AFTER more than two years of Covid disruption Wokingham Choral Society has taken a big stride back to normality with an accomplished performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor. The concert was held in The Great Hall of Reading University on Saturday, June 25.
Bach’s masterpiece was chosen as a fitting celebration of seventy years since the Society’s foundation and was marked by Prosecco offered to the audience in the interval.
The Society has long been led by a brilliant line of young musical directors, including Graeme Jenkins, Paul Daniel, Edward Gardner and Stephen Layton.
The latest in the line, James Morley Potter, in his pre-concert talk demonstrated why Bach’s genius in Baroque composition, emotional range and intellectual vigour made the work so apt a choice for the celebratory concert.
In performance, the choir captured the challenging demands of the choruses with expressive feeling.
The soloists, Helena Moon (soprano), Catherine Backhouse (mezzo-soprano), Edward Woodhouse (tenor), and Greg Skidmore (bass) responded with moving empathy to the exquisite playing of Time and Truth on period instruments.
This was the last occasion, however, when Benedict Lewis-Smith (continuo) was to accompany the choir, a role in which he will be greatly missed.
The autumn concert of the Society will be held again in the Great Hall on Saturday, November 19.
R.J.E.
