I'm a keen singer of choral music, both sacred and secular, usually in
small ensembles.  (A recent exception was singing Mahler 8th in Bath in
May!).  My next outing is services at Salisbury Cathedral on Sunday July
30th.  I'd be interested to see more discussion of choral music.  I'm not
so well versed in the Elgar part songs, though I recently had a look at 'My
love dwelt in a northern land'.  (Interestingly, Elgar set an early version
of these words by Andrew Lang - when Lang revised them, amongst other
things, the beloved changed sex and the word 'his' in the last line became
'my'!)

The large choral society tradition in England is still strong in certain
regions (as I suppose it always was).  It seemed to flourish in Manchester
when I lived there in the mid 90's.  At any rate, I assumed this was the
reason why the chamber choir scene in Manchester was so limited - such
choirs as there were had vacancies only rarely (at least for sopranos) and
there were large overlaps between choirs so that few people in total were
involved.  I didn't have a regular place in a small choir there - despite
trying to audition for three years!  - while in Bath and Bristol I've been
able to pick and choose between small choirs where I feel at home.

Virginia Knight
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http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/~ggvhk/virginia.html