OPUS ANGLICANUM

8/8/10, Lamarsh Church

A fund-raiser for the church and a quite unexpected delight. A five-man a capella group plus a reader (a distinguished former World Service announcer, who clambered in stately fashion into the pulpit) in a programme of Love Songs and readings. The latter included Laurie Lee (that cider with Rosie scene), Shakespeare sonnets, Philip Larkin and a wonderful judgement passed in the 19th century on a man who'd behaved badly in the matter of a failing marriage and who was roundly lectured on what he should have done to rid himself of his harridan of a wife (a petition to the House of Lords came into it, I think), before being told that, having failed to take advantage of the (hugely expensive) remedies the law allowed him he was clearly guilty as charged and woud be sentenced to... a day in jail.

The music I can remember less clearly except for the first piece, a modern composition of relentless seriousness, which left the heart sinking. Perhaps the delight was all the greater when it became clear that the rest of the afternoon was going to be infinitely wittier, more tuneful and more pleasurable.