Portsmouth Baroque Choir mark anniversary at Festival of Chichester

The concert will feature a number of verse anthems accompanied by a consort of viols on Saturday, July 5 at 7pm at Christ Church, Old Market Avenue, Chichester, PO19 1SW under musical director Malcolm Keeler. Tickets £14 and £12 via The Novium.

“One of the reasons for doing the concert is that it falls exactly a month after the 400th anniversary of his death,” Malcolm says, “and I do have a habit of programming concerts for composers’ anniversaries. It helps you with the planning. We did a very similar concert about 12 years ago. We are performing a selection of his verse anthems and a couple of full anthems and a couple of secular pieces as well, and just for a bit of variety it will include a handful of other pieces by other composers of the period in a similar style. The USP for the concert is that we will have a consort of viols accompanying.

“Gibbons was slightly later than Tallis and Byrd but he was commented on as being the best finger in England. He was a very notable keyboard player in his time. Some of the pieces are still sung by cathedral choirs quite regularly. Anybody that sings madrigals will know The Silver Swan, and one or two of his verse anthems are sung regularly

“It is delightful music. It is beautifully put together and flows very nicely. It is good fun. You'd be hard pushed to find anybody who would say ‘I didn't enjoy singing that.’ It's so well constructed. The music is not as challenging as 20th or 21st century pieces would be. The harmonic language is very well known, and most of the pieces are supported by viol or organ which helps the singer. We have had no difficulty learning the notes.”

The concert comes at a good time for the choir: “We are doing OK. We've got a reasonably strong soprano line at the moment. Three of my regulars are missing so I've drafted in a few friends, and for the alto line we've got a couple of people that are returning. We're doing OK.”

And this at a time when other choirs are disappearing, for instance the St Richard Singers in Chichester: “We are doing alright.”

And they are delighted to come to Chichester where, as Malcolm says, they generally get a better audience than they do back home in Portsmouth: “I think people in Chichester come out to support classical music. I think we've now done three years of concerts for the Festival Chichester and we love coming to Chichester.”