Ripieno

Saturday past, back to Weston Green to hear the Ripieno Choir, having missed their spring concert because of a clash with something in London. So the last occasion was that noticed at reference 1.

The programme

Still light when we arrived, it being one of the longest days of the year, with the golden cross on top of the church very bright with the low sun on it. I wondered first about whether it was indeed gold, which I suppose would hold its gold better out in the weather than, say, brass. Then about access.

Church, with cross aloft

Fifty years ago, I dare say you could find someone who would climb up there with a ladder. But what about now? Full-on scaffold more or less wrapped around the tower and the middle of the church?

Brownies

A little early, we wandered around the side to find the Brownie corner. And then into the church where, unusually, we sat on the right, from where I was able to admire the substantial copper pipework, looking like and probably from the same time as that in my childhood house, now serving rather more modern radiators. Also the small glass panes in the aisle windows, some kind of craft glass, which did rather well instead of stained glass.

Restoration glass

Possible something called restoration glass, illustrated above.

Central sanctuary light unlit.

The programme was an interleaved mixture of short pieces by Orlando Gibbons, a famous English composer, roughly contemporary with Shakespeare, and chunks from a mass in G minor by Vaughan Williams. It seems that Williams wrote lots of music for the church, despite being an agnostic. Good stuff, but I think I would have preferred to have first one composer, then the other, as as it was, I got a little confused. Furthermore there was no direction about clapping, so there was rather more of that than I thought appropriate. And sometimes the sopranos seemed a little loud.

All that said, the new conductor does seem to have breathed something of a new life into the choir, after their long spell under his predecessor. The new conductor was also rather keen on introducing everything, where perhaps one introduction before the first half and one before the second would have sufficed.

Dark on exit. And once again we failed to retire to the church hall behind for refreshments, preferring to get home.

PS: I had thought there a lot more ladies than gentlemen, but the count was 14 men and 17 women. Perhaps there seemed more of the latter as they occupied the centre, with the men consigned to the two flanks.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/handl.html.