CHIRRUP - January 2025
SPRING 2025
Happy Birthday to us…!
We are 1.. Hooray. Welcome to the fourth edition of Chirrup, the essential regular ramblings of the Harborough Singers. This edition is from Sue Peet, who reflects on the circle of musical life, the choir’s and her own…
By Sue Peet - January 2025
An Unbroken chain
As a teenager I took piano lessons with the choir mistress of our parish church. Given her main musical role, it was inevitable that I would be roped into the church choir at some point. One of my first gigs was a big one, as we took part in a massed church choir event at York Minster, where we performed the classic English choral anthem, ‘O Thou, the Central Orb’ by the composer, Charles Wood. The fact that both the event and the anthem have stayed with me significantly beyond my teenage years is perhaps not surprising given the splendour of the setting and the widely-acknowledged power of music to light up areas of our brain like no other stimuli. So, discovering that the 2025 Harborough Singers cathedral tour was to take place in the ancient Minster, situated at the heart of the historic City of York, felt a little like coming full circle.
Churches and cathedrals make fabulous venues. Of course, the acoustics can vary, the space for a growing choir to fit into can be awkward, the organ itself is likely to have its own idiosyncrasies, and the basic requirements for a large unit of singers on the move (essentially a loo and a kettle) can sometimes be surprisingly tricky to come by. Nevertheless, the parish church provides the mainstay venue for choirs and choral groups the length and breadth of the country. It is always a joy to make music in these spaces, especially if you dig down a little into the history of the place and realise the extent of the financial and human cost expended to bring these great buildings into existence and maintain them over the centuries. And as for the occasional complications that go with the territory of performing in ancient places of worship, it is often the quirks of a particular church that make the occasion memorable for the choir long after the event.
York - Minster and City
Harborough Singers’ next two outings are to a couple of places positively dripping with history. York Minster needs little introduction. The largest medieval gothic cathedral in the UK and a place of worship since the seventh century, the Minster has recovered from three major fires, survived the threat of world wars and witnessed countless significant historical moments across the years. The church at Fotheringhay, although smaller and less well known on the world stage, is another historical powerhouse in its own right. During medieval times, a walk through the village of Fotheringhay would find you virtually tripping over evidence of royal habitation. With its royal castle, the village provided an important seat in which the fortunes of numerous monarchs were played out, along with a mausoleum within the village church which provided the final resting place for some. Moreover, within the walls of the castle at Fotheringhay it is believed that plots were hatched against the King of Scotland and, last but not least, the village is famous for being the place where the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots met her maker at the end of an executioner’s axe.
And then there is the Richard connection. One of Fotheringhay’s most famous sons was the young prince who later became Richard III, born at the castle and spending the first six years of his life within its walls. As an adult, Richard became famous for his role in the Wars of the Roses and, as the figurehead of the Yorkists, was deeply connected with York Minster. Consequently, the choir’s progression between the two venues feels, to some extent, as though we are following in Richard’s footsteps, albeit in reverse chronological order. How could we fail to be excited and inspired by the opportunity to perform in these two wonderful places with their intriguingly interwoven historical threads?
Fotheringhay - 21st June 2025
Yet there is another reason why this season’s singing may leave a lasting impression on those of us fortunate enough to make music in the walls of these great buildings. Our trip to York Minster this spring is not to give a concert. This is not simply a ‘venue’ for us to perform our chosen repertoire to the best of our ability. Instead, over the course of one weekend, the choir will be taking on the role of leading the sung liturgy around which church services are structured and which have been observed for over a thousand years. In the words of its website, “music is the heartbeat for daily life at the Minster,” and the sung services form an unbroken chain from the Minster’s earliest times of worship to the present day. This means that the nub of our role as a visiting choir is to provide a small but essential link in that chain through our singing of anthems, hymns, psalms, chants and responses, across two Evensongs, Matins and a Sunday Eucharist. It is without question a working weekend but, like all the best work, also a labour of love. Our aim is to support each service with care and thoughtfulness, while still finding a moment to look up in wonder at our surroundings.
Come and join in
As ever, our tour will be augmented by family and friends travelling with us to York. As for our wider audience, the summer concert in Fotheringhay provides the first opportunity of 2025 for us to catch up with you once again. Those who have previously attended one of our concerts in Fotheringhay should need no encouragement to join us this June. But if you haven’t yet visited the Church of St Mary and All Saints in its splendid rural setting, then be sure to make it a date. The welcome daylight of June’s long summer days will give you the opportunity to appreciate this fine church for yourself. Arrive in good time and take a moment to ponder Fotheringhay’s far-reaching roots into the soil of Northamptonshire and the histories of both England and Scotland.
We thank our hosts in York and Fotheringhay for inviting us to sing with them and we look forward to welcoming you, our audience, to our concerts this year.