How Waverley Singers Overcame a Difficult Problem of Acoustics in the Cathedral

This Waverley Singers’ concert in Guildford Cathedral on Saturday, 21 March, certainly lived up to its name. Full disclosure: your reviewer is a member of the choir and was part of the performance, so this is not an independent account but an attempt to share the joy of the occasion. If you were at the concert, feel free to leave a review in the comments, below; we’d love to hear from you!

The removal of asbestos-contaminated plaster from the ceiling vaults of the Cathedral in 2015-17 had an unsurprising but significant impact on the acoustic of the building. Thereafter, the sound reverberated around the nave and became jumbled, with words often hard to make out. As a result, the Cathedral lost much of its appeal as a venue to music groups.

However, this concert showed that, with the right choice of repertoire, the Cathedral remains a superb concert venue. The choir’s Music Director, Richard Pearce, had carefully chosen pieces, by JS Bach and Ralph Vaughan Williams, that would benefit from its resonant acoustic. The former composer, as the concert programme reminded us, needs little introduction. We can all take some pride in the latter, as he grew up and spent much of his life in Surrey! He lived at Leith Hill, near Dorking, and was a student at Charterhouse. The Leith Hill Music Festival was started by his sister, and for nearly fifty years he was the Festival Conductor. His writing is unfussy, but extraordinarily profound and atmospheric, and again to quote our programme, he is “recognised as the most important English composer of his generation”.

The concert opened with Vaughan Williams’ Te Deum in G, scored for choir and organ, followed by Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor played by organist Philip Scriven. The first half closed with Paul Drayton’s arrangement for choir and solo violin of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, where the choir accompanied violinist Elizabeth Cooney. In the second half the choir sang Vaughan Williams’ haunting Mass in G Minor, interspersed with Elizabeth Cooney playing movements from Bach’s Violin Sonata no 1 in G Minor.

All the pieces, in very different ways, were admirably suited to the Cathedral acoustic, which also allowed Philip Scriven to demonstrate the extraordinary virtuosity of the organ: now thundering out the finale of the Passacaglia and Fugue so that, sitting right underneath the pipes, one could only marvel at the sheer majesty of the sound; now precisely mimicking some of the solo parts in The Lark Ascending in a way that had one looking round to see where the sound came from.

Choir and audience were treated to a virtuoso performance by Elizabeth Cooney on the violin. Even if one is familiar with The Lark Ascending, it was still a privilege to hear it played so exquisitely in such an appropriate setting; the final cadenza, as the lark floats ever higher, perhaps heavenwards, and the violin fades into silence, was truly breathtaking. For the choir, providing the accompaniment by singing the underlying parts normally played by the orchestra, was an extraordinary way to experience the music. The short video, below, captures the beginning and end of the performance, and a trailer for a podcast interview with Elizabeth, in which she talks about the magic of the piece, is available here.

The Mass in G Minor is another wonderful work, but not an easy one to sing, especially in an unfamiliar setting. As Richard Pearce commented after the event: “Doing a 25-minute unaccompanied piece in 12 parts including solo quartet takes some doing with no professional stiffening, and I think everyone should be proud of the achievement.” It certainly wasn’t error-free, but the audience was more interested in the overall effect, and the comments after the event were gratifying: “The violinist was amazing. The acoustics of the choir in the Cathedral were also fabulous.” “Absolutely hitting perfection in the Cathedral acoustics.” “Wonderful programming for a difficult acoustic…what a joy!” When Elizabeth started playing the first movement of the Violin Sonata from behind the audience in the centre of the nave, it was another spine-tingling moment.

At each of its concerts the Waverley Singers gives its audience the opportunity to support a local or national charity. This time it was Oakleaf, a Guildford-based organisation working in mental health. Their Deputy CEO Annalise Baker made a fine appeal after the interval, which so far has raised over £650 in donations.

Although the Waverley Singers is based in Farnham, the choir greatly enjoys performing in Guildford, and we will be back on 17 April 2027 to perform Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Holy Trinity Church in the High Street – a fantastic opportunity to sing and to hear one of the truly great works in the choral repertoire. We would be delighted to welcome new singers to perform with us at this event! Further details about us are on our website here.