Farncombe Estate's Open Day included a presentation on the forthcoming West Gallery weekend course on June 24th-26th 2011.

The presentation answered such questions as:

• What is West Gallery music?
• Why is it being so enthusiastically revived?
• What will happen at the course?
• For what singers and instrumentalists is the course suitable?

The presentation was illustrated by CDs of the repertoire, an exhibition of printed and manuscript music, quotations from contemporary literary sources, and a PowerPoint presentation.

We tried singing the anonymous anthem My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord, which is one of the many West Gallery settings in three parts, and suitable for choirs with a shortage of male singers. This went pretty well, and was more or less sight read first time by the singers present. Then we tried Grace, 'tis a charming sound to Cranbrook by Thomas Clark (1775-1859). This didn't prove so easy, but we made a reasonable attempt in the available time. (Cranbrook is the West Gallery tune that everybody knows already.)

Francis Roads
francis.roads@gmail.com.