5 - The Oundle Phenomenon: Performances of Messiah and the B Minor Mass by the School (1922–3)

Summary

The performance of Messiah shared by the whole school to which F. W. Sanderson referred in Music & Letters took place at Oundle on Sunday, 11 December 1921, and was the subject of an enthusiastic review in the Musical Times the following month. Credit for giving the audience an active part in the performance was attributed there to Clement Spurling, the director of music at the school – though how far this was just an extension of Sanderson's determination that ‘the whole school should take part in choral activity’ remains open to debate. Certainly Spurling was left to achieve a result which had never been anticipated elsewhere and which his counterparts in other schools long came to regard as inimitable.

Once the experiment with Messiah had demonstrated the feasibility of involving the whole school in an elaborate musical performance without hopelessly sacrificing standards, an even more daring adventure followed a year later when Bach's B minor Mass was mounted at Oundle. This proved at least as successful; and thereafter the tradition was maintained with a succession of annual performances of the Christmas Oratorio, Elijah, and several Bach Cantatas, in addition to the two works first performed. For the impact first made by the ‘Oundle Phenomenon’ we turn to the Musical Times review of the original performance. {BR]