It all started on a very wet Saturday at the end of June when St Paul’s Church was filled to capacity for ‘Music for a Summer Evening’ provided by Chipperfield Choral Society. Alan Taylor conducted the choir in John Rutter’s arrangement of well-known folk songs ‘The Sprig of Thyme’ and Duncan Byrne added his marvellous tenor voice to ‘Is my team ploughing?’ by George Butterworth. The choir then sang a selection of songs from Leonard Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story’ with Duncan Byrne singing a moving version of ‘Maria’. After the interval, the society’s Musical Director, Delia Meehan, took up the baton and the choir sang ‘All through the night’ and works by Elgar and Charles Wood. Our own Rosie Clifford gave a wonderful performance of ‘Danny Boy’ and Duncan Byrne sang ‘The road to the isles’ and ‘Sea Fever’. On the piano, Rosemary Venner gave a superb rendering of the ‘Sailor’s Hornpipe’ in the well-known ‘Fantasia on British Sea Songs’. The evening ended with a real touch of The Last Night of the Proms with the audience joining in with the choir to sing ‘Rule Britannia!’. A thoroughly enjoyable experience!
The following week-end with a change of weather, children of St Paul’s School danced to Rock music at their Summer Fair. Mid-July saw the traditional arrival of the Morris Men for a week-end of dance. Our local Greensleeves Morris Men started the celebrations outside the Two Brewers by dancing round the tree on Friday night. Later there were sounds of sea shanties being sung in the Royal Oak. This year the hosts welcomed the Anker Morris Men from Nuneaton, the Dolphin Morris Men from Nottingham and the Morris Men from Barnsley and Chester City who spent all day on Saturday entertaining our neighbouring villages and on Sunday joined Chipperfield villagers in their open-air service on the Common. Finally, it was dancing all the way to the Windmill!
Later that day there was more music when St Paul’s Church presented an evening of popular classical music. The informal recital commenced with a performance of Mozart’s ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ by the Bowfiddle Strings in which Chipperfield cellist Laura Rose was joined by Natalia Bonner (violin), Karin Newcombe (violin), Naomi Bowles (viola) and Lucy Shaw (double bass). During the evening music by Massanet, Saint-Saens, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Elgar, Rogers & Hammerstein and Guilmant was included. Peter Wild performed on the piano and our own organist, Keith Beniston, gave a stunning performance on the newly rebuilt organ. An outstanding rendering of ‘He’s got the whole world in his arms’ was given by opera singer Hyacinth Nicholls. The evening of music concluded with the Bowfiddle Strings giving a performance of Schubert’s ‘Trout Quartet’.
Music with an Irish flavour was heard in the garden of Burford House the following week-end when the Mosaic Orchestra played while hundreds of visitors viewed the garden. The visitors went on to see the gardens at Doggetts, Lamington House and Mahogany Hall. What a glorious musical summer!
Terry Simmonds