Passion-filled evening begins Christmas

CHRISTMAS started last Wednesday night in Warwick thanks to an extraordinarily enthusiastic presentation of carols, festive season-related stories and the outstanding singing of Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium.

As ever, Julian Harris, founder and conductor of the Saint James’s choir, found time to involve Ali and David Troughton as the storytellers and led his accomplished team through an ambitious selection of works by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Guy Woolfenden (present in the audience), Walford Davis, plus several of Harris’s own arrangements, notably the beautiful, A Mother’s Lullaby.

Hillary Mills and Neil Richards distinguished themselves amongst a very reliable number of soloists thanks, in no small measure, to Adrian Moore’s sympathetic work at the organ. But for their skill in delivering word perfect, compelling stories, the prize must go to the Troughtons. Oscar Wilde, Tolstoy, Laurie Lee and Gerald Manley Hopkins all came under their influence. Their involvement with the choir while reading the words of John Julius Norwich for Harris’s arrangement of The Twelve Days of Christmas was the amusing highlight of the evening.

As we stood to sing O Come All Ye Faithful at the end of a passion-filled two hours, there was a genuine sense of having been uplifted, most especially by the choir’s memorable version of O Magnum Mysterium – the story which depicts the birth of the new-born King among the animals and shepherds. What better way to start Christmas.

Clive Peacock