.
As for Shine Jesus Shine, that was one of the frst Christian songs I learnt to play on guitar.
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