One of the biggest problems with belonging to a choir is that most of the music we sing is religious, and I'm not. Mostly, it doesn't matter too much because our staples are well-known works which have passed the test of time because the music is good: J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Vivaldi and Verdi constitute a large percentage of our output.
In complete contrast, last night we had a run-through of Stainer's "Crucifixion", an especially dire work from the Victorian era which the composer wrote specifically so that it should be accessible to parish church choirs (ie the music isn't taxing). Even John Stainer himself described it as "rubbish", which demonstrates that he did have a good side. The problem is that many choir members are there as an adjunct to their faith and they think that singing is somehow going to place them closer to the Almighty.
Most of the time this doesn't really matter. But when Easter approaches, the "Passion" music abounds. For the past few weeks, we have been singing Bach's St. John Passion, which is an absolutely wonderful work with some of the finest choral writing ever. Last night, we had a run-through of Stainer's Crucifixion. It really brings it home to you how thoroughly unpleasant is the celebration of the torture and slow agonising death of an innocent man. When it's Bach, the music is so wonderful that you can put the sheer nastiness at the back of your mind, and of course there's always the option of singing it in German, which in a Zoom rehearsal you can, and no-one else notices. But with the Stainer, you can't. I'm afraid that its continued performance almost 150 years after its composition is largely down to the fact that a significant number of choir members have developed a faith which is completely out of proportion to, and probably at the expense of, any good taste they might have had.
