One village, many interpretations of the Hallelujah Chorus

December 24, 2008 11:09 AM

20+ years ago, I heard a recording of the Hallelujah Chorus done by an English village on WFCR. It was horrible. I'd like to hear it again.

My memory was that the recording was played every Christmas morning and that a previous DJ had found it somewhere. The story was that some English village invited everyone with an instrument or a voice to come, handed out the sheet music and played with no rehearsal.

It started out ok, if off pitch, then completely deteriorated before a trombone player blared out the "And he shall live..." part and got everyone back together. There were vocals, too, I think.

Anyone know anything about this? Or where to get a copy?

posted by QIbHom to media & arts (10 comments total)

Not the answer, but possibly helpful:

The story was that some English village invited everyone with an instrument or a voice to come, handed out the sheet music and played with no rehearsal.

This is called a singalong Messiah, or Messiah open sing, and it's pretty common during the Christmas season, so that's probably going to make your hunt harder. They aren't usually recorded, but any that are will probably be of similar quality.
posted by booksandlibretti at 11:29 AM on December 24, 2008

Ah, thank you, booksandlibretti. Charming idea. Even at the time, I was struck by there being enough musical education in a village that they could actually cough up that many instrumentalists. Always been a bit jealous of it, actually.
posted by QIbHom at 11:40 AM on December 24, 2008

I was gonna say, if you (still) lived in the Valley you could go to the upcoming one here and watch (hopefully) a similar trainwreck live. But there are doubtless several in Baltimore too, so do look into that ;)
posted by abcde at 12:02 PM on December 24, 2008

It was likely a recording by the Portsmouth Sinfonia. Not really a simple English ensemble, but brilliantly bad, nonetheless. Recording on YouTube.
posted by imposster at 12:28 PM on December 24, 2008

imposster, that is actually better than I remember, plus I don't remember random applause. Although I'm sure mrbarrett.com will enjoy it. That performance is pretty awful. You've got the start of a post to the blue there, too.

I suspect that booksandlibretti has it. Perhaps it is just as well that I won't be near Hamp for the sing along at St. John's.
posted by QIbHom at 2:39 PM on December 24, 2008

wow QIbHom, is that the recording?
posted by ashaw at 2:56 PM on December 24, 2008

I don't think that is the recording, ashaw. Of course, it is possible that my memory is faulty.

I did check WFCR's web page, and it looks like all syndicated stuff on Christmas morning. Shame. I was hoping they still played it. They probably don't do April Fools' Day news stories anymore, either. One year, they pretended to have a traffic copter. There was a lizard jam in Amherst. It was a riot.
posted by QIbHom at 5:00 PM on December 24, 2008

As I recall, the original version I heard of it was not a live recording. I believe that there is another studio Portsmouth Sinfonia version of this out there. It could still be the version you heard.
posted by imposster at 6:02 PM on December 24, 2008

A WFCR rep said that it was likely on Morning pro musica, hosted by Robert J Lurtsema but that's all they could tell me.
posted by jdfan at 12:51 PM on December 29, 2008

jdfan, that's his name! I was trying to remember it. Yes, Morning pro musica rocked. Thanks.
posted by QIbHom at 6:19 AM on December 30, 2008