Hamrun Choir

As a newly ordained priest in 1949 Fr Joseph Cachia took it upon himself to organize church music in our parish of St Cajetan in Hamrun Malta. He started in the very early 50‘s by inviting all parishioners for sessions to learn how to sing the Gregorian chant Missa De Angelis. I was there as a teenager and it all soaked in because we started to sing the same Mass every Sunday. I still have each note in vivid memory and have cantored the same Mass on Christmas eve at church in my retirement. When my wife and myself were celebrating our 40th anniversary and stayed in Rome for a few days we had the luck of being present at St Peter’s where we sang right through Missa de Angelis a cappella with a huge choir for the conclusion of the centenary celebrations for St Gregory the Great. In my mind this was the best anniversary gift from above.

Soon Fr Cachia organized the first Maltese mixed voice church choir in Malta and, at 15 with my voice having barely changed to an adult’s, I joined in. The Hamrun Choir was really something new for Malta, with young men and women belonging to the same group.

This was the best time of my life full of inspiring music of all sorts because apart from the regular liturgical music which those days was all in Latin, as a choir we took part in the feasts of other towns and villages singing excerpts from Italian opera with bands on outside stages. We even presented a complete Italian Opera ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ on a theatre stage with full orchestra on one occasion. Even though this was a static presentation, it was really a huge success with the public.

While getting a taste of operatic and classical music through the choir I was discovering my register as a tenor voice. Alas, at home, an older brother too was interested in the same genre of music with another tenor voice. The result was that we started vying with each other who knew most operatic arias and who could reach the highest notes in our register, at times driving poor mum crazy with our efforts! I still have the scores of those favourite arias stashed somewhere!

At the peak of the Hamrun Choir’s existence, we were producing an oratorio every year, starting with Handel’s Messiah in 1959 at the Radio City Opera House in Hamrun. Mendelssohn’s Paulus followed in 1960 when we were also the official choir for the centenary of St Paul’s shipwreck on Malta. That year we sang at a Mass celebrated on St Paul’s island by the Papal legate. In each of these oratorios the solo parts were executed by members of the choir itself. 1961 saw us give a repeat performance of The Messiah while Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus was in order for 1962. Next came Mendelssohn’s Elijah for which I only attended a few rehearsals having to cope with raising a growing family. Later on in life I did take part in a performance of Elijah, but that’s another story.