• BIV1958

The 9th Intervarsity Choral Festival: BRISBANE, 28 May-5 June

Camp Venue: Tallebudgera National Fitness Camp, Gold Coast
Participants: SUMS, QUMS, MUCS

COMMITTEE

QUMS Committee

CONCERT

5 June, Brisbane City Hall Conductor: Gordon Spearritt, Fritz Rice, Harold Badger, Charles Colman, Bruce Ackland, Hugh Brandon Program: Purcell Te Deum (combined); Byrd Mass for Four Voices (SUMS);Fauré Requiem (excerpts, MUCS); Josquin De Profundis (Psalm130), Victoria Pueri Hebraorum (SUMS); Gombert Le chant des oiseaux (MUCS); Ireland These things shall be (combined), Gaudeamus Igitur. Notes: Org: Noel Clark; horns and trumpets [Fauré] courtesy of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. Purcell and Fauré sung from memory. Review: Robert Dalley-Scarlett, “ ’Varsity Festival a ‘lesson to choirs’”, Courier-Mail, 6 June 1958, p.8. “The Inter-Varsity Choral Festival in the City Hall last night would have provided an object lesson to our senior choirs had they been present to profit from it. There were no outstanding voices among the singers. Admirable results, however, were obtained by a high degree of both concentration and musical intelligence.”

• Roger Covell, “Inter-Varsity Choral Festival in Brisbane”, Australian Musical News, vol.49, no.1 (July 1958), pp.24-25. “After a week of rehearsals in a holiday setting, students gathered … to present the ninth annual inter-varsity choral concert. It was of major interest, though naturally of mixed standards. The most satisfactory performance of a large-scale work was that given by the Sydney group under Fritz Rice … the standard of cohesion and balance was high, and the choir showed itself to be extremely responsive to the conductor’s directions. This last was a mixed blessing … Purcell’s Te Deum was not an overwhelming success … the work very definitely needs its original instrumentation. Gordon Spearritt’s direction of the combined choirs was of the standard we expect from this fine musician, but the performance might have been improved by singing of altogether greater vigour and, in some cases, by faster speeds. Apart from excessively pale choral singing, the Melbourne University group’s performance … offered much pleasure. Charles Colman conducted the Sydney group to moderate effect … and secured a fine but insufficiently yeasty performance [more beer, more beer (Ed.)]”.

OTHER COMMENT

Proceeds of the festival went toward the £20,000 organ fund for the University’s as-yet-unbuilt Great Hall at St Lucia. Concert tapes sent to Festival Records for duplication on two discs. Photograph in Courier-Mail, 29 May 1958, p.1.