Christopher Morley meets the new conductor of Birmingham's oldest choral society...
With its roots traceable to the middle of the 18th century, Birmingham Festival Choral Society enters a new era on Sunday with the first concert conducted by its new music director.
Patrick Larley comes to BFCS with an impressive CV behind him, as composer, organist and keyboard player, singer and conductor of choral societies in Nantwich and Ludlow, and he is aware of the weight of tradition he is taking onto his shoulders.
"There certainly are a few illustrious ghosts hovering," he admits, "not least Mendelssohn himself who conducted the choir in the first performance of his Elijah. My predecessors also include three of England's most famous conductors - Sir Henry Wood, Sir Thomas Beecham and Sir Adrian Boult. So, yes, one does feel that there may be 'eyes and ears' from the past around.
"And as much as anyone I must pay tribute to my (almost) immediate predecessor, Jeremy Patterson, who developed and sustained the choir for some 35 years - a remarkable tenure leaving me a marvellous legacy on which to continue to build.
"Also, for the past 15 years, he has been supported by Anthony Bradbury. Anthony is a fine musician and superb conductor, who finally took over the baton from Jeremy for the 2004-5 season, maintaining the spirit and values of BFCS that have been built over the past century and a half."
While many choral societies around the country and indeed our region are sadly folding, and not just because of the chronic nationwide shortage of tenors, Birmingham Festival Choral Society continues to buck the trend and attract new members. How does its incoming conductor explain this?
"Success breeds success. BFCS has prided itself in presenting stimulating and interesting concert programmes over the years. Alongside its choral standards the choir is prepared to try something a little different. I certainly was attracted by this policy - audiences are, too, and most importantly, singers definitely are.
"The choir certainly gives off a welcoming and friendly persona - so much so that it has given us a different interpretation of the initials BFCS - The 'Big Friendly Choral Society'. Gill and I both felt this from our first meeting with the choir members."
Gill is Mrs Patrick Larley, and the busy maestro pays tribute to the unceasing support she gives him, enabling him to juggle all the commitments he undertakes in his busy life, and keeping his diary organised.
"She is wonderful at making me remember things and meet deadlines. The easy bit is accepting jobs as they are offered - the difficult bit is practising for them - sometimes as a solo tenor, sometimes as a keyboard player and so on.
"As a freelance it is, of course, important to keep as many balls in the air as possible in order to earn a living. The pressure is that when I stand up with a line of soloists - that's what I am - and I have to be just that for that particular evening.
"Audiences make no allowances for the fact that you can also play the harpsichord or conduct a symphony orchestra if you make a hash of that beautiful tenor aria. Keeping all the skills well practised is difficult - but I wouldn't have it any other way. I would consider life to be quite dull if I was only one of these."
The Larley family home is in North Wales, which means Patrick spends a lot of time on the road travelling between engagements.
"It has to be said that my drive through the Shropshire hills - those Blue Remembered Hills - to conduct Ludlow Choral Society on a Tuesday evening is more enjoyable than the M6 around Birmingham on the following evening for BFCS rehearsals.
"I do love driving, though, and the distance poses no problem. We cover the 70 miles in about an hour and a half, and, to date, it has rained for 99 per cent of those journeys - one of them a tornado and storm which flooded the tunnels in the city.
"Birmingham is a city that I didn't really know although I have performed there in a soloist capacity on a handful of occasions and been to the opera at the Hippodrome a few times. The more I see of it, though, the more I like it. There are some fantastic buildings of all periods - great churches, the Town Hall, Symphony Hall, and a good cultural spirit in which the arts can flourish.
Gill and I were both impressed by ArtsFest in September."
On Sunday Patrick Larley conducts the BFCS and the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra in Tippett's great pacifist oratorio A Child of our Time, a work which had already been put into the choir's diary before the change of music director. Larley describes this powerful piece as "a deeply moving work, a true vehicle for Tippett's own poignant libretto."
Now that he is in charge of programming, does he have any plans to alter or extend the BFCS repertoire?
"I am a composer - so the answer to this is yes. There will be some Larley pieces on the horizon.
"It is important to strike the right balance when programming. As I mentioned earlier, audiences do want to experience 'the new' - though not at the total expense of the well-loved and popular works. A concert season must include something for everyone - and I believe that the coming season does just that.
" Themed programmes add another dimension for the listener. Next spring we compare the music of Vaughan Williams with that of the 16th Century - a period which was a source of great inspiration for Vaughan Williams.
"In the summer, at Malvern Priory, a programme of Marian music - Magnificats by Stanford and Howells, one of my own pieces entitled A Girl for the Blue and the bouyant setting of the Latin Magnificat by John Rutter.
"And looking ahead to this time next year - a period instrument performance of Handel's Messiah.
"Nothing ground-breaking here yet, but an interesting and varied musical diet, and I do want to encourage some large-scale unaccompanied singing - next term's Vaughan Williams's Mass in G minor is one such piece, of course. Also the Rachmaninov Vespers, the Latin Magnificat by Stanford for Double Choir and a cycle of Bruckner Motets. I look forward a largescale work for the choir from my own pen, too."
Patrick Larley looks forward to the re-opening of Birmingham Town Hall. "This must surely be BFCS's real home as so many of the memorable performances have taken place there," he declares.
"A performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah in 2009 to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth is an exciting proposition - maybe with the splendid Town Hall organ in true W.T.Best fashion."
* Patrick Larley conducts the Birmingham Festival Choral Society and the Birmingham Philharmonic in Tippett's A Child of Our Timeand Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto no 1 (soloist Cordelia Williams) at the Adrian Boult Hall on Sunday (7.30pm).