Review of Easter Concert 2025 at Eyam
It was a winning combination: some peerless Spring weather to light up the early evening sky, Eyam’s historic parish church to serve as the backdrop, and an inspired selection of choral and solo music to fire the emotions. Such was Baslow Choir’s Spring Concert performed to a full house eager to put aside for a while all thought of the unceasing flow of gloomy events in the wider world. We were not disappointed.
Dolly Watkins OBE, the choir’s chair, set the mood with her cheery welcome. And then they were off!
The star of the concert was undoubtedly the multi-talented Rachel Abbott. She excels as a soprano and a powerful stage presence. With her strong voice, and crystal-clear intonation, she moved effortlessly between the solemnity of Handel (two of his finest arias from Messiah and another from his Rodelinda) and Mendelssohn (Hear ye, Israel from Elijah) in the first half, and, in the second half, some light entertainment with excerpts from those well-known musicals, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel and The King and I and Lloyd Webber’s Cats, ending with an hilarious hit in The girl in 14G by Scanlan and Tesori. It was all great stuff and the audience loved it.
This is not to overlook the choir. The first half began with a very early work, a Kyrie, by the twenty-one year-old Puccini: so different in style from the mature operatic composer of later years. The choir then got fully into its stride with three choruses from Messiah, a work it knows and sings so well. Later in the half, the choir treated us to a performance of César Franck’s wonderful Panis Angelicus followed by some Mendelssohn. Mozart’s very moving Ave verum came a little later and then, to round off this part of the evening, a little-known but jolly choral work by Holst called Turn back, O man.
The second half resumed with a contemporary work new to your reviewer: Upon your heart by Eleanor Daley. The choir obviously loved singing it and the audience response showed that this enthusiasm was shared. Bruckner’s glorious Locus iste followed, then some Bach (featuring a delightful organ accompaniment) and then back to Vienna for some Brahms.
After Rachel had treated us to her musical merry-making, it was back to the choir with a Stainer chorus, a marvellous hymn by Samuel Wesley and Bach’s ever-moving Jesu, joy of man’s desiring. The evening was rounded off with that magnificent affirmation of faith in The heavens are telling from Haydn’s Creation. Three members of the choir, Laura Elsworth, Glyn Heron and Peter Skinner, singing in perfect balance, provided the inner chorus, while the remainder of the choir (reinforced by Rachel) provided the general chorus. It was a joyous sound.
As ever, the evening was guided by the affable presence of the choir’s conductor, Andrew Marples, ably assisted by Carol Barnes on the piano and Andrew Cummings on the organ.
Emerging from the church into the dark and chilly night air after it was all over, the sense of worldly gloom pressed in once more: the spell of the previous two hours was broken, but not quite… The heavens were still “telling” in one’s head as both a prayer and an uplifting reminder of a quite splendid evening.
Bill Blackburne