Doreen and I first met over sixty years ago, playing string quartets on a chamber music course. Subsequently, in London, Nigeria, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Kenya and Pakistan, we played and sang together in a great variety of circumstances.
After our move to Willersey in 1994 Doreen frequently played the organ for services in this church. She formed the U3A choral group two years later, directing and developing it until, when she retired, now two years ago, it was a well-balanced choir of nearly fifty voices.
We sang Mozart’s Ave verum corpus on several occasions, in particular at the funerals of departed members. One of the last pieces we learnt and performed with her was a six-part Cantate Domino by Motneverdi; the Pitoni four-part setting, dating from the following century, is similarly joyful.
And then - domestic chamber music! Many quartet sessions, especially, covering a wide range of periods and composers. But we were working with friends , before our enforced cessation, on movements from Beethoven’s late, great B flat quartet. Beethoven’s emotional and stylistic range is vast. The tuneful simplicity and charm of the German dance leads to a deeply felt slow movement. Doreen was intent on mastering the strange passage near the end of this Cavatina, uniquely marked beklemmt, where the ‘oppressed’ first violin drifts away from the other instruments in a recitative of its own, duly rejoining them in a rapt conclusion.
John 532

2023. Email from John’s son via Tim Osmond saying, John died last week at home. I have chosen the 14th, so could be wrong.