From the sweeping grandeur of Canterbury Cathedral to the intimacy of Eliot College in just five days: music at the University gets everywhere.  

The soirée musicale last Thursday in Eliot Senior Common Room saw a packed audience of staff, students and guests entertained by Scholars and musical staff and students in an evening of French music. Repertoire ranged from the high-art chansons of Fauré and Saint-Saëns via the tenderness of Poulenc’s Sonata for Oboe,  an Italian evening on the Grand Canal in Belle Nuit (Barcarolle) from Offenbach, to the contemporary, gutsy blues of Regarde les Riches. The University Clarinet Quartet tripped deftly through Chaminade’s Danse Créole, whilst other woodwind duets featured players, who had the week before filled the Cathedral, in works by Fauré, Poulenc and Bizet.  

An eight-part vocal consort drew the performance to a close with a traditional French folk-song arrangement, and also let in the only imposter of the evening, Morten Lauridsen, with his setting of En Une Seule Fleur. Well, fair enough: Lauridsen is a rising star of the American choral scene, but it was a setting of a poem by Rilke, and it is something of a showpiece for singers as well, so it was allowed. (So there.) 

The enthusiastic audience included many donors and benefactors who support the University’s Music Scholarships as well as all its music-making, and this was a great opportunity to thank them for their continuing support.  

Thank you to Michael Hughes, Master of Eliot College, for the invitation to perform, and to Meredith Johnson, the Master’s Assistant, for co-ordinating the lavish buffet which followed to the delight of all, especially these three ladies…