Wilus
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Feb 13, 2007, 1:52 PM
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Tolhurst's Ruth: The Worst Oratorio in the World!
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Friday 09 March 2007 at 20:00
Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge
£10 (£5) on the door
George Tolhurst: Ruth
Stephen Cleobury, conductor
Jenny Bacon, soprano
Cassandra Extavour, soprano
Lindsay Bramley, mezzo-soprano
Ian Kennedy, tenor
David Somerville Wright, baritone
The Tolhurst Festival Singers
William Falconer, piano
Francis Knights, piano
Yes, it really is happening - the Worst Oratorio in the World, George Tolhurst's Ruth, is being performed in Cambridge on Friday 9th March under the baton of Stephen Cleobury. Ruth was first performed in Melbourne Australia in 1864 and in London a few years later. It was swiftly recognised to be a unique work: S S Wesley used to peruse his copy whenever he needed cheering up, Elgar described it as a "fountain of joy" and Donald Tovey was once thrown out of the British Museum Reading Room for laughing too loudly when consulting the score. A society existed in Oxford in the 1950s and 60s for the sole purpose of performing it every three years after a jolly good dinner, and it was put on in the Albert Hall in 1973 by the Royal Academy of Music to celebrate their hundred and fiftieth anniversary under the baton of Antony Hopkins. We believe this will be the Cambridge premiere - if anyone else has performed it here, they are not saying.
This performance of the greatest masterpiece of the McGonagall of music is being mounted in aid of Comic Relief.
georgetolhurst@yahoo.com
01223 843823
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