When the Messiah comes to Yorkshire

In search of England

INN THE hall of Greenhead College, 167 assorted men

and women are singing in perfect unison, ‘Aah! Eeh!

Aah! Eeh!’ As they work their way up the scales, their

enthusiasm visibly increases. Smiles widen. Heads

are held higher still. The joy ahead — of which the

vocal chords are being prepared — is a rehearsal of the Messiah. The Huddersfield Choral Society is preparing to perform Handel’s great Christmas Oratorio.

The Society has been practicing on Friday nights ever since 1836 when 16 men met in The Plough in Westgate to draw up rules for a fellowship of serious singers. Members who arrived late for rehearsals were to be fined sixpence. The penalty for interruptions was two shillings. But every participant was allowed ‘ to give his opinion after the performance of any piece of music, provided he does so in a responsible, friendly and becoming manner’.

There seems no reason why Huddersfield should not go on singing into the next century. Unlike so many ancient institutions, the Choral Society still attracts young people.

Before last Friday’s main rehearsal, a select group from the Youth Choir (ages 13 to 21) and Young Voices (seven to 13) practises in a back room. They will take part in the Society’s New Year recording of hymns. A mother of one of the choristers, sitting nervously at the back, detected a whisper and hissed ‘Shush’. Interrupting the music is still a grave offence.

The Youth Choir and Young Voices sound like angels. Yet they were, at least in appearance, ordinary children from the youth club at the end of the street.

One boy wore an England football shirt with ‘ Terry’ and number seven on the back. A teenage girl — with a dragon emblazoned on her black T- shirt — completed the kung fu image with studded wristbands.

When the main rehearsal began, she sat at the back waiting for her mother to drive her home. And while she waited, she read, never taking her eyes off the page. Do not judge young people by appearances alone.

Both rehearsals were under the general control of James Cullen, a distinguished chorus master who laboured under the disadvantage of being Scottish.

At one point he made an heroic, and surprisingly successful, attempt to eliminate aspects of the Yorkshire dialect which have characterised the county for a thousand years. ‘Wonderful. Not Wunderful.’ The Huddersfield Choral Society practised changing the shape of their mouths in order to produce a more cultivated noise.

There was no doubt that the Society members enjoyed their evening. They sing for pure pleasure. Never the less, they were deadly serious in their pursuit of perfection — it has a worldwide reputation to maintain.

EXT spring, the Society

tours the Czech Republic

and then, in the summer,

goes on to Japan. The

Messiah has become its trademark — its fame boosted by the years in which Sir Malcolm Sergeant rushed up from London, complete with carnation in his button hole, to conduct one of the performances.

But it is only part of the Huddersfield repertoire. Stephen Brook, the president, does not want his Society to be thought of as a one- oratorio choir. But Christmas is for the Messiah.

When the Society was founded, most of its members had distinct political and religious leanings. They were profoundly opposed to the Radicalism which prompted local Luddites to smash looms in the hope that they could hold back time and protect jobs by preventing the mechanisation of the water mills.

And they were active Christians. But the machines came and the jobs went, although an undercurrent of religion still runs through the society. The Reverend Rachel Thomas, a Methodist minister from Sheffield, sells her jam at the back of the hall with ‘ all proceeds to charity’.

JOSEPH CULLEN reminded the Youth Choir and the Young Voices that more people watch Songs Of Praise on a Sunday evening than attend football matches on a Saturday afternoon.

The fervour remains. When the whole Society stands to sing the Hallellulah Chorus — score held at arm’s length and spines erect — there is something about the sound it produces which would not be out of place at a revivalist service.

But there is no doubt that its quality is the result of hard work. Jim Cowell (bass and choirmaster) agreed with Susan Kirby (contralto and member of a church choir) that the secret of the Choral Society’s success was its ability ‘to bring out the best’ in its members by constant practice.

Most of the members have sung together for years. And it was clear, at the Society’s Friday rehearsal, that Handel’s Messiah was an old friend that they revisit each Christmas.

But the enthusiasm to do even better remained. And the joy they found in singing was as fresh as if they had just found their voices.

The Messiah is the ideal preparation for the right sort of Christmas. It was written to bring Glad Tidings to Zion. And now each year brings magnificent singing from Huddersfield.