(This is the first classical music review for
DCist, and it is a snapshot of a concert we
attended this past Sunday evening. The first review is
contributed by Charles T. Downey of Ionarts; a second review will follow tomorrow.)

If you are like this DCist, you might think about how
fun it would be to travel back in time to get a
glimpse of life in previous centuries. A good way to
do that (especially since most time-traveling
technologies are, alas, fictional) is to immerse
yourself in the art and, even better, music of an
earlier age. We found ourselves doing just that on
Sunday, by attending a concert of music from the 18th
century. The National
Gallery of Art has recently opened a new exhibit
on the painter Gilbert
Stuart (open through July 31), who was born 250
years ago this year. In honor of that show, the next
four Sunday concerts (.PDF file) in the NGA’s free
concert series will present music from the
lifetime (1755–1828) of America’s
first great portraitist, by composers he might
have heard here in the United States or in Great
Britain, where he lived for many years.

This set of concerts began last Sunday, April 10, with
a performance by the Christ Church
Cathedral Choir, from Oxford, England (go to
Ionarts for our full
review of this concert). The history of the choir
at Christ
Church Cathedral goes back to 1526, when John
Taverner became the first organist and master of the
choristers at Cardinal Wolsey’s new college. The choir
now has sixteen boy trebles and thirteen men (on all
the other parts), some of whom are professional
singers and some of whom are students at Christ
Church. This venerable English tradition is maintained
in the United States at Washington
National Cathedral, and we are a sucker for this
sound. The choir sang with admirable precision of
intonation and blend, almost without exception, and if
you are like us, the sound of children singing, when
it is done very well as it was Sunday night, sends
chills down your spine.