“If you like the music of Haydn and Mozart, you're going to love this, to put it pretty simply,” says Ōamaru Chorale music director David Beattie.

The local singing group is performing Dixit Dominus, composed by Marianna Martines, one of 18th-century Vienna’s most prominent composers, at St Paul’s Church, Saturday 9 November, at 3pm.

David’s history with the Chorale, previously called the Ōamaru Choral Society, dates back to when both his mother and father sang in it about 60 years ago, he says.

He left Ōamaru in 1977, but returned early last year, “with the determination - because I knew the choir was in recess - to revive it”.

A self-described “late starter” when it came to music, David made up for lost time by becoming a teacher.

“The general thought when I came back to Ōamaru was that, having retired from music teaching, I would voluntarily do something to support certainly the classical side of music in this town.

“So the really big thing that was in my mind when I came back, was reviving the choral society which had been in recess for, I think, about 12 years at that point.”

The chorale may have more of a focus on a formal or “art music” repertoire than a regular choir, and David is a particular fan of Martines’ work. He describes her as his “favourite neglected composer”.

“I might add that even today, at least historically, women composers are woefully ignored. So rather than get a choir together and give a concert of a whole lot of women composers, I like to focus on one, because I think that gets past ghettoising, as it were.”

To put Martines in context, she was 12 years younger than Josef Haydn, who taught her music theory when she was a child, and 12 years older than Mozart, David says. 

“And as he grew up, he and Marianna enjoyed playing his piano duets together.”

The Ōamaru Chorale has 14 members, and David would love more - especially men.

“Considering that one of the works we're performing this time has got divided sopranos, we are really pushing it for what an all-comers choir can do, however, we seem to be getting there quite nicely.”

The title piece Dixit Dominus (1774) will be preceded in the concert programme by Miserere (1768) and Keyboard Sonata in E Major (1765).

It requires four soloists, and David has managed to secure the help of four senior Otago University voice students - Rosie Auchinvole, Rosie McAllister, Teddy Finney Waters and Kieran Kelly - to perform.

“The pianist and I went down to Dunedin just over a week ago and we rehearsed the students, which they hardly needed because they're all so good and they're all so well prepared,” David says.

The music is early classical, which was like a transition from Baroque, but developing the slower chord progressions and “poise and balance” associated with the classical period, he says.

The first two pieces on the programme are “more sober” whereas the Dixit Dominus is “brilliant and spectacular”, David says.

The choir will be accompanied on piano by Christine Turner, with Mike Crowl performing a piano solo. 

The group has spent most of the year working on the pieces.

“There's a lot of work that goes into it,” David says.

Entry to the concert is by donation.