The Cathedral Choir 1
WE were a musical family, singing round the piano most nights. Norwich Cathedral is an impressive place, the choir is prestigious.
August 1949, aged 8, I am in the song school for a voice test to join the choir. Eleven other hopefuls and I are ranged round the piano Just two would be chosen.
One boy sang ‘Away in a manger’, another ‘There is a green hill’ - and so on.
I didn’t know any hymns or carols, so I volunteered ‘Vilia’ from ‘The Merry Widow’.
“You’ll never make it.” They all said afterwards.
But I did! I joined the Choir!
- Category: True Stories Told As Fiction
3 comments add one below
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Neville Hunt over 3 years ago
Vilia? oh, Vilia! You must have been bewitched! I remember those round the piano sing-songs... and how at Christmas they became more like pling-plongs after the parsnip wine!
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Neville Hunt over 3 years ago
I particularly remember a particularly fine composition of yours for piano strings, not keys, sat on the floor (post parsnip), accompanied by Beech Nut Gum. It was Étude in A (chewed). Little wonder such a child prodigy had got into the cathedral choir!
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Richard Hunt over 3 years ago
Yes, I wrote another study, ‘Study in A flat minor’, but it rather fell on it’s face when there was a serious incident at a coal mine near Doncaster.
