Inverness Choral face Elgar’s mighty challenge

Inverness Choral set to perform Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius”

FOR the first time in a decade and a half Inverness Choral take on the considerable challenge of singing and playing Elgar’s mighty "The Dream of Gerontius".

It is a return to a large choir and orchestra after the unaccompanied repertoire of their last concert at Eden Court in November, and the challenge it offers is logistic as well as musical, as Gordon Tocher, the Choral’s artistic director, explained.

"It is a major concert for us and we have secured three distinguished soloists for the occasion in Frances McCafferty, James Oxley and Donald Maxwell," Choral artistic director Gordon Tocher explained.

"As well as a large orchestra, members of Musick Fyne are also joining the chorus.

"It’s a lot of people and I’m just hoping we can squeeze everyone onto the stage at Eden Court — I take comfort from the fact that it has been done before, but it will be tight."

Tocher sang in the choir the last time the Choral performed the work in 1995 and will be conducting it for the first time.

"The impression you have is that the same people are there year after year," Tocher said.

"To a large extent that is true, but every year one or two leave and one or two come in. When you come to preparing a work like this and you ask how many people sang it last time, it’s quite surprising to realise how much of a turnover there has been.

"It’s something you are not conscious of from one year to the next — the members are very loyal. I think we’ll have just under 100 singing at the concert, although we have more members than that — some inevitably can’t make every concert.

"That’s very healthy. There are always fewer tenors than anything else, but the balance is not too bad at the moment and I’m quite pleased with the sound the choir is making."

Tocher’s approach to preparing a large-scale work like "Gerontius" combines a mixture of studying the score and listening to a recording.

"Not everyone does, but I like to listen to the work on CD with the score in hand," he explained.

"The recording I’ve been using is the Vernon Handley one, but I won’t do everything exactly as he does it. I haven’t heard my ideal performance yet — maybe the 14th May will be it! It should certainly be an exciting occasion."

Apart from getting to know the work intimately, Tocher’s aim is to try to identify sections that might prove difficult and will need time spent on them in rehearsal.

"Then you go along to the first rehearsal and see how that goes. From that you can see where problem passages are going to be," he continued. "For myself the biggest challenge is perhaps the fluidity of the music and getting the speeds and changes of speed right.

"Elgar is notorious for covering his scores with little instructions to speed up here and slow down there in a very detailed way and I’m trying to follow all of those instructions.

"For the choir the challenge is a lot of notes and a lot of words and some of them come at you very fast. There are passages where it splits into a lot of parts and that always needs careful rehearsing. And of course expression is always an issue — it is crucial to sing it with the right kind of feeling and communicate it to the audience."

Tocher’s own music will be heard in two concerts by the Highland Chamber Orchestra later in the month, in Ullapool (21st May) and Dornoch (22nd May).

His "Romanian Fantasy for Taragot and Strings" will feature James Ross as soloist on the clarinet-like Hungarian instrument.

His piece will share the programme in the orchestra’s self-styled "musical Grand Tour" with Mozart’s Overture from his opera "La Clemenza de Tito", Dag Wiren’s "Serenade for Strings" from Sweden, and Bohemian composer Vaclav Vorisek’s "Symphony in D".

Lovers of choral music will also have the opportunity to catch another local choir in action at Strathpeffer Pavilion tomorrow, when the Dingwall and District Choral Society tackle a work that featured in the Inverness Choral’s programme two years ago, Brahms’ "German Requiem".

Inverness Choral perform Elgar’s "The Dream of Gerontius" at the Empire Theatre, Eden Court, on Saturday 14th May.

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