Reviews

Candlelight Christmas Concert

Haverfordwest Ladies Choir performed their Candlelight Christmas Concert in St. Mary’s Church on Friday 14th December, under the baton of Nancy Mann, and with the accompaniment of Gerald Nicholas, in aid of the Restoration Appeal.

In the still of the church, with lighting kept to a subdued level and the acoustics as fine as ever, the sound of just over 20 choristers was, as always, a very pure one, at times quite haunting. The choir’s presentation ranged from traditional favourites, Welsh, French and American, arranged often by Dr. Mann herself, through to Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ and, right along the spectrum, Handel’s ‘Joy to the world’.

One pleasing feature of this particular concert was that the choir did not, as is so often done, call upon a body of outside performers and soloists, but relied, for all of the evening’s variations, upon a talented body of associates: several individual choir members, one husband and one son.

The main instrumental soloists were Tony Morris (violin) and Robert Mann (viola) who offered very atmospheric renderings of ‘Winter’, from Vivaldi’s The four seasons, and of the Mel Tormé/Robert Wells piece ‘The Christmas song’. Tony joined the choir in Hairston’s ‘Mary’s boy child’, while Robert joined recorder players Carol Mayhew and Inka Lesinska and percussionist Anne Davies, in John Rutter’s arrangement of the French carol ‘He is born the divine Christ child’

Carol Mayhew made an extremely impressive début as soprano soloist with the Czech carol ‘Rocking’ and Adam’s ‘O holy night’, while her chorister colleague, mezzo-soprano Marian Graceson gave fine performances of Head’s ‘The little road to Bethlehem’ and Thiman’s ‘The carol of the birds’. Later in the evening, Carol and Marian performed a duet on Hadley‘s ‘I sing of a maiden’. The relatively sombre tone of that piece then led into a joyous finale as the choir concluded with Teena Chinn’s arranged compilation, ‘Snow! A winter celebration’, ‘White Christmas’, for which the accompaniment was played by Gerald and Inka, and Flatau’s ‘The Christmas bells’.   

Finally, to a concluding chorus of ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’, an appreciative audience moved to the West end of the church for mulled wine, mince pies and a very sociable end to an evening of good music and fellowship.

Robert Nisbet