Last Sunday we cried, laughed and sang and played our hearts out. All in honour of the most wonderful man I have ever had the fortune to have in my life.
St Mary’s Choir sang one of Kieran’s favourite Mass Settings: the Mass for Five Voices by William Byrd. He loved all three of Byrd’s Masses but particularly this one. Sadly, we rarely had enough tenors to perform it (it has two tenor parts) so it tended only to come out on tour. On Sunday, however, we had the marvellous number of six tenors as everyone who has been a part of the choir wanted to come together to sing in Kieran’s memory. And they sang splendidly. The sound was lovely and the phrasing just right. There wasn’t a cadence misplaced or untidy. Kieran would have loved it.
The choir also sang a wonderful setting of the In Paradisum, specially composed in Kieran’s memory by Ivan Moody and written on receiving the news of his death. It is a simple, haunting version of the plainsong melody and, sung at the end of the first half of the concert, brought the more reflective part of the programme to a fitting end.
It wasn’t all choral music, however. We were joined by lots of singer friends and by pianists and string players.
Christopher Weston played the opening movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. I chose this piece because Kieran had learnt to play it and loved it. It was, of course, rather painful to listen to and brought tears to me eyes. I couldn’t help seeing Kieran sitting at the piano enjoying his music. Chris played it beautifully.
Later in the programme, we were immensely privileged to have Alan Bullard play three of his piano preludes; the middle one of which was composed specially in Kieran’s memory; again on hearing of his death. What a great set of pieces these are. I hope they will soon be published so that many more people can enjoy them. Kieran’s slow movement is particularly poignant and Alan proved that he is a great player in addition to being a fantastic composer.
Although Kieran wasn’t huge fan of the organ, he did love his Bach (more of that later) and it was a joy to hear Will Foster play BWV 650: Kommst du nun, Jesu herunter. This was probably the last time our lovely little Hey positiv organ would be played in concert here in St Mary’s (it’s going to a new home in Hertfordshire). Will played at the opening concert of the organ in 2015. There’s a rather good video of the organ’s construction with Will playing and which Kieran filmed and edited on the St Mary’s Choir Youtube channel. It was, therefore, particularly appropriate that Will played the only organ piece in the programme. What’s more, he played it with immense precision and feeling. It was a lovely moment of peace in a full concert. This photo was taken by Kieran at the inaugural concert. He loved the fact that we were both wearing pink ties!
Katie Marriot sang Tchaikovsky’s wonderful Nyet tolko tot, kto with huge intensity. It was totally enthralling. I had to pretend not to know what the words meant or I would have been on the floor. I then had to pretend that I couldn’t speak German as Liz Roberts sang Strauss’ Morgen. It was beautiful and greatly enhanced by the obligato violin solo beautifully played by Megan Hill.
It was incredibly appropriate that Naomi Sturges was able to be with us to sing Britten’s setting of Waly Waly. Naomi really began her choral career with St Mary’s and Kieran had always been really fond of her. In fact, I remember him pouring cold water on her from the balcony above as she sunbathed in Scheggino some years ago. That’s just the sort of trick he liked playing on people of whom we was really fond. Naomi’s singing was stunning; particularly the pianissimo last verse, which held everyone spellbound.
Another young singer with a long association with St Mary’s is Esme Smith and I was delighted to introduced to La Belle Isabeau by Berlioz; a piece I’d never heard in my life. It has a small choral accompaniment and choir and soloist sang together in perfect synchronicity; something that is actually quite difficult to achieve in this piece. It was lovely to hear Esme’s new mezzo-soprano voice. Kieran would have thoroughly enjoyed the performance. I have a video of him and Esme making silly music together in Italy; something I’ve been unable to watch since Kieran’s death, but I will.
Incredibly, in the second half, we were treated to another new piece. This time, something completely different. This was a song, music and words, specially written and performed by Ben Gibbon. He accompanied himself on the guitar but was also joined by friends who had come along to create a string band. Kieran and Ben shared a love of Radiohead, Muse and Pink Floyd; the latter of which many listeners likened his song to.
The strings performed Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, with the soloists being Salomé Rateau and Megan Hill. I love this concerto and Kieran would have really enjoyed the performance. Bach was one of his favourite composers and he loved both singing and playing his music. We visited the Bach house in Eisenach (Bach’s birthplace) not once but three times; the last being just last summer. It was a place he loved; though he was disappointed to discover last summer that the amazing pod seats, in which one could listen privately to any piece of Bach one chose, had disappeared (as was I).
Our final singer friend was Chris Foster. He sang Soave sia il vento (Cosi) with Liz and Katie in part one but rather stole the show with his version of Flanders and Swann’s In the Bath. With this one song, we had gone from tears to laughter in the course of one evening. Chris’ final two verses…
Katie Marriot sang the wonderful tipsy song from la Périchole, which got us all the mood for the final piece. Every single performer squeezed onto the stage (all 45 of us, plus grand piano) to sing Libiamo from La Traviata. Kieran didn’t particularly like opera (always a bit of a sore point between us) but he did love a party and this finished the evening with a wonderful, joyful party atmosphere.
It was a quirky evening; just like Kieran. His naughty sense of humour would have been tickled by it. I’m pretty sure that, just as at his funeral, he would have been rather taken aback by the huge outpouring of love for him. But it was a wonderful way in which to keep his memory alive. I am so grateful to everyone who took part and gave their time free. Monies raised are being put towards a choral scholarship in Kieran’s name.
Thank you for your continued love and support. Keep on loving Kieran with me.
Indoor Voice 