I’m having a sweetly laid-back week here in West Berkshire. No thrills and spills; just unremarkable domesticity, a cathedral concert or two, and the odd visit to a stately home. You know – just the usual stuff if you’re a culture vulture like me.
Saturday I fancied hearing some choral music. According to my online research, the choirs of Winchester Cathedral, less than 25 miles away, were going to accommodate me. I knew generally how to get to Winchester, and figured that finding the cathedral shouldn’t be an issue. Drive to the city center, look up and find the spires, right?
Wrong. The town center occupies the bottom of a big bowl. So instead of being built on the town’s highest point, as many grand cathedrals are, Winchester’s cathedral was built in a gulley. I drove around in circles for over an hour trying to find it.
Finally I ditched the car in a parking garage and started walking. Down, down, down. Found the cathedral at last and settled in for what I hoped would be a wonderful evening of music. WOW! I was absolutely blown away!
First of all, Winchester took the bold move in 1999 to allow girls to sing. Imagine! For the first time in its 900-year history, the cathedral accepted girls into their music program. They’re still secondary to the choristers – little boys as young as age 6 who attend the cathedral’s residential school full-time, are given the best vocal training in the world, rehearse daily and sing in most of the services until their voices break. But the girls, teenagers who rehearse only twice a week, hold their own.
Both the girls and boy choristers sang songs by themselves and with the Lay Clerks, adult men who are paid for their vocal services in the cathedral’s choir. Many of them started their musical lives as choristers in cathedral choirs and have returned after their voices matured.
The concert featured both sacred and secular selections. I particularly got a kick out of the little boys singing “My Way” and “The Way You Look Tonight,” and the big boys singing “Penny Lane” and “Is You Is?” They teamed up to perform “Five Negro Spirituals” that brought tears to my eyes. The fact that you didn’t expect to hear Jerome Kern or McCartney/Lennon or songs from the American South in one of the country’s major cathedrals just made it all that more special. The entire program was simply stunning.
On Monday I took advantage of the spectacular sunshine to get out of the house and drive. Everybody I encountered that day was commenting on the magnificent fall weather, which around here was considered epic. Normally, there are so many clouds and so little sunshine at this time of year that when the sun bursts forth, it’s the stuff of legend. Monday was doubtless recorded in the history books.
Armed with my trusty map and a spirit of adventure, off I headed to two rather obscure National Trust properties in neighboring Hampshire, Hinton Ampner and Mottisford Abbey. Except for their cafes, where I had lunch at one and tea at the other, I didn’t even go inside the structures. Their gardens were in their end-of-season decline, unfortunately, except for some hearty late-performing dahlias. But at Mottisford, there was a lovely walk alongside a clear stream teeming with trout. It was such a gorgeous cloudless day I didn’t have a care in the world. Give me a full tank of gas and some back roads in the English countryside, and I’m a happy camper.
Tuesday I went back to Winchester, this time with a friend, to a lunchtime organ recital by the cathedral's three resident organists. Outstanding! My attendance may have dropped the median age of the audience, but I was evermore happy to be there despite my relative youth.
Today my agenda was far less adventurous, but practical: I jettisoned 10 kilos of my stuff (which may be anywhere from 5 to 50 lbs.) and shipped it back home to Charlotte. I’m the world’s worst about packing too many clothes, and this trip was no exception. So with the help of DHL Express and an obscene number of British pounds, off went all those summer-weight clothes I thought I needed for France, and various other bits and bobs that I really can live without here in the U.K. My suitcase will still weigh a ton, but hopefully will be a little more manageable on the return journey, especially since I won’t have a sherpa to help me.
Tomorrow I’m heading up to London for yet more choral music – a concert by an ensemble called London Oriana, who’s performing a concert entitled “Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?” at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church. All of their selections have texts from Shakespeare’s poetry. Doesn’t that sound fab?!
Guess my week isn’t so mundane, after all…
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