Deck the Hall

A warm and appreciative audience filled the baronial hall at the Ullet Road Unitarian Church on Friday, to enjoy the Christmas Celebration hosted by Liverpool Voice.

The evening was entitled ‘Deck the Hall’ and this was the song that got the evening off to a brisk start.  The programme moved on to ‘Wassail’ which turned out be be quite a theme for the first half. There were no less than three wassailing songs in all, and a reading that explained the two wassailing traditions - singing door to door round the village; and blessing the apple trees with toast. In the Gloucestershire Wassail, a traditional carol collected by Vaughan Williams, the verses were sung by three men in cloth caps enjoying the odd swig of ale from a wassail tankard.

Before this there were some serious carols, including the ‘Angel’s Carol’ by John Rutter, and one that was possibly the high point of the evening, ‘The Snow’ by Edward Elgar set to a poem by his wife Alice. For this piece, definitely seasonal but not actually about Christmas, the choir and piano accompanist were joined by three further musicians on violin flute and cello. It added up to a rich performance of a beautiful piece.

Ian & Lucy Gilchrist accompanied several pieces throughout the evening, Ian swapping between the flute and the double bass.  As well as Sophia on violin for ‘The Snow’, they were joined at points by Martin on the concertina, and Trombone, and Elspeth on accordion.

The trombone made an appearance for ‘While shepherds watched’ not to the traditional tune, but ‘Cranbrook’, a tune perhaps best known as ‘On Ilkley Moor bar tat’. It was a lot of fun.

Other than verses sung by various choir members, Andrea, Corrine, Erik, Jo, Lucas, Martin, Tim,  and Brenda and Jan later in the medley, there was just one solo piece, 'Babe of Bethlehem' sung by Kim Ford.

The first half was rounded off by the arrival of Santa Claus, who regaled the audience with the twelve days of Christmas, joined by the choir for just one line in each verse - ‘Five Gold Rings’

Fortified by mulled wine and mince pies served during the interval by Santa (Phil Waldron, the Unitarian church minister) and his helpers, and warmed by the real fire in the fire place, the audience took their seats for the second half, which got off to a crisp start with ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’. Next came ‘Gaudete’ for which John McHugh, the accompanist picked up his guitar.

The Conductor and Choir Artistic Director, Lesley Bentley, introduced each piece, often with a brief description of its origin and background.

Just as in the first half, there was a single reading, this time an extract from a poem by Carol Ann Duffy about the Christmas day truce between the trenches in World War One, which introduced ‘Silent Night’ with the first verse sung, as in the poem, in German.

The audience joined in towards the end of the evening, with the Christmas songs medley, Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland and the like, and with O Come All Ye Faithful, before the final number ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ - a rousing ending to a wonderful evening.

Liverpool Voice rehearses on Thursday Evenings in South Liverpool and the Artistic Director is Lesley Bentley, formerly Director of Arts College at Notre Dame Catholic College for the Arts. Choir members have a range of musical ability training and experience, Rehearsals are friendly and purposeful. The choir is always looking out for new members, although you may be asked to delay joining shortly before a performance, or to maintain a balance of voices. Currently here is a need for tenors and basses. The contact details for potential members or for performance enquiries is 07901349080 or info@liverpoolvoice.com