Vanity and Joy – BFC, BBC Singers, James Morgan (conductor)

The well-rehearsed and attentive Brighton Festival Chorus was joined by the BBC Singers in an intriguing programme of unaccompanied songs by Bax, Sibelius, Stanford and Bantock.

The professionals, who for the most part sang in pairs, augmented perfectly the rich sound of Brighton’s leading amateur chorus. Some of the effects, especially in Bantock’s ‘Vanity of Vanities’, were quite breath-taking in St. Bart’s extraordinary acoustic and required exceptional resources and talent to achieve. A special mention must be made of Emma Tring, the soloist in the only well-known work of the programme, Stanford’s ‘Blue Bird’, which was so pure and still.

St Bartholomew’s Church, 20 July 2013

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