Published in Windlesora 26 (2010)
© WLHG
Nowadays it is quite common for music groups to make CDs of their performances; often they can be recorded using good quality equipment that can be bought quite cheaply in a computer store, then edited on a PC and copied to a CD using the same equipment.
In 1980 Windsor Girls’ School celebrated its 60th anniversary and the event was marked in many ways. Commemorative jewellery was created, a souvenir booklet published and a ceremonial beating of the bounds carried out.
A 60th Anniversary Concert was also held, entitled An Evening of Renaissance and Baroque Music on Thursday, 6 December 1979. The highlight of the concert was a performance of Vivaldi’s Gloria, conducted by the Girls’ School’s music teacher Margaret Williams and sung with the choir of Windsor Boys’ School along with soloists chosen from the Girls’ School choir. Other items on the programme included a harpsichord solo, a brass ensemble, madrigal group and a recorder group.
The cover of the programme of the event.
As the concert was particularly successful, it was decided to make a recording of the music performed and turn it into a 12” vinyl record.
On a chilly Sunday in early 1980, the choir met in Windsor Girls’ School hall with a mobile recording service that had to be hired. My father came too as we were short of tenors. It was perhaps inevitable that on the Sunday chosen for the recording, conditions should dictate that aircraft were flying over the school every three minutes. Fortunately, very few of the choruses of the Gloria last for more than three minutes.
Before each chorus was recorded, Miss Williams stood poised, baton raised, waiting for each aircraft to go just out of earshot before the orchestra began. After a while we were cheering every time we completed a chorus and heard silence at the end rather than the whine of an airliner. Several times we abandoned recording as the roar of aircraft engines drowned out the music. One longer chorus, I must confess was eventually sung slightly faster than Vivaldi intended, just to ensure that we recorded the whole thing uninterrupted.
As aircraft now fly over Windsor less than one minute apart and the government has given the go ahead for a third runway at Heathrow, it seems like quite a luxury to have been able to record an album in a school hall in Windsor. I am proud to say that I still have my copy of that record. Mind you, I don’t have a record player any more.
Windsor Local History Group 