The Prose of the Eltham Choral Society

29th March 2008

I have been socially slighted this week. Friends (at least I thought they were friends!) revealed that I didn't measure up to all their social circles: in particular, The Eltham Choral Society concert 'set'. And all because I was told they were going to be singing prose. I don't know about you, but I don't like opera very much, mostly because of the prose (or 'recitatif', as opera buffs like to call it). But concert performances are OK, because they usually only perform the nice bits in between the prose. In fact, I really rather like going to concerts: and this one had the added intrigue of a prose performance. Actually, not just a prose performance, but a World Premiere prose performance. Quite local, too. So I elected to go along.

Which is when the trouble started. "Why do you want to go to that?", they asked. "That's not your kind of thing". "Yes, it is!" I insisted, stoutly. It did cross my mind that they might consider me a musician (even I only think that's true at the lowest level of amateur), a breed unable to stomach singers in even in ones and twos, let alone a whole stageful. But no! When I got there, and stood in the vestibule waiting for said friends to appear, several other friends turned up, almost forming an echoing chain of "what are you doing here?" And I'd washed and scrubbed myself, brushed my hair nicely, and was pretty well-dressed (at least for an old-age pensioner, anyway). I began to think that perhaps the audience of the Eltham Choral Society was itself a society, and tonight was 'members only'.

It occurred to me that perhaps they couldn't conceive of someone actually going along just for the pleasure of it, but I dismissed such thoughts as venial and unworthy.

So why do I like going to concerts? Well, it is, in some ways, better than straight dramatic theatre. I like looking at people: I just do. Mostly, it doesn't bother people. They put up with a moderate amount of it without complaint. Occasionally, I encounter some woman who locks-on eye contact, and I think to myself "cor, she fancies me!". Then I come to earth and realise she's probably just pissed-of with blokes staring at her, and I'm the one-too-many. And I try to apologise, which, if you think about it, isn't too easy in those circumstances. Anyway, concert audiences are expected to eye-up the choir/band. It would be odd not to. Even at the Eltham Choral Society, where they not only provide a whole evening's reading of programme notes, they actually provide all the words as well (I wondered if they might want us to join in the choruses!). Despite which, the audience missed it's first clapping cue. Perhaps the Eltham middle classes, even at this age, don't have the latin anymore, the first piece being a 16th century Thomis Tallis piece, in latin. But looking at the words now, the penny has finally dropped: the last couplet, "Nos membra confer effici tui beati corporis" had their collective jaw drop: they knew I was there; the choir was calling on them to let me join their illustrious body. The immediate distainful silence of the audience was a social slight on me!

Yet during the interval, two of the altos confided in me that they were always looking for men. And as far as I could gather, all you needed was a tenner! So much for me feeling slighted. One of these self-same altos I know to be the organiser of local secret drinking club. Then an ageing gentleman, with a considerable reputation in local political circles, justified the wearing of a cravat by explaining that he couldn't wear evening dress (thus denying him a place on stage) because his son had stolen his white shirt. I was gob-smacked. It brought into sudden focus the seething domestic underbelly of the well-dressed people around me. The Eltham Choral Society is clearly a candidate for a rewrite of the country classic, The Harper Valley PTA. What will they get up to on their Tuscan tour next month?

After the interval, I got back to eyeing up the choir. But now I was beginning to feel more of a Peeping Tom: as I stared at each of them in turn, wondering what they got up to when they weren't singing English sacred music, or the Rossini and Verdi 'Bel Canto' pieces they casually tossed into the mix. Fortunately, the post-interval music was rather more demanding. They sang Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, aided by a beautiful harpist playing on a beautful harp, and a fine counter-tenor, singing on a fine counter-tenor voice. How do they do that, counter-tenors? No, don't tell me, I don't think I want to know.

And finally, we came to the moment I had been waiting for: the World Premiere of Chilcott's 'Aesop's Fables': in prose. Rather to my surprise, it was rather good: and they sang it rather well. And everybody cheered the composer afterwards. And my friends, rather sneakily, got him to sign their program. Then, Lent being over for another year, we went down the pub.