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23 July 2018

Forty-five members of the Chorus were in France at the height of World Cup fever, but not watching the final – they were in a Cathedral in the Dordogne, singing with two French choirs, an orchestra, two organs and an array of brass musicians. The occasion was a special concert held in Perigueux cathedral to celebrate both the end of WW1 and Bastille Day. The work was ‘Le Messe de la Délivrance ‘ by François-Clément Théodore Dubois, commissioned to celebrate the end of WW1, and it was sung by local choirs L’ensemble Vocal de Périgueux and L’ensemble vocal Arnault de Mareuil as well as the visitors from Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus and other choristers from around Perigueux. A special trumpet fanfare was written for the occasion, and this, the large orchestra with extra brass players and not one but two organs, one played by Chorus Music Director Darius Battiwalla, made for an unforgettable sound that echoed around the cathedral long after the final bars were over.

The five day trip, organised by bass Matthew Morgan, also involved two concerts given by the Chorus on their own, singing works by Parry, Stanford and Tippett, Arvo Part, Rachmaninoff, Esenvalds and Saint-Saens.  Conductor Darius Battiwalla willingly agreed to play in these two concerts, attracted by the organs in the churches concerned, L’Eglise de Excideuil and in St Astier.

The Chorus members were provided with accommodation by members of the French choirs and had a wonderful time, especially on the  Saturday evening when Bastille Day was celebrated with a special party hosted by the French choirs, followed by a huge firework display on the banks of the river and all-night dancing in the squares around Perigueux. The special concert on Sunday was of course followed by World Cup celebrations all around the city that lasted well into the night.

‘ Everyone had a wonderful time’ said Chorus Chair Paul Henstridge. ‘Our thanks to Matthew for all his hard work, to Darius for giving his time and skills to make the trip such a success, and to the French choir members who generously put up members of the Chorus in their own homes. Several members have asked whether we could make this an annual event – a testimony to how much we all enjoyed ourselves.’

An article about the French trip appeared in the Sheffield Telegraph – see France article in Sheffield Telegraph

03 July 2018

Fifty members of the Chorus are busy preparing to join with French choirs L’ensemble Vocal de Périgueux and L’ensemble vocal Arnault de Mareuil, to sing ‘Le Messe de la Délivrance ‘ by François-Clément Théodore Dubois, a piece commissioned to commemorate WW1, in the Cathedral at Perigueux on Sunday 15 July 2018.  Performed for the first time in 1919 in the city of Orléans, the Messe de la Délivrance celebrates the return to peace after the retreat of German troops from France at the end of World War I. It is also an ode to Joan of Arc, who delivered Orléans and was canonized in 1915.

The five day trip, organised by bass Matthew Morgan, also involves two concerts given by the Chorus on their own, singing works by Parry, Stanford and Tippett, Arvo Part, Rachmaninoff, Esenvalds and Saint-Saens.  Conductor Darius Battiwalla has willingly agreed to play in these two concerts, attracted by the organs in the churches concerned, L’Eglise de Excideuil and St Astier, both in the Dordogne region of France. ‘Everyone is excited about this mini tour, our first venture abroad for quite some time’ said Matthew, ‘The French choirs are really thrilled that we are joining them to sing in this special concert to commemorate WW1, and tickets for our own concerts are selling well.’

The Chorus have been rehearsing every Tuesday since their season ended with the fabulous Rossini concert in the City Hall ballroom early in June – including a penultimate rehearsal on Tuesday 3 July, testing loyalties to the full given the clash with a certain football match that evening!

11 June 2018

The audience greeted the final concert of the season on Saturday 9 June 2018 with obvious delight and appreciation, with cheers for Chorus, soloists and instrumentalists – and for the amazing Mustel harmonium! Played magnificently by acclaimed organist and harmonium specialist Jonathan Scott, this rare instrument was put through its paces in Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonelle, a work rarely performed in it’s original scoring for harmonium and piano.

Jonathan began the concert with an enthusiastic account and demonstration of this particular instrument, built in 1880 by Victor Mustel, from the collection of Pam & Phil Fluke of Harmonium Hire. Mustel is widely acknowledged as the Rolls Royce of  harmonium makers, and this is one of very few that still exist in their original condition. The 22 stops with 6 rows of reeds in the bass & 8 in the treble provided plenty of ‘colour’ and a bright, ‘clean’ sound which clearly delighted audience members who had come especially to hear it.

Rossini’s wonderful work was conducted with assurance by Chorus Music Director Darius Battiwalla and expressively and accurately sung by the chorus and all four soloists – soprano Charlotte la Thrope, alto Margaret McDonald, tenor Richard Rowe and bass Charles Murray. The chorus was especially thrilled with the excellent piano accompaniment provided by their one-time accompanist Nigel Gyte.

Acclaimed pianist Tom Scott came to hear his brother play the Mustel harmonium in the City Hall’s beautiful art deco ballroom, and made a short video of Jonathan playing Boléro de Concert Op.166 (1865) by Louise-James-Alfred Lefébure-Wély (1817-1869). Watch the video on You Tube.

31 May 2018

Julia Armstrong, Sheffield Telegraph 31 May 2018

Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle (small solemn mass) is neither small nor solemn. ‘It would have been entirely characteristic of this witty composer to tease his audience as he did in this, his final major work,’ writes Paul Henstridge. Lasting about 90 minutes, it is unashamedly operatic in style and full of the most wonderful melodies. It is also a profound and moving statement of his own Christian faith.

The version that the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus will be performing June 9 at 7pm in the City Hall Ballroom uses the accompaniment of a piano and a harmonium, played by Nigel Gyte and Jonathan Scott. Both accomplished musicians, Nigel was for many years the regular accompanist for the Philharmonic Chorus and Jonathan is a renowned pianist and organist.

Jonathan will be playing an original instrument made by the Paris harmonium maker Victor Mustel in 1880. Mustel made the finest instruments in the world and he was an exceptional craftsman producing around a dozen instruments a year which sold for prices in excess of £150,000 in today’s money! He won prizes at all the major world fairs and exhibitions and had showrooms in Paris and London. Only a handful of his instruments are still in existence in their original condition.

This is a rare opportunity to hear one of the best examples of a harmonium in the world today and Jonathan will introduce the instrument with musical examples and an explanation of how all the sounds and mechanical devices work on this amazing instrument. Tickets are available online at www.sheffieldcityhall.co.uk, by calling 0114 278 9789 and in person at the Sheffield City Hall box office.

Read the original article online

‘A mosaic of joyous sound‘ ‘rousing‘ and ‘gripping dynamics and diction‘ were some of the superlatives used to describe the singing of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in the City Hall on Saturday 9 May 2018. As in Edinburgh and Middlesbrough, loud cheers and prolonged applause followed the rousing end to Mahler’s second symphony, played magnificently by the Bruckner Orchester Linz. ‘The hushed entry of the chorus in the final climactic movement was one of the evening’s outstanding moments‘ – it was certainly enjoyed by the Chorus, who with Leeds Philharmonic Chorus had been put through their paces in rehearsal, conductor Markus Poschner making them repeat the entry seven times until it was as quiet as it could possibly be.

This was the third presentation of the Mahler 2 for the two choruses, with concerts in Edinburgh and Middlesbrough as part of a six-date tour of the UK with Bruckner Orchester Linz and their charismatic new conductor Markus Poschner, one of Europe’s rising stars. ‘We were so pleased to end our three-concert tour in Sheffield ‘ said Chorus Chair Paul Henstridge, ‘especially since, being local, more of our members and our friends from the Leeds Phil were able to sing – there were over 200 of us on stage!‘

“You need a very, very good choir for Mahler’s Second,” explained Markus Poschner in a recent interview for the Scotsman. The work is truly epic, offering up Mahler’s apocalyptic vision of life, death and the hereafter, with ‘a huge orchestra with blaring brass (both on the platform and offstage), thumping percussion and massed ranks of cellos and double basses well to the fore’.

The 200-year old Bruckner Orchester Linz, the second largest orchestra in Austria, is pleased to be working with conductor Markus Poschner, one of the rising conducting stars on the continent, making significant waves in Germany and further afield. They were joined on the tour by two wonderful soloists, soprano Brigitte Geller and Theresa Kronthaler. But ‘It was [the Chorus] who brought the piece to its rousing conclusion and who, with chorus master Darius Battiwalla, received their well-deserved share of the prolonged applause.’

REVIEW – ‘Four Stars’ – Miranda Heggie – The Herald Scotland

REVIEW – ‘Assertive Mahler’ – Simon Thompson – Seen and Heard International

REVIEW ‘A triumph’ – Nachrichter

REVIEW – ‘ Markus Poschner’s musical vision’ Elizabeth Rathenbock, Krone

In 1911 Sheffield Musical Union, the choir that became the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, went on a remarkable world tour with a number of other Yorkshire choirs, covering 34,000 miles and giving 134 concerts in Canada, The United States, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and South Africa.

This unique event is documented in a book by Dr. Christopher Wiltshire using letters written by young soprano May Midgley to her family back in England. The book ‘12 Oak Avenue – the letters of  May Midgely 1911‘ was featured in the Yorkshire Post on 28 July 2018 and in the Sheffield Telegraph in May 2019 and can be purchased from Chris using the email listed below.

May’s lively, action-packed letters have only recently been discovered, and they throw a new light on this unique and exciting event. Her first letter, written in March 1911 after docking in Canada, gives a flavour of May’s down-to-earth account of this unique event:

“On Saturday morning nearly everybody was ill… Miss Jowett has been the worst in our cabin, she has been awfully bad… Mrs Bell looks just like a corpse… Isabel crawls about just like a little old woman… Hilda and I simply daren’t get up, the boat rocked so – we heard terrible crashes of crockery…”

‘Whether flirting with Sir Edward Elgar, castigating Leopold Stokowski, or commenting on the performances of the soloists and orchestras, May demonstrates a shrewd, lively intelligent mind.’ says Chris. ‘She writes in an entertaining manner about all aspects of the tour: sight-seeing in North America, meeting relatives and fellow-Bradfordians in the Antipodes and South Africa, becoming deck quoits champion, Government House balls, rehearsals and one hundred and thirty concerts.’

May was obviously highly valued by the choir’s conductor, Henry Coward, and her letters provide an irreplaceable window on the tour that are as unique as the event itself.

The book costs £6.50 (free postage and packing) and may be purchased by calling into The Sheffield Scene in the city centre, The Famous Sheffield Shop on Ecclesall Road, or by post by contacting the author at .

About the author

Christopher Wiltshire’s career has been as varied as it is long. Twice winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Composer’s Award at the Royal Academy of Music, composition played an important part in his work in education as well as in the theatre. Composing for plays and pantomimes at the Sheffield Crucible led to work as repetiteur, coach and musical director including conducting the European premiere of Chicago. For many years he conducted the award-winning Sheffield Chamber Orchestra. Throughout much of his life Chris examined world-wide for Trinity College and was one of the busiest festival adjudicators in the UK. Conducting Felling (Tyneside) Male Voice Choir plus composing and arranging for a variety of similar choirs resulted in a PhD at London University on the history of male choirs.

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Bruckner Orchester Linz, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Assertive Mahler ‘Resurrection’ from Bruckner Orchester Linz

I guess it is probably a shrewd marketing move to brand your orchestra after the name of your town’s most famous musical son, but that can sometimes lead to a mistaken view of what you do. On their UK tour, the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz are doing almost no Bruckner, but they are playing a symphony whose length compares with those of Linz’s famous kapellmeister, and whose scale in terms of forces required exceeds it.

Mahler’s music is more popular than ever at present. The RSNO, for example, are about to embark on a complete Mahler cycle, and the audience for this concert was markedly busy when you compare it with most of the rest of the Usher Hall’s Sunday Classics season. But then, Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony is one of those works that feels like a special occasion every time you hear it. How many other works deploy so many forces, and keep a huge chorus in tow to sing for only the final ten minutes? Even considering that, this was one of those particularly special occasions, a time where the playing and the sense of occasion coalesced to produce something extremely memorable.

I guess a lot of that springs from the sense of class exuded by the orchestra. It must be tough being an Austrian orchestra outside of Vienna: if you are not part of the capital’s unique musical heritage, then many international concertgoers just do not want to know. Why have cotton when you can have silk? Make no mistake, though: on the basis of today’s concert they are a class act. For one thing, they are steeped in the Austro-German tradition every bit as much as their Viennese comrades. They play on Vienna-made brass instruments for one thing, producing a more piercing brass sound that cuts through the climaxes with more clarity than most. For another, the orchestra as a whole seems to have the Mahlerian style running through their veins. The strings, for example, have that distinctive mitteleuropäische gloss to their sound that gives them an astonishing sheen, and they would occasionally throw in a cheeky portamento that showed they weren’t afraid to add their own take, something perfect for the folksy gemütlichkeit of the Ländler.

Their sound as a whole was remarkably assertive, notably so when you compare them with most of the British orchestras I have heard playing Mahler. The opening shudder for example receded like a troubled sforzando almost as soon as it began, and the bite of the cellos and basses had the edge of a stab wound. It made for a remarkably exciting opening, something that was carried on throughout the first movement. Granted: the silky elegance that made the first two movements so arresting felt a little out of place in the Scherzo, which could have done with a greater sense of the macabre, but the climactic scream was electric, while still managing to avoid sounding crude.

They also showed great subtlety throughout, something that was helped by the sure hand of conductor Markus Poschner. He gave the music a real sense of a journey and, more to the point, this was a voyage where he knew what the final destination was going to be right from the outset. There were a few odd touches, such as a rather schmaltzy slowing up before the appearance of the major-key theme of the first movement, and a too-willfully extended pause after the first movement. On the whole, though, I really liked the way Poschner grasped the music’s scale, and this came into its own in the vast span of the finale, which sounded as though it had been built up with painstaking attention to detail. Each block was carefully enunciated as it appeared – such as the winds’ first announcement of what would become the mezzo’s ‘O glaube’ theme – and then built together into a solid musical edifice. The trombones’ chorale theme, too, made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, and those infinite drum rolls sounded like the end of the world; the second, for once, sounding every bit as thrilling as the first.

Poschner also embraced the quiet moments every bit as much as the loud ones. Several times, for example, he would go from fff to ppp while embracing both extremes, and at the end of the (beautifully articulated) Urlicht he held on to every last second of the dying string sound before unleashing the waiting mayhem of the finale.

The orchestra were helped by the combined forces of the Leeds and Sheffield Philharmonic Choruses, who did a great job, creating a big, soft and pleasingly accurate sound for their first entrance, building up to a blazing peroration in the final minutes. Only at ‘Bereite dich’ was there a slight hint of barking but, when you consider how late they must have been inserted into the jigsaw puzzle, they did extremely well. So did alto Theresa Kronthaler, who sang an ‘Urlicht’ of prelapsarian innocence, and Brigitte Geller’s more knowing soprano, who not only blended beautifully with Kronthaler but also kept the chorus right during their first entrances.

All told, then, it was a pretty special performance, a glimpse of the Central European musical tradition doing what it does well, combining with a full-throated British choral sound that was very pleasing. The orchestra now take this symphony on tour to Middlesbrough, London, Reading and Sheffield, finishing with a different programme in Birmingham. They are well worth catching if you get the chance.

Simon Thompson 29 April 2018, Seen and Heard International 

Yorkshire Post 11 May 2018

The Bruckner Orchester Linz, Sheffield City Hall

What’s the aural equivalent of a spectacle? An auracle? If so, Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony was auracular. A huge orchestra, The Bruckner Orchester Linz, and two choirs – Sheffield and Leeds not rivals here, but the Philharmonic Choruses of both cities working together.

Mahler labelled the first movement ‘funeral rites’, and although there is the feel of a funeral march, it’s interrupted with dramatic outbursts from the entire orchestra, in this case directed with theatrical gestures from Markus Poschner.

The second and third movements Mahler called interludes – a sunny memory and ‘a return into the confusion of life’, after which the orchestra becomes muted, ready for the entry of the alto soloist representing the voice of faith. Calm, pure, yet rich and powerful, Theresa Kronthaler’s voice fitted the mood perfectly and prepared the hall for the grand finale – the resurrection.

The soprano Brigitte Geller sang of life’s meaning, and the choirs, hushed at first, but two hundred strong, sang with gripping dynamics and diction. As Poschner marshalled his forces in the increasingly triumphant progress to eternity, it was hard not to get carried away by the sheer physicality of the music – so many people united in optimism. A tonic for the times.

Steve Draper, Yorkshire Post, 11 May 2018

Full Range of Emotions

Bruckner Orchester Linz, Sheffield City Hall

Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is big in every way; the theme is nothing less than the entire range of emotional experiences in human life, leading up to a glorious religious revelation.

And it is all depicted on a massive scale – a huge orchestra with blaring brass (both on the platform and offstage), thumping percussion and massed ranks of cellos and double basses well to the fore, augmented for the final uplifting choral movement by a choir of well over a hundred. Sheffield’s own Philharmonic Chorus joined forces with their counterparts from Leeds to bring an absorbing performance to a moving conclusion with a mosaic of joyous sound.

It was a vehicle that had been well run-in, having been on the road to both Edinburgh and Middlesbrough before reaching City Hall, and conductor Markus Poschner had Mahler’s demanding and often innovative (despite frequent echoes of both Wagner and Beethoven) and lengthy score (90 minutes, no interval) under tight control.

The work’s contrasting moods were always carefully balanced, yet the hushed entry of the chorus in the final climactic movement was one of the evening’s outstanding moments. It was they who brought the piece to its rousing conclusion and who, with chorus master Darius Battiwalla, received their well-deserved share of the prolonged applause.

Philip Andrews, Sheffield Telegraph, 10 May 2018