BCS live

In 2003 members of Basildon Choral Society travelled to Germany, performing in churches in Northern Bavaria. It was our second visit there - and, like the previous, a highly successful one. It gave us an opportunity to perform for the third time a piece that we "rediscovered" in the British Library: Gounod's "Stabat Mater".

We had seen the piece listed on the National Federation of Music Societies catalogue, yet no-one could advise us where to obtain scores. A search of the archives of the British Library showed that they had copies of both the choral and orchestral scores and a reproduction of each was requested. The original publisher was Choudens, yet a phone call gave the clear impression they no longer had an archive copy, let alone knew where copies for a choir to use could be obtained. As the score was out of copyright, permission was sought for copying from the British Library who assented.

It is a highly theatrical piece that manages to cram drama and passion into the ten minutes before its uplifting finale. Here is a recording of one performance we gave of Gounod's "Stabat Mater" .

On that same tour we also performed a series of other pieces including Purcell's "Thou Knowest Lord" and Bruckner's "Locus Iste" .

All recordings are in MP3 format. Please enjoy.

P.S. Since last performing the Stabat Mater, searches on Google have thrown up various references to both the piece and (very) occasional recent performances, including in France, Germany the USA and the Basque region of Spain. If you have more detailed information on either the piece itself or performances, please email the webmaster at ben@basildonchoral.org .