Evensong and Danish Royal Chapel Choir Concert

Friday evening began with Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral. This service is similar to the Sung Eucharist we attended the previous evening, but without the celebration of Holy Communion. Most of the liturgy in the service is sung (at least 90%) much of that by the choir. It was a nice way to shift gears after a full day of checking out Oxford. Following Evensong we went back to our hotel to freshen up and change into our formal wear so that we would be ready to attend the concert at the Sheldonian Theatre that night.

The concert we attended Friday evening featured the Danish Royal Chapel Choir with the Oxford Philomusica orchestra. The Danish Choir was configured like a traditional Cathedral choir - two thirds boys, one third men, much like the group we had just heard at Evensong. The Oxford Philomusica is an orchestra made up of Oxford folks, in fact we noticed that a lector from the service at Christ Church Cathedral the previous day was one of the cellists.

The first part of the program was decent, but since both of us were a little tired from tromping around all day, and it was rather hot and stuffy where we were sitting (in the first balcony) Beth and I were struggling to keep awake. I did remember thinking during a Handel selection “So this must be pretty close to how it sounded in Handel’s time", both the size of the orchestra, the type of choir, and the actual room we were sitting in, all combining together to produce a unique musical listening experience.

After some fresh air during the intermission, which renewed our energy and spirits, we were able to enjoy the second half of the performance more fully, this was the Nelson Mass by Haydn. I don’t think I’ve ever heard this Haydn work before, certainly not live. It was a great performance, and the young singers in the Danish Choir did a super job.

I found out talking to a woman travelling with the choir that they have won a Grammy Award for one of their recordings, plus other significant awards in Europe - so the Royal Danish Chapel Choir is certainly a notable group. The guest soloists were good as well, especially the soprano who in the first half of the concert also sang a solo piece (accompanied by the keyboardist from the Oxford Philomusica) Two items of note about this, he played on an upright piano (rather than a Grand, mostly likely because it would be near impossible to store a large piano in that building, considering how it was built (which of course was before pianos had really come into existence). The second was that the keyboardist was a stereotypical Brit (this being Beth’s observation) and I would have to agree… he was most amusing to watch with his flourishes and awkward manner.

It was indeed a huge contrast from the concert we heard the previous day, but moving and delightful in itself. I especially enjoyed the Danish folksong they did as an encore, it featured an echo group singing from the top balcony - a very beautiful lullaby. Thus after the concert (and another full day) we were now prepared for sleep, which we did after making our way to our tiny room on the top floor of our historic hotel.