History

​

The choir was founded by Graham Smallbone, Director of Music at Dean Close School, Cheltenham.  The first concert was held at Christ Church, Cheltenham, on Saturday 5 December 1964 with Graham Smallbone conducting the Choir accompanied by The Cheltenham String Players.   Graham was the Choir’s conductor up to and including the concert held in October 1966, before his move to Marlborough.

Graham took the Choir’s title from “An Illustrated History of Music” by Marc Pincherle, who quoted the mediaeval latin tag Musica ficta est musica vera (False music is real music) – or translations to that effect.  This refers to the familiar, but undefined, performance practice that involved sharpening or flattening notes to make them convincing in their context – without any indication in the parts that this should be done.  The performers, almost invariably singers, were expected to make these adjustments as a result of their experience, understanding and musical sophistication.  The alphabetical notes, unaltered, were the standard modes – the true (vera) notes in a basic sense.  Hence, making the adjustments (ficta) made the music correct (vera) as a performance without the necessary unwritten amendments would not be acceptable or authentic.

Among the early soloists was Dame Felicity Lott, who gave what could have been her first public performance in Handel’s Messiah on 13 March 1965 at Christ Church, when she was still at Pates Grammar School.  A group that included most of the founder members of what later became the King’s Singers (Martin Lane, Alastair Hume, Neil Jenkins, Alastair Thompson, Richard Salter, and Brian Kay) sang in a performance of Monterverdi’s Vespers (1610) in Tewkesbury Abbey on 26 June 1966.

The choir usually holds its concerts in Cheltenham, most recently in St Mary’s Church Prestbury. It has sung for the residents of Capel Court in Prestbury and Windsor Street Care Home.