ON SONG: The York choir that's still going strong aged 91

William Payne, Alf Boston and Harry Tallantyne, all in their 40s, were amongst a small group who had taken to meeting in the front room of a modest terraced house in Leeman Road to sing songs around the piano.

According to the story always told, they weren't particularly good singers. But they wanted to get better.

The man they were going to for help was 31-year-old Cecil Fletcher. He wasn't a professional musician - he seems to have been a grocer turned travelling salesman. But he played the violin, and was a member of a well-known York concert party called 'The Follies'.

Cecil seems to have enthusiastically agreed about the need for a new choir: and even persuaded three fellow-members of The Follies to join. The members of the fledgling Leeman Road Adult School Male Voice Choir (forerunner of today's York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir) got together on a Monday evening not long after - and Monday remains the choir's rehearsal date to this day.

The choir in 1935, at a tea organised by Arnold Rowntree to celebrate its 10th anniversary

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted that all this took place 91 years ago this year. To mark that very special anniversary, the choir's publicity officer Colin Hockridge has now brought out a book, Sound Fellows, recounting the choir's history.

Erm, hang on. On the 91st birthday?

Well, he actually started writing it for the choir's 90th birthday, Colin admits. It just took a little longer to finish than expected...

It's a timely book nonetheless. There has never before been a proper history of the 'Phil', as the choir is popularly known. Today, it is probably best known to most York people for the annual Carols in Kirkgate, and the regular concerts it gives locally across the city. But make no mistake - this is one top-notch choir.

It established its reputation early on, winning a hatful of regional competitions in the 1930s and becoming one of the top choirs in the north of England. It went through a dark patch after the war, but by 1970 was right back on top, winning a BBC Radio 3 'Let The People Sing' competition, and subsequently going on to represent Great Britain internationally.

Choir members sing in the undercroft at the Merchant Adventurers' Hall

Just the year before that Radio 3 triumph, the choir had taken part in a week-long concert tour of Germany and Holland - including a visit to York's twin town of Munster - and earned rave reviews. According to a report in the Yorkshire Evening Press, one German music critic wrote: "Whether they were singing spirituals or humorous folk songs the choir from York presented everything polished to the last detail, and with a musical flexibility and vocal suppleness which defies comparison."

So popular was the choir during the tour that, while in Munster, they were asked to perform everywhere - including at a supermarket, in local churches, and in the town's guildhall. "The hospitality was fantastic and overwhelming," the choir's chairman John Nattrass told The Pres son their return. "It was so spontaneous that you felt you had to rise to the occasion so as not to disappoint."

The choir has been rising to the occasion ever since. It has continued to win competitions at home - picking up no fewer than five trophies in one day at the 85th Morecambe Festival in 1989 - while wowing audiences across the country and abroad. Choir members have sung several times at the Royal Albert Hall, as well as in some of Europe's finest cathedrals - Rheims, Rouen, Dijon and Strasbourg among them.

With some of the trophies won at the 1989 Morecambe Festival

A proper history was long overdue, therefore. And Colin Hockridge - a top tenor and soloist, as well as the choir's publicity officer - is the perfect person to have written it. He's been a choir member for more than 50 years, having first sung with it in 1975. "In fact my first concert was the 50th anniversary!" he says. "I'm hoping I'll be there for the centenary!"

So what is it about singing with a choir that is so special?

It's hard to put into words, he says - before doing so beautifully.

"There is something very particular when it is going well. You're sharing in a relationship with the group around you, and when you know it is going well, and the audience tells you it is going well, it is just a magical moment. You get an immense satisfaction."

Colin's history is detailed and authoritative, covering the period from the choir's very first beginnings right through to 2015. But it is never dull. The book is packed with old photographs, newspaper cuttings (many of them from the Yorkshire Evening Press) and extracts from letters and memoirs that bring the choir's history to life.

Colin hasn't restricted himself to writing only about the Phil, either. He's set out to give a broader view of the musical scene in York, too. Which means he's been able to include an extract from the memoirs of Archie Sargent, who was conductor of the Rowntree Choral Society during the war. It makes for powerful reading.

"The Rowntree choir were asked to give a concert in one of the halls in the city, without any precise knowledge of the type of audience to whom they would sing," Archie wrote.

"We reached the hall and...it was almost filled with refugees who had just, and only just, escaped Hitler's clutches.

"The only clothes they had were those in which they were dressed. They looked utterly dejected, without a hope in the world, and it was to these we had to sing...

"Before each song was sung, an interpreter gave to the audience in the tongue of our visitors the words being sung, and they followed the programme with great intensity, receiving each item with tremendous enthusiasm.

"At the conclusion, after thanks had been expressed, a spokesman came to the front and shook hands with me. As we looked at one another, the evil and futility of war reduced us to the inarticulate."

Could there me a more moving example of the extraordinary power of music to reach out and offer comfort?

• Sound Fellows: The Story of the York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir by Colin Hockridge is available, priced £19.99, from Amazon or by calling 07955 764773 or emailing publicity@yorkphilchoir.org.uk
• York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir rehearsals resume on Monday September 5 at 7.30pm in the former Salvation Army citadel in Gillygate. New members are always welcome. "Just turn up!" says Colin Hockridge.
• The choir's next concerts are at St Margaret Clitherow RC Church in Haxby on September 23 and at The Guildhall on October 8.
• More information about the choir from www.yorkphilchoir.org.uk/

Hitting the high notes

Stephen Lewis attended a rehearsal of the York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir in February 2011. Here's how he began his report of the evening...

IN THE fine main hall of York’s Central Methodist Church, more than 40 male voices are raised in glorious, full-throated song. The tenors lead the way, voices soaring high.

“I don’t ask for easy living, Gold and pearls are not for me, But I crave a heart of goodness….”

The basses and baritones kick in, creating harmonies that vibrate deep in the chest and seem about to lift the roof off: “…which will lead to Thee”.

It is a Welsh hymn they are singing – Calon Lan, or ‘Heart So Pure’, one of those tunes that lifts the hairs on the back of your neck.

The harmonies swell again, rising to a crescendo: “Only hearts like this keep singing, Through life’s darker, sadder hours.”

I can feel my jaw dropping, my skin prickling. There’s a warmth, a completeness to the sound, especially up close like this, that is almost overwhelming. The tenors soar again, the bass notes rumbling beneath, the massed voices lifting and rising, swelling and interlacing. And then –

“ – No!!” calls out conductor and musical director Berenice Lewis, clapping imperiously to bring that glorious sound to a juddering halt. She gives the men standing in ranks before her a withering glance.

Berenice Lewis rehearsing the choir in 2011

“Just a little bit slack in terms of pitch,” she tells them. “Please don’t be complacent about this.”

She gives them an impromptu demonstration of what she wants, of how to open their throats to get the right sound.

“It’s not like talking,” she says. “Relax the throat, open up the back of the mouth as though you’re yawning….” – she gives a wide yawn herself to demonstrate – “keep the space big, the roof of the mouth high, the tongue down, so you get that lovely, resonant space.”

They start again, the sound if anything even more stirring than before, rounded and warm and thrilling. But this time Berenice isn’t satisfied with the pacing.

“No,” she calls, clapping again. “Good heavens, will you stop moving so quickly...”