Tag: choral

Audience stands to honour fine performance by Secondary Students’ Choir

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir in Concert directed by Andrew Withington, accompanied by Brent Stewart

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Saturday, 26 April 2014, 7:30 pm

I reviewed the choir almost exactly two years ago; now they are here for another school holiday course.  My enthusiasm for their performance has not diminished, nor has the choir’s skill and versatility, despite the changes of personnel in the meantime.  There was a good-sized audience, but the back third of the Cathedral should not have been empty; this choir is deserving of a larger number of listeners.  Choristers came from all over New Zealand: Whangarei to Invercargill, with representatives from some small towns: Arrowtown, Shannon, Hawera for example.

Most of the programme was sung without printed scores; it was mainly the newer music for which scores were used.   The choir put on a highly professional concert, which I am sure will impress those who hear the singers later in the year in Singapore and Malaysia.  (Their singing won’t be poor, and I’m sure there will be no malaise – excuse me!)

As at the concert two years ago, the opening was with the church in darkness, the women processing in with candles, singing Jerusalem, an ancient Irish chant arranged by Michael McGlynn.  It featured a solo (rather too quiet) while the other singers backed with ‘oo-oo’, before the piece became multi-part.  This made a remarkable sound in the resonant cathedral, but few words could be perceived.

The full choir followed with the ‘Dies Irae’ from Mozart’s Requiem.  The piano accompaniment sounded strange – this is not a building that is kind to that instrument.

However, there was a strong, well-balanced sound.  The tempo was quite fast compared with what I have usually heard – or sung.

Mendelssohn’s Weihnachten followed.  The German was pronounced well, and uniformly, as it was in the Heinrich Schütz Psalm 115 that came next.  For this item, variety was provided by the appropriately baroque accompaniment on a spinet, and the division of the singers into three separate choirs.  The antiphonal singing and responses were superbly done; here, the scores were used.  There was plenty of depth in the basses. Confident attacks and dynamics were notable.  Most of the members watched their conductor almost  constantly.  Some tenors were a little too prominent in this work.  Part of the work was in a faster tempo, with more quavers and slurs.  This daunted the choir not in the least; it was a most creditable performance.

Throughout the accompanied items Brent Stewart, the choir’s principal accompanist, was lively, sympathetic and a thoroughly accomplished performer; the deficiencies were not to do with his technique or carrying out of his role. Items were introduced in groups by members of the staff of the choir and a few of the singers.  The microphone’s use was for the most part appropriate, and their words were heard clearly.

Ave Maria by Franz Biebl was sung by tenors and basses, including a solo trio and piano accompaniment, most effectively.  I knew nothing of Biebl, but on consulting Google, I found that he was a German who died in 2001.  According to the Wikipedia entry, the commonly-used programme note for the Ave Maria is by Dr. Wilbur Skeels – a former New Zealander, later resident in the US, and interestingly, composer of a setting of ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep’, another setting of which by David Childs (also a US-based New Zealander) was sung later in the concert.  The men made a gorgeous sound, especially in the opening unaccompanied section.

The soloists all had excellent, well-produced voices, especially fine in the piano and mezzo piano passages. The singers were utterly secure in the moving parts, and the Latin words were very clear.  I see how valuable it was when church singing was always in Latin; the clarity is so much greater than in many other languages in large, high venues.  There was a little stridency crept into the choir tenors at the forte ending.

A pleasing factor was the design of the men’s outfits.  Though I see no reason for all to be dressed in black, nevertheless, the men’s loose, collar-less shirts were a handsome choice.

Brahms was up next, the whole choir singing, with scores and piano, ‘Vineta’ from Drei Gesange, in total unanimity.  For something completely different, the men then performed ‘Mouth Music’, with resonant n and ng sounds, and drum accompaniment played by Brent Stewart.  Another light music piece was Scarborough Fair, sung by the women, in an interesting arrangement with a very well-played violin solo part from Theo Moolenaar that failed to sound out well enough in the Cathedral.

A David Childs item not listed in the programme was Remembrance, on the text referred to above.  The slow opening harmonies were very effective, while the contrasting fast section was lively and with beautiful tone – but there was more difficulty in picking up the words.  The slow passages returned, and both the soloist, Kelly Kim, and the high soprano ending were dramatic.

Twa Tanbou (Three Drums), a Haitian song was tricky, with cross-rhythms, but made an energetic impact just prior tot he interval.  Many syllables, in French Creole, were sounded in this fun piece with its dramatic ending.

We were recalled from the interval by a loud karanga, introducing Kua Rongo by the Wehi whanau.  The choir members now wore shoulder sashes over their garments. The women used single pois through part of the item, while the men did actions with notional taiahas. Memorising music and words, plus all the many movements was a considerable feat.  They were accompanied by Andrew Withington on guitar.

Two more pieces by David Childs followed, the first commissioned in memory of Lois Coplon, NZSSC’s Executive Officer from 1996 to 2009.   This was performed with piano, and began with soprano and alto voices only.  I found the choral harmonies interesting, but the melodies rather sentimental.  Despite the title In Requiescat, it was sung in English.

Between the Childs pieces, an unprogrammed piece, Lux Aeterna by Christchurch composer Richard Oswin, revealed again how well the Latin language sounds in this space.  The effective choral writing included unusual harmonies, chords and vocalisations, which were beautifully controlled.  Excellent low bass notes helped to support this unaccompanied item.

Childs’s Sonnet of the Moon was attractive (but who wrote the words?).  However, I found it became a rather soporific ballad, although sung with great beauty.

Two pieces from Suite Nordestina by Ronaldo Miranda, a contemporary Brazilian composer, were next – Portuguese another language to add to the already lengthy list the choir sings in. The cadences in the very rhythmic ‘Bumba Chora’ reminded me of that other Brazilian choral work, Ariel Ramírez’s Misa Criolla. ‘Dende Trapia’ was lively, and featured precise and uniform pronunciation of syllables.

A leading contemporary American choral composer is Eric Whitacre; his Cloudburst was sung in Wellington by the Orpheus Choir a number of years ago.  It used three soloists, piano, drums and win sheet (these in the upstairs side-gallery), hand-bells, and rhythmic clapping and finger-clicking.  It is a complex, multi-part work featuring close intervals. Despite its English title, it is sung in Spanish. The characterization of rain falling, the build-up to storm, and the lighter rain following are most accurately portrayed, though sometimes the voices didn’t penetrate all that rain.  The closing section of humming completed the drama of this quite lengthy, multi-faceted work, which gave plenty of opportunity to demonstrate the versatility of these singers, and how much they are able to achieve in a short course together.

Why does such a concert always have to conclude with lighter items?  These did not reveal the best singing by the choir, and were for the most part not appropriate to the building – I mean acoustically, not theologically.  Most were too fast and too loud to be heard to good effect.  Why ‘America’ from West Side Story needed to be included in a full programme, I do not know.  It was faster than I’d ever heard it; the only word that was distinct was ‘America’.  It is better sung by an ensemble, not by a large choir.

Another lighter item with piano was Celebrate by Keith Hampton (he and a number of the other composers featured also in the 2012 programme).  Again fast, loud and without perceptible words.  There was a soloist, but she was rather lost standing behind a much taller person.  I’m afraid the style sounded almost ugly in this building, as did the next piece, I’ve got the World on a String in which choir members performed the actions of playing wind instruments.

The concert ended with cultural items – the first, Tate le fia Manatua was acted out by two choruses; it was to do with the possible marriage of Samoan and Tongan prince and princess.  Gestures, movement and facial expressions, particularly of the two leaders, made for a very splendid performance.  Again, fortissimo singing lost the subtlety that at times the gestures were conveying.  However, the latter were quite complicated, and graceful.  It all made up to an exciting performance, and again was a great act of memory.

Finally Siyabangena and Ke Nna Yo Morena, two South African traditional pieces, were very rhythmic.  They were conducted (the previous item was not) and involved a lot of clapping.  Then the choir paraded down the side aisles of the Cathedral, and the audience ended the concert standing to honour the skill of the choir and the thorough enjoyment of the performances.

 

Superb performance of Renaissance Easter music by Tudor Consort

Posted on by admin

The Tudor Consort, Directed by Michael Stewart

Music for Holy Week

Lamentationes Hieremiae Feria sexta in Parasceve à 5, Orlande de Lassus
Et egressusest, Manuel Cardoso
Da Jesus an den Kreuze stund , Michael Praetorius
Stabat Mater, John Browne
Christus factus est, Felice Anerio
Incipit lamentation Jeremiae prophetae, Thomas Tallis
In monte Oliveti, Sarum chant
De lamentation Jeremiae prophetae, Thomas Tallis
Ne irascaris Domine satis/Civitas sancti tui, William Byrd

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Saturday 12 April 2014

This Lenten programme for Holy Week offered some acknowledged treasures of Renaissance a
cappella choral music, with the opening item being the first lesson for Good Friday from the five voice setting of Lassus’ Lamentations. It was a beautifully controlled, contemplative interpretation which established an atmosphere of deep lament, and it was given a breadth of tempo that enabled the cadences to resolve clearly in the echoing acoustic of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Yet there was always momentum to carry the effortless, floating sound through the space in the idioms so indelibly associated with the great European cathedral choirs.

The following Et egressus est by Portuguese composer Manuel Cardoso continued a similar contemplative approach, with the interweaving lines of polyphony beautifully balanced. The prophet’s closing admonition to Jerusalem to “return to the Lord your God” was not a fiery tub-thumping catapult, but a moving plea in keeping with the somber reflection of the earlier verses. The short chorale of Praetorius is set for double choir although they sing simultaneously almost throughout, so their  distinctive parts were not distinguishable from the body of the nave where I was sitting. This did not seem any drawback however, and the work highlighted the warm, rich tones this ensemble produces so well.

The Stabat Mater dolorosa is by composer John Browne, of whom nothing is known other than his ten surviving works in the Eton Choirbook, which is considered a most prized collection of early Tudor music. The programme noted that Browne’s style “typically pits a group of solo singers against lush full choir sections, and employs incredibly florid rhythms”. The spare sound of the solo group sections was, in fact, a very effective mechanism to provide a contrasting relief from the unbroken, full bodied sound of the tutti group which, in a text of this length, can become overwhelming, especially in the swirling reverberation of spaces like the Eton chapel and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Clear diction is not attainable in such places; what is so effectively provided is the colour and mood of worshipful devotion created by the music, where even the humblest medieval peasant, illiterate and ignorant of Latin, might perceive the brush strokes of the Celestial Painter in myriad hues.

After the interval we heard the brief Christus factus est from the pen of Anerio, who followed Palestrina in 1594 as official papal composer, the most prominent position for a composer in Rome. The writing and singing was full of richness, and this work actually provided the clearest diction of the evening.

The lamentations of Jeremia were performed with a brief Sarum chant setting of Jesus’ prayer In Monte Oliveti interposed between verses 1-2 and verses 3-5, and in Tallis’s original scoring for Alto, two Tenors and two Basses. This was a good programming choice, as the lower voice registers provided a contrast with the constant ringing soprano sound, which benefits from intermittent relief in such reverberant spaces when it is not broken up by spoken or intoned liturgy. It also gave the chance to appreciate better the quality of the alto and male voices in the group. Michael Stewart’s direction here again amply demonstrated that he understood how best to complement the acoustics of St. Paul’s, enhancing the music with the pauses and intervals of silence it needs if its artistry is to be fully realised.

The evening closed with Byrd’s wonderful motet Ne irascaris Domine, which the programme described as “one of a number that Byrd wrote to reflect the tribulations of the persecuted Catholic population during the reign of Elizabeth I”. This plaintive text can be read as a cry of despair from ‘papists’ living in Protestant England at the time, lamenting the desolation of their fate and pleading for God’s mercy. It is full of rich, full writing, where the soprano lines do not stray into the upper stratosphere, yet the choir produced a beautifully balanced, floating sound enhanced, as always, by impeccable intonation and wonderfully shaped phrasing and cadences.

I found myself pondering the immense power of words, music, and traditions to shape our views of historical events. Holy Week is a time marked by the church for contemplating the crucifixion and its significance for Christianity. What was surely a hideously sordid crowd puller, and the most painful method of Roman execution, has been transformed by such words, music, and traditions into an occasion of spiritual contemplation clothed in transcendent holiness. The chaste white altar drapery, the simple ‘candle’ lights borne by the choristers, and the paired arches of palm fronds in the nave all helped set a scene that was played out with superb artistry and wonderful musicianship by Michael Stewart and The Tudor Consort. Wellington is very privileged to have opportunities such as this to hear the European choral tradition presented at its very best.

 

Impressive performances of Brahms choral works, including the German Requiem from Kapiti Chamber Choir

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Brahms: Nänie, Op.82
Alto Rhapsody, Op 53
A German Requiem, Op 45

Kapiti Chamber Choir and orchestra, conducted by Eric Sidoti, with Ellen Barrett (contralto), Janey MacKenzie (soprano), Roger Wilson (baritone)

St. Paul’s Church, Paraparaumu

Sunday, 6 April 2014, 2.30pm

A full church greeted choir, soloists and orchestra for a very rewarding concert of Brahms’s choral music.  It was a very warm afternoon (Paraparaumu reached 24deg.) which was hard on the performers.  Nevertheless, they responded magnificently.

The first work was new to me, a piece written in memory of a friend of Brahms.  The title means ‘song of mourning’.  It had an appealing orchestral introduction, in which an oboe melody was particularly notable.  The choir sopranos then entered quietly; it seemed to take them a few moments to settle in. A gradual crescendo emphasised the words of the poem by Friedrich Schiller – all of the German pronounced exceedingly well and clearly by the choir.  There were tricky chromatic passages to be negotiated, on the whole successfully.  The men’s tone was smooth, but lacked character much of the time.  However, in the main the attractive work was tastefully and carefully performed.

Having had Schiller, we now turned to the other great German poet, Goethe.  The setting for contralto, male chorus, and orchestra is a moving, even heart-rending piece.  The arresting orchestral opening sends shivers down the spine, while the striking alto solo and the sombre orchestral accompaniment are richly Romantic, in the best sense of the word.

Throughout this and the following work, the flutes and oboe were particularly outstanding, but all the players and singers performed well. Ellen Barrett’s singing was beautifully controlled and impeccably phrased, although she employed a little too much portamento for my taste – but I daresay it was authentic for Brahms’s time.

The entry of the men was very well done; the rich harmonies and mellow yet soft tone were most satisfying.  The gorgeous ending on the words ‘sein Herz’ (his heart) left a feeling of nostalgia, yet completeness.

Ambitious it was for the choir to tackle Brahms’s Requiem, which is one of the major works in the choral repertoire, though not one of the really large ones.

The deliberate opening tempo was appropriate for the theme, and it was immediately apparent that great attention had been given to detail.  Words were excellent, tone mainly fine, and generally, intonation was good, although the occasional top note here and in the earlier works was not quite reached. Dynamics were well observed.

The choir had complicated fugues to sing in at least two of the movements, and in the 6th movement, ‘For here we have no continuing city’, the choir is in eight parts.

The choristers were obviously well-trained and secure; the orchestral horns were not so, but then they had a great deal to do, and I doubt it was easy playing.  All the orchestra worked hard, not least young trumpeter, Sarah Henderson.

The third movement, ‘Lord, make me to know mine end’ comprised  mainly a solo for baritone Roger Wilson.  Roger has sung this work many times; the printed programme reported that he first sang it in the Durham St. Methodist Church in Christchurch, and he dedicated his performance to the memory of the three organ builders who were killed in that building in the February 2011 earthquake.  I found I was sitting on the ‘wrong’ side of the church to hear him to the best effect; the space required for the orchestra meant that the soloists for this work were very much to one side.  However, any deficiency was not due to lack of clarity or tone from the singer.

The fugue for the choir at the end of that movement, ‘But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God’ is a very taxing sing, as I know from experience.  Of the various entries the clearest was from the sopranos – but the acoustic could not really cope with the complexities.

The beautiful chorus usually known in English as ‘How lovely are thy dwellings’ was captivating; the beautiful suspensions in the orchestral part were splendid, the cellos being particularly important. The men’s entry and accompanying part were sung with sensitivity and grace.

‘And ye now therefore have sorrow’ featured Janey MacKenzie singing strongly, and with great clarity of diction. A little more soft singing would have made her performance even more memorable.  The choir’s part in this movement, sung seated, was very grateful on the ear.  The beauty of Brahms’s writing on the words ‘As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you’ I always find very moving.

The sixth movement, ‘For here have we no continuing city’ (Roger, and Christchurch again?) features choir as well as the soloist.
Here, as elsewhere, the pizzicato from the cellos was very telling, having both accuracy and tone.  The choir excelled itself in the varying moods of both text and music.  There was plenty for the young trumpeter to do, and she did it well.  The words ‘O death, where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory?’ were sung as detached notes, giving emphasis to the meaning.

The seventh movement, ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord’ had the woodwind giving a thrilling edge to the climaxes.  The soaring, rising melody on the words ‘their works do follow them’ (denn ihre Werke folgen ihnen nach) was supremely beautiful and peaceful, leaving the audience with a blessed experience indeed.

I learned that Helen Griffiths, violist, was responsible for getting together the 22-piece orchestra, as she has on many previous occasions.  The choir must be very grateful for her efforts, contacts and not least her persuasive powers.

The printed programme was well set out, and in case of the Requiem, it was very helpful to have not only have full translations but also the Biblical reference for each passage.  It was a nice touch to use Gothic script for the titles of the movements; the script would have been the norm in Brahms’s day.

I find that in reviewing last November’s concert by the choir I said: ‘It struck me that it was high time a district with the population of the Kapiti Coast had a proper performing venue; many towns and districts of smaller size have such a facility, e.g. Martinborough with its Town Hall.  Here, choral concerts are held in a church with an airfield opposite, while chamber music concerts are in a large hall designed primarily for indoor sports, where the audience have to sit on plastic chairs!’

I would reiterate that even more firmly now; a work of the size and complexity of the Brahms Requiem, incorporating an orchestra, deserves a much larger venue, with more spacious acoustics than St. Paul’s Church can offer.  I was told that this venue may not be available for much longer.  In that case, it emphasises the need for a proper performing venue in the district. Not only Martinborough, but Ngaio and Khandallah have their own Town Halls, the former having been built by Wellington City Council, not by a now-defunct local authority.  Upper Hutt has a splendid performance venue.

College halls are a possibility, but are unlikely to have comfortable chairs comparable to those in the church.  However, they would not be likely to have aeroplane noises or flapping blinds, either.

The abiding thoughts on the concert must not be about these factors, but about such wonderful invention on Brahms’s part, and such variety of composition, realised in an impressive performance from all concerned.

 

Festival Singers under Berkahn explore baroque byways, a romantic Stabat Mater and a modern, jazz cantata

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Festival Singers conducted by Jonathan Berkahn

A Rising Tide – Easter Music, by Buxtehude, Bach, Lachner, Rheinberger, Ireland and Jonathan Berkahn

St Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Sunday 6 April, 2:30 pm

The concert was advertised as performing two works: a Stabat Mater by minor German composer, Josef Rheinberger, contemporary of Brahms and Bruch, and The Third Day by the conductor.

The works that accompanied the Stabat Mater in the first half were of a similar kind: organ and vocal pieces by Buxtehude, Bach, Lachner, and religious songs by John Ireland and Berkahn.

Lachner’s name probably rings faint bells as Franz was one of a Bavarian musical family, contemporary with Schubert and Schumann. This Introduction and Fugue for organ sounded as if he was a pupil of J S Bach, rather than a composer 30 years Beethoven’s junior.  Its virtue was a bold and plain opening, using the 16 foot stops, that switched abruptly to light flutes on the choir manual. The fugue subject was of the most elementary character which might well have served as an exercise for a beginning composition student to explore the mysteries of fugue, but it was followed by a more imposing sequence of cadences that announced its conclusion.

A setting by Berkahn of a religious poem by Wordsworth contemporary James Montgomery followed; in an attractive bass voice, Jamie Henare handled the hymnal melody graciously; though the accompaniment (by the composer) was at a somewhat primitive sounding electronic keyboard.

I’m familiar with some of Rheinberger’s organ music and a few choral pieces but was unaware of a Stabat Mater. I’m afraid this exposure seemed to reaffirm the judgment of history; it recalled nothing of Alessandro Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Pergolesi or Haydn, and certainly nothing of his 19th century colleagues like Rossini, Dvořák or Verdi (it is one of his Four Sacred Pieces). (I recall this choir singing Rossini’s version in 2009; in my review then, I thought the choir displayed a closer sympathy with the Catholic than the Protestant style of religious music).

This was sung in English, to a translation different from that in our programme leaflets. The translation did serve to remind the audience of the Church’s strange obsession with the most ghoulish details of the Christ story; though it was never formally a part of the Catholic liturgy, the Stabat Mater maintained its prominent place in the pattern of worship from the time of the poem’s composition in the 13th century, through its numerous musical settings down the ages.

So if verbal clarity might not have been a major concern in the choir’s rehearsal, other matters had careful attention: ensemble, intonation and style. Here, more than elsewhere, the small numbers of male singers was rather conspicuous in some lack of confidence. Nevertheless, there were several interesting features that the choir navigated well; one was a fugal section which lent the work greater variety and a certain dramatic impact.

Two organ pieces followed. Rafaella Garlick-Grice played Buxtehude’s ‘Ach Gott und Herr’ using stops with discretion, though I wondered whether her tremolo passages were appropriate. Then Berkahn played Bach’s ‘Christ lag in Todesbanden’, here making good use of the organ’s range, its striking contrasts between the Great and Choir manuals, the music, probably dating from Bach’s early years at Arnstadt, rather showing up, in contrast, the relatively limited inventiveness of Lachner and even of Buxtehude.

With Rafaella again at the organ the choir sang a setting by Ireland of ‘Greater love hath no man’, using solo voices from the choir, charming if a bit taxing in the higher register.

There was a ten minute pause as amplification equipment was set up for the accompaniment to The Third Day, which was introduced with an engaging Irish interlude led by flutist/guitarist Bernard Wells.

The Third Day, the text presumably compiled by the composer, deals with happenings before and on Easter Sunday, including Christ’s descent from the Cross and the reflections by Judas and Thomas on the implications of their actions.

Berkahn conducted from the keyboard, in this instance the keyboard of the accordion suspended from his shoulders (he pointed out that before the rise of the dubious profession of the full-time celebrity maestro, music was directed from the keyboard; sometimes it was by the principal violinist or concert master).

The other members of the jazz ensemble were guitarist Andrew James, bass guitarist Adam Meers and pianist Ruth James.

The music is in a delightful post-religious-rock-opera style, that no longer (I imagine) sounds blasphemous in the ears of believers; it uses the choir, soloists and the band in an easy, varied manner, and at a couple of points bass Jamie Henare made the most engaging entries. In the final exultatory section, in triple time, the world was put to rights with the cry ‘Christ is risen, he is risen indeed!’

The concert might have seemed very disparate in style and musical character, but the effect of this very contemporary, and singularly attractive cantata was to lighten the spirits of the audience, and to give perspective to the more sombre music of the first half, perhaps to enhance it in the memory.

 

Bach Choir of Wellington – Faure and other delights

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Bach Choir of Wellington presents:
Music for Easter

The Bach Choir of Wellington
Douglas Mews (organ)
Stephen Rowley (conductor)

St.Peter’s on Willis, Wellington

Saturday, 5th April 2014

Despite the “music for Easter” title of the Bach Choir’s recent programme, I would imagine that most people would have been drawn to the concert by the prospect of hearing a performance in a proper church setting of Faure’s supremely beautiful and perennially fresh (as it proved here) Requiem.

Quelling an element of impatience lurking within the recesses of my being at having a “first half” to get through before the “real” business of the late afternoon, I found a pew within a reasonable proximity, and awaited the appearance of the choir, organist Douglas Mews and conductor Stephen Rowley.

By the time the concert began, St Peter’s-on-Willis had worked its usual pre-crepuscular spell on the church’s performing-space, with sunlight streaming through the large window at the back of the choir loft, to suitably beatific effect – well, anyway for we in the audience, but probably not for the choir, having to “front up” to the full-on radiance without the benefit of sunglasses!  The thought did occur to me that had the concert’s main item been Italian instead of French, the latter course could have been adopted by the singers – possibly, to somewhat startling, Mafia-like effect!

All such fancies aside, much of the ambient glow had dissipated by the time the concert’s second half had begun, though that initial impression of “Heavenly radiance” remained throughout.  Appropriately, too, because the choir’s performances of most of the items, including the Requiem, had a similar lucid and beatific quality, making for an enjoyable listening experience.

It’s a common phenomenon for performers to “settle in” to the business of establishing a relationship with both the performing space and the audience via the opening item on a program – what Michael Flanders, of “At the Drop of a Hat” fame used to call “getting the pitch of the hall” – and so it proved here, with a cautiously worthy opening performance of Orlando Gibbons’ Hosanna to the Son of David. Once the choir had negotiated that hurdle, and Stephen Rowley had welcomed us to the concert, everything, including audience responses, seemed to focus upon things more comfortably and surely.

Purcell’s Hear My Prayer, O Lord, a setting of just two lines of Psalm 102, caught in its opening tones a lovely solemn atmosphere, the choir holding its lines at a challengingly slow tempo and making a good job of things – a short, but intensely-focused experience of sound and feeling.  Darker in tone and somewhat more complex in its unfolding was Venetian-born Antonio Lott’s Crucifixus, the opening measures rising from the darkness to a starkly-lit cadence. The voices nicely conveyed surges of urgency and anguish with “‘passus” (suffered), and then tapered into long, beautifully-held lines for “et sepultus est” (and was buried).

However, the revelation (so to speak) of the first half for me was encountering the twentieth-century English composer John Sanders’ Reproaches, a work which eschewed avant-garde harmonies and drew instead on traditional modes of antiphonal settings for these texts, mixing plainsong with harmonized sequences. We heard haunting, long-breathed lines of “reproachful” utterances, varied in character and spontaneous in effect, interspersed with more assertive men-only recitatives – a marvellously theatrical, but at the same time, sublimely “spiritual” result. The final exchange was marked, at the end, by eerie modulations and a far-flung, almost cosmic effect of words sounded over endless spaces of time and distance.

It may be heretical of me to say so, but after this John Cameron’s setting of Elgar’s “Nimrod” from the latter’s orchestral Enigma Variations seemed to my ears rather cosy and sentimental – and though the choir’s sopranos made brave efforts to reach their cruelly stratospheric highest notes, the outcome in places was more uncomfortable than uplifting. Of course one perhaps ought to try these things, but I would rather have gone into the interval with the sounds of any one of the other performances of the first half in my ears. However, ’twas but a minor blip on what was a generally mellifluous soundscape.

As for the Faure Requiem, despite the performance being a “streamlined” one (no soprano or baritone, and no orchestra – which meant, alas, no horns!) the results were well-nigh enchanting throughout. Apart from having what seemed a reluctance to let his instrument resplendently roar out that wonderful horn-call in the “Sanctus”, organist Douglas Mews did the instrumental music proud, beguilingly keeping those plangent “French” textures to the fore and thrilling us in certain places with some awe-inspiring seismic pedal-points.  One soon adapted to the organ’s refracted orchestral tones, and enjoyed without reservations what the voices were doing.

Stephen Rowley’s conducting enabled the work to unfold with a kind of natural outpouring of expression, as almost nothing seemed forced or too sharply-etched – only an unexpected intensification of tempo and tension at the words “Lux aeterna luceat eis” which came to a dramatic head at “quia pius est” gave me a start for a few seconds, until I realized that what he was doing at that point was actually working. In place of each of the baritone solos, the men’s voices in the choir provided well-focused tones which kept the line steady and true; and similarly in the “Pie Jesu” the sopranos sang beautifully, in lieu of a soloist, managing the awkward moment of the melody’s reprise with ease, and allowing the final “sempiternam requiem” ample space and rapt concentration.

A mere couple of details wanted slightly firmer treatment – a slightly ahead-of-the-beat “Exaudi” in the first part, a hesitant beginning to the “Sanctus” over the tricky, syncopated accompanying figures, and a too-eager reprise of the “Agnus Dei” by the men – but these were moments of natural attrition, in their way part and parcel of the perils of live performance, and as treasurable for their purposeful intent as were other moments for their accuracy and expressive power.

Perhaps the performance highlight in the Requiem was, for me, the “Libera Me”, begun by the men’s voices, with nice shaping from the conductor, and taken further by the women, sweet-toned at “Tremens factus sum ergo” and building towards a full-throated “Dies Illa, dies ire”, startling in its impact. A thudding organ accompaniment brought back a fearful “Libera Me” reprise from the full choir, after which the piece concluded with a slightly more hopeful rounding-off from the men. Everything was kept in proportion, and the sequences vividly characterized – its spirit represented well the performance as a whole, one which the Bach Choir and Stephen Rowley ought to be proud of.

Memorable, varied programme from singers and instrumentaists of Note Bene

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bold as Brass: works for choir and brass

Dufay, Croce, Gabrieli, Bruckner, Brahms, David Hamilton

Nota Bene, conducted by Peter Walls, with Ingrid Bauer (harp), Matthew Allison, David Bremner and Tim Sutton (trombones), Carsten Williams and Heather Thompson (horns), Douglas Mews (organ and piano)

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Saturday, 29 March 2014, 7.30pm

Nota Bene chamber choir appeared to be a little larger than it has sometimes been, but not all singers sang in all items.  Once again it grabbed the attention and held it, with a varied programme incorporating diverse instruments as well as the voices, sometimes women’s only.

Again, Peter Walls was guest conductor, and his vigorous yet sensitive conducting bore out a comment in his biography in the printed programme, from Classics Today: “Peter Walls understands the overall period style and he obviously cares a lot about ensemble balance and uniformity of tone and colour.”  He spoke before each sung bracket, giving a little information about the composers and pieces.

Despite beginning with the fifteenth century and ending with the twentieth, the choir was always in good voice, and adapted tonal production and word emphases to the items appropriately.  No English language appeared this time; the David Hamilton piece titled ‘The Moon is Silently Singing’ is a setting of a Spanish poem, despite the English title.

The opening ‘Gloria ad modum tubae’ by Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474) began with a cantor, and the choir women arranged round the perimeter of the church. They then processed very slowly forward, while the trombones lived up to the title, intoning single fifths on their instruments.  The intertwining voices were most effective, sounding across the building’s fine acoustic.  When the singers came together at the front, the blend was magical.

Giovanni Croce was a contemporary of Gabrieli, and like him was a composer at St. Mark’s in Venice in the latter half of the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth.  The former’s setting of Psalm 81 was a complex piece of polyphony, sung joyfully, with tone and words well projected.  Gabrieli is well-known for his wonderful settings for choir (and brass) placed in different parts of the vast Venice church.  Here, we had the trombones in the left ambulatory of the church, and also soloist Peter de Blois
(tenor), in ‘O magnum mysterium’.  The performance was very fine, with all the contrapuntal lines beautifully drawn.  However, I felt that the sound from the soloist would have been better if he had been standing further forward into the church, away from the brass, and not in the ambulatory.

A drastic change followed, to the nineteenth century; the women sang Brahms’s Four Songs Op.17.  With themes of lost love and the (male) lover’s death, they were sure ground for romantic settings.  What was unusual was their accompaniment by horn and harp.  The first song’s words invoked the harp; the effect of the two instruments, superbly played, plus the voices, was gorgeous.  The second song was a German translation of Shakespeare’s well-known ‘Come away, come away death’ (more familiar in settings by Gerald Finzi, Roger Quilter and others). There was great attention to dynamics, and wondrously unanimous phrasing and pronunciation.  The last song, ‘Gesang aus Fingal’ displayed vitality and uniformity of tone.  Its folksy rhythm was well maintained.

‘Christus Factus Est’ is a Biblical setting by Bruckner.
Splendid tone and beautifully managed chromatic passages featured, although there was a little harshness from the tenors on some high notes.  A secular song by the same composer, more familiar in Schumann’s setting, ‘Du bist wie eine Blume’ was, like the previous one, unaccompanied.

‘Ecce Sacerdos’ was a complete contrast, employing organ and brass in its grand statements.  It was sung with contrasting subtlety and the grandeur of great fortissimo sounds – and a few flaws in phrasing, that hardly detracted from the splendour.

We were in for a surprise after the interval.
Following unaccompanied settings by Bruckner: ‘Afferentur regi’ and ‘Os justi’ (Psalm 37), the latter a most exciting and exultant composition full of imaginative writing and treated with loving care by the choir, the familiar ‘Locus iste’ was not sung, but played by the trombones and one horn!  At first I wanted the choir, and thought it sounded a little grotesque, but by the end I was converted. The trombones followed with the same composer’s Aequalis I & II, striking and effective pieces.

We returned to Brahms for Four Quartets Op.92, sung with piano.  The first, ‘O schöne Nacht’ was very romantic, even sentimental. The words translated as ‘the moon gleams magically’ evoked gorgeous setting by the composer – and linked with the Hamilton work at the end of the programme.

More complex part-writing featured in ‘Spätherbst’; Brahms’s chromatic writing in ‘Abendlied’ didn’t make it easy for the singers – the pitch wandered a little at the opening.  This song was very affecting in its understated romantic fervour.  After ‘Warum’ we came to David Hamilton’s ‘The Moon is Silently Singing’.  The two horns – one in the gallery and one in front of the choir gave ethereal echo effects, and were superbly played.  The double choir’s performance incorporated whispering as well as singing – this is a complex and difficult work. It would have been interesting to have had the poet (Miguel de Unamuno, 18864-1936) acknowledged.

By way of critical remarks, I could point out that it is not difficult to find out the dates of composers’ births and deaths; printing them after their names helps the audience to orient themselves to the music.  Another matter was proof-reading; while most of the printed programme, consisting mainly of translations, was beyond complaint, the translation of the Dufay ‘Gloria’ appeared to have been typed by someone who did not know the archaic words ‘thee’ and ‘thy’; certainly they did not appear correctly, nor did some other words here and elsewhere.
It was a pity that brackets and a footnote for the first line of Shakespeare’s ‘Come away…’ were reproduced from the internet entry.

This was a memorable evening’s music-making.  There was variety, heart-stopping drama and emotion, and commitment and excellence from the performers.

 

Bach Collegium Japan leaves audience wanting much more after Bach Lutheran masses

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bach Collegium Japan, soloists from the choir, directed by Masaaki Suzuki

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Sinfonia from Cantata Am abend aber desselbigen Sabbats BWV 42
Lutheran Mass in A, BWV 234
Lutheran Mass in G minor, BWV 235

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 6 March 2014, 7.30pm

The magical performance by the Bach Collegium Japan under its inspiring Director, Masaaki Suzuki, left one wanting more.  Indeed, the Festival programme led us to believe we would get more, listing the duration as “2hrs 20mins (no interval)” despite an Interval being listed just above that.  However, it was not to be.  The concert lasted one hour and 40 minutes, including an interval.

Compared with the previous evening’s St. John Passion, this was unfamiliar music.  An extraordinary fact about the Lutheran Masses is that most of the music was adapted from the composer’s cantata movements, where the words would have been in German.  To reconstruct them with words with different syllables and emphases must have been quite a task.

Before the choral works, we were treated to the Sinfonia from the Cantata BWV 42.  This was lively, cheerful music, made more so by the sound of the period instruments (and bows) employed: initially, strings and chamber organ, later joined by oboes and a bassoon.  There were no flutes in this piece.  After it, conductor Suzuki invited applause especially for the wonderful woodwind playing.

Suzuki told us in his lunchtime talk on Wednesday that original instruments restrict the player to the appropriate style for the music of their period.  He suggested that the beauty of the movements selected by Bach was probably the reason for their reuse in the Lutheran Masses.

All nineteenth and twentieth century composers were influenced by Bach, he said.  In Suzuki’s eyes, Bach’s compositions were a work of God.  He found Bach his home, whereas conducting Stravinsky and Mahler (as he does) were like going on a picnic.

The choir entered; only 18 singers, comprising four sopranos, two female altos and two counter-tenors, five tenors and five basses.  For the Lutheran Mass BWV 234, there were no oboes, but two transverse wooden flutes, played standing.

With the opening Kyrie, one was immediately struck by the choir’s clarity, attack, and distinct consonants.  The following Gloria was a delightfully bright movement, the tenor solo at ‘Adoramus te, glorificamus te’ featuring a gorgeous tenor solo from Gerd Türk, in which even tone throughout the range was notable.

The four soloists were all non-Japanese: the soprano was Joanne Lunn (English), the counter-tenor, Clint van der Linde (South African), tenor Gerd Türk (German), and bass Peter Koolj, (Dutch).

A bass aria followed: ‘Domine Deus, Rex cœlestis’.  The bass’s voice had great richness, yet everything was enunciated and delivered clearly.  The accompanying violin solo from orchestra leader Ryo Terekado was beautifully phrased, and delivered with warm tone, yet the playing was incisive.

It was next the soprano’s turn, with the two flutes, in ‘Qui tollis peccata mundi’.  Here was more incisive performance, yet Joanne Lunn made the performance dramatic, including not being able to resist some hand gestures.  The singer used little vibrato, but employed ornaments, which reminds me of a lovely story told by Maasaki Suzuki at his lunchtime talk.  He said that when he went to Belgium to study organ, after first learning the instrument in Japan, he began with the famous Ton Koopman.
Koopman encouraged his pupils to create ornaments in profusion, in baroque music.  Following study with him, Suzuki had lessons from another well-known Dutch organist, Piet Kee.  The latter decried all the ornaments, and told Suzuki to get rid of them!

The flutes were quite delicious in the ‘Qui tollis’, and a large section of the orchestration was for them, with violas and second violins.  The effect, and the playing, was of sublime loveliness.

Joyous, reassuring music followed in the counter-tenor’s solo ‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus’.  Graceful long lines and superb quiet singing made this movement perhaps the most beautiful of all.

It was followed by the chorus singing the final movement ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’.  Here, the flutes did not sound out very well in the Michael Fowler Centre acoustic when all the choir and orchestra were holding forth – but when you could hear them, they were exquisite.

We were in for an unprogrammed treat after the Interval: a movement from a Bach cantata (sung in German), for counter-tenor, with two violins, cello, and chamber organ (played by the maestro himself, whereas in the other works it was played by Masato Suzuki – the maestro’s son?).  The spare sound, in contrast to what we had heard before, was delightful – enhanced by the gut strings (though the difference these make is less noticeable from the cellos).

The singer’s expressive voice, varied dynamics, and greater level of communication with the audience than that of some of the other soloists, made for a fine performance, much appreciated by the large (but not full) audience.

The choir and remaining orchestra came on for the Lutheran Mass in G minor. The Lutheran Masses set only the Kyrie and Gloria, not the full Mass, but the sections of the Gloria set differed between the two Masses. The opening Kyrie of this second one featured the oboes again.  Their sound had bite, yet was mellifluous.  The flowing, interweaving lines were wonderful to hear.

The Gloria chorus was marked by quite detached notes, unlike the Gloria in the previous Mass.  Throughout both works, the pronunciation of words by the choir was uniform and precise, with excellent Latin syllables – no ‘tay’ for ‘te’ or ‘dayo’ for ‘Deo’.  The choir delivered a strong tenor line on the words ‘Laudamus te, benedicimus te’.

The bass aria ‘Gratias agimus’ (the latter pronounced with a hard g) accompanied by violins and a continuo consisting of organ, two cellos, bassoon and double bass, was outstanding, and was followed by the counter-tenor singing ‘Domine fili unigenite Jesu Christe’.  This was very florid setting, with wonderful soaring notes, and somewhat pastoral in its effect.

No soprano solo this time; the last solo was from the tenor, whose warm and expressive voice, clear consonants and effective suspensions were accompanied by an incisive solo oboe.

The final chorus, ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ gave parts of the choir the chance to shine, especially a good bass lead part-way through, followed by strong sopranos.  This was a triumphant sound, with strength from both singers and instrumentalists, especially the cellos and double bass, whose parts echoed the opening of the previous mass.

The soloists’ inconspicuous moving from choir to the front of the platform and back again was a feature that meant little disruption to the music or to the visual presentation.  The choir stood throughout their performances.

The precision, accuracy, balance, tone and musicality of the ensemble made a lasting impression on everyone I spoke to; this was an outstanding contribution to the Arts Festival, and an uplifting experience for all who were present.

 

Bach’s St John Passion from Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach Collegium Japan

Posted on by admin

New Zealand Festival 2014

Bach Collegium Japan conducted by  Masaaki Suzuki

J.S.Bach St. John Passion, BWV 245

Michael Fowler Centre

Wednesday 5 March 2014, 8 pm

Formed in 1990 to introduce Japanese audiences to great works from the Baroque period, Bach Collegium Japan has since toured the world and appeared at major festivals including the BBC Proms and Edinburgh Festival. Musical Director Masaaki Suzuki is regarded as an international authority on the work of Bach. The ensemble he chose for this performance comprised some 18 singers and 19 instrumentalists, with vocal soloists being drawn from the choristers.

The St. John Passion has two parts: Part One relates the story of Judas’ betrayal and Jesus’ arrest in the garden, then his examination before the High Priest, where the striking story of Peter’s denial and the cock’s crow is played out. Part Two moves to Jesus’ trial before Pilate, whose initial unwillingness to condemn him is eventually swayed by the clamour of the mob.

The opening chorus was delivered with great verve and power but the approach in Part One thereafter struck me as being a largely straightforward narration of events: the Evangelist’s recital of the story was by Gerd Turk who adopted a clear speech idiom in his delivery, faultlessly navigating his way round Bach’s fluctuating tonalities. The choruses and chorales observed almost jaunty tempi, and did not linger in contemplative vein, simply filling the role of observer and commentator. All were impeccably presented but left me feeling somewhat disconcerted by the dispassionate style of delivery that had been chosen. Was this the prototypical Oriental reserve?

Was it the ‘flat’ vocal acoustic that has so often beset the Fowler Centre? Or an unfavourable location for our seats (centre front stalls, about a dozen rows back)? The exceptions were the wonderfully heartfelt arias sung by alto Clint van der Linde and soprano Joanne Lunn.

From the start of Part Two, however, the accelerating sense of drama was almost palpable. The excellent soloists were critical to this, but it most obviously lay with the chorus, whose mood rapidly moved from crowd to mob. Their angry self-justification for the charges hurled at Jesus built inexorably to their baying wildly for his blood, clearly determined not to be done out of the bloodthirsty spectacle of crucifixion by any legal niceties Pilate might entertain. Now every note and phrase built the riveting drama of Western history’s most famous trial and death sentence. By contrast, when all was done, the chorales and solos became intensely reverent and contemplative, with every musician projecting a mood of deep reflection on Jesus’ sacrifice and inspiration to his followers.

There was, however, one aspect of this performance which I found very disappointing. In those arias which have instrumental obbligati, Bach has shown us a consummate marriage of his powers as both vocal and instrumental writer. The genius of, say, the double violin concerto meets the magic of the choral repertoire’s consummate composer in a way that no other has ever got within cooee of. Yet in every obbligato number last evening, the instrumental parts were emasculated almost out of recognition, sometimes being actually inaudible even in the front stalls. The pitifully apologetic viol in “It is accomplished!” had me almost weeping at the lost opportunity. These numbers are, in my view, the richest, most intricate, and intimate, conversations in the vocal repertoire, but they were sorely let down here.

Nevertheless, the consummate technical powers of the Collegium and the direction of Masaaki Suzuki ensured that this was a performance which thrilled the audience, many of whom rose to their feet at the finish. The huge turnout, for what some might label a rather cerebral event, was clear testament to the fact that listeners are thirsty for more high-quality classical music, whose presence in Festival programming has been sadly diminished in recent times.

 

The year’s centenary profoundly marked with a Requiem for the Fallen: O’Sullivan and Harris

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

(New Zealand Festival)

Purcell: ‘Hear my Prayer’
Messiaen: ‘O sacrum convivium’
Beethoven: Molto adagio from String Quartet in A minor, Op 132
Schnittke: Three spiritual songs
Ross Harris with words by Vincent O’Sullivan: Requiem for the Fallen

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, the New Zealand String Quartet, taonga puoro played by Horomona Horo, Richard Greager (tenor)
Conductor: Karen Grylls

Cathedral of St Paul, Wellington

Friday 28 February, 8 pm

One of the major events in any genre in this year’s festival, this concert, involving choir, string quartet and other soloists, deserved the full house that it attracted, as well as the immediate, standing ovation at the end.

The key element of course was the cantata (shall we call it, instead of a liturgical work?) that occupied the last part of the concert. The work of Vincent O’Sullivan and Ross Harris, it was written with this year’s momentous centenary very much in mind: the outbreak of the First World War in August of 1914. There is little new in the view that that war – all war – is evil and futile; made even more tragic by subsequent revelations that the Great War, in particular, happened through inexcusable
confusion, vacuous notions of ‘honour’, imperial ambition, and a failure of nerve and rejection of common sense. I have just read the latest of the hundreds of books on the origins of World War I, The Sleepwalkers, by Christopher Clark. No shred of statesmanship is evident in any quarter.

Poet and composer shared the same view, and there was nothing of conventional jingoism or patriotism in the words or the music. Naturally that eliminated the possibility of ‘pomp and circumstance’ music expressing glory, hope, righteousness or victoriousness. Into parts of the Requiem Mass, in Latin, O’Sullivan has interwoven comment, personal narrative and observations that leave little room for the usual religious blandishments.  He captured the essence of one of the most profound experiences in the history of this country.

Inevitably some of the language is familiar from the multitude of poems and stories that flowed from the 1914-18 war and from all wars every since.

In the Libera nos, the meaning shifts to pleading for freedom from ‘the hate we return for hate’, and to save us to return ‘from the hurl of grenades and impending wrath’.
The central and most arresting and horrific section is the Dies Irae in which the words of the mass lend themselves to describing the terrible wars of men and not merely the punishments of the Day of Judgement. Here, quite terrifying drums and trumpets as well as contributions from taonga puoro delivered a fearful message.
There are some strikingly vivid words: ‘Ah, the silence / lies gorged on fear’, ‘hear the random sweep of fire, / hear the leaden gasps choked choir’.

Later, in Memento mori, tenor Richard Greager represented the ordinary soldier, back home, years later, haunted for ever by memories of the horrors he experienced: ‘And I met a cobber on the road / Coming down the remembered way, / Only I was here, as large as life, / and he was in Suvla Bay.’

It was a semi-staged performance, facilitated by placing the performance platform in the centre of the nave, so the audience was divided on either side, thus allowing twice as many to be close to the performance; a great advantage in a very resonant acoustic. It also meant good sight-lines. Steps on all four sides allowed the choir to come and go, to divide into varying groups, as well as for Richard Greager and Horomona Horo with koauau and putorino which, played with the quartet and singers, surprised me by being pitched in tune with western instruments. The string quartet occupied the middle of the platform.

Jonathan Alver (former general director of NBR New Zealand Opera), guided the dramatic elements, the movements, sensitively and coherently, and the lighting, under Paul O’Brien, was both useful and atmospheric.

The words, as well as being in the programme book, were projected, along with graphic photos of the scenes of troops and trenches on to screens on either side of the platform.

The total impact was moving and unsentimental, and the music illuminated the words without artificiality or technical display, employing the unusual vocal and instrumental
resources with imagination and resourcefulness.

There had been no interval between the first half hour of the programme and the Requiem. The first half had included a surprisingly varied range of elegiac music, similarly free of affectation; Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir under Karen Grylls sang Purcell’s ‘Hear my prayer’, Messiaen’s ‘O sacrum convivium’ and Schnittke’s Three Spiritual Songs.  It was remarkable to find such common spiritual ground between the widely different environments of Purcell and Messiaen, and again in the charming simplicity of the Schnittke songs, sung in Russian; ensemble singing was exquisite, and while individual voices were certainly distinguishable, the choir’s involvement was absolute, creating an arresting impression through scrupulous attention to phrasing, note values, attack, dynamics.

In between, perhaps the most famous movement from Beethoven’s late quartets – the Molto adagio from the Op 132 – was played with a keen sense of its poised, profound emotion, though varying between deep seriousness and joy, casting a spell over the audience.

I dare say that this concert will stand as one of the most memorable highlights of this festival.

 

Festival presents Shakespeare songs from two choirs in admirable literary and musical contexts

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Festival.  Sounds and Sweet Airs : Songs of Shakespeare

New Zealand Youth Choir and Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, conducted by David Squire and Karen Grylls

Wesley Church, Taranaki Street

Tuesday, 25 February 2014, 6:30 pm

An attractive programme and renowned performers had Wesley Church pretty full, including many people sitting in the gallery; this, despite the hefty prices for a concert lasting one hour and ten minutes ($58, $38 child, $53 Friend of the Festival).

The Youth Choir comprised 50 voices, and Voices New Zealand 16, with the result that at full stretch the combined choirs were very resonant in the wooden church.  A delightful feature was that members of the choirs read the Shakespeare texts prior to each group of songs.  This helped the audience to follow the songs (although the sung words were always projected with great clarity), and to grasp the meanings and nuances before listening to the musical settings; they were read with care and expression.   It was gratifying to have the lights on in the church, so that the audience could read the excellent programme notes that gave the titles of the plays from which the songs came, and a few lines about the context of each song.

After the first reading, we heard Caliban’s Song from The Tempest, set by prolific New Zealand choral composer David Hamilton, who was present.  This was sung by both choirs, with David Squire conducting.  It began with half the choir intoning, while the other half spoke the words in loud whispers.  When all sang, a magnificent sound emerged, with skilled, confident production and lovely variation of tone.  It was a very evocative setting.  Blend, balance and intonation were virtually impeccable.

Following this, the Youth Choir sang three songs set by Vaughan Williams: ‘Full fathom five’, ‘The cloud-capp’d towers’ and ‘Over hill, over dale’. I am very familiar with these supremely beautiful settings, having a recording (yes, an LP) of Swingle II singing them.  The accuracy, shaded dynamics and sensitivity to the words was almost as good from the Youth Choir – quite an achievement, given the group’s much larger size. All three songs demonstrated Vaughan Williams’s capture of the music of the words. He did not endeavour to surpass Shakespeare’s wonderful words, but rather to illustrate them.

The same composer’s ‘Willow Song’ from Othello featured fine, controlled legato singing.  The simple setting was appropriately sad in tone.  The second setting of the same words, by David Hamilton, saw the choir reorganised into  two choirs.  This more ornate setting was in a minor tonality, and full of feeling.

Jakko Mäntyjärvi (b.1963) (Wikipedia says ‘Jaakko’) is a Finnish composer, choral singer and conductor.  His Shakespeare songs are some of the most evocative in the repertoire: ‘Come away Death’ (Twelfth Night), ‘Lullaby’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), ‘Double, double, toil and trouble’ (Macbeth; described in the programme note as ‘The three witches’ Mediaeval cookery programme’) and ‘Full Fathom Five’ (The Tempest).  These were sung by Voices New Zealand, under Karen Grylls.

The  first was a very interesting and descriptive piece.  Fastidiously observed crescendos and decrescendos were a feature. ‘Lullaby’ (the one beginning ‘You spotted snakes with double tongues’, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream) was more innovative, but like Vaughan Williams, Mäntyjärvi always put the music at the service of the words, not the other way round.  In ‘Double, double, toil and trouble’ some of the words were recited in witch-like voices.  ‘Full fathom five’ sounded to be difficult, but it was a beautiful, effective setting, with gorgeous bass notes, like bells sounding deep in the sea.

The same words were set by Richard Rodney Bennett; this gave the most contemporary sound in the programme so far, and was preceded by a single note on a bell.  The bell was echoed in the voices by resonant ‘dongs’, of superb timbre.

A second English composer who died recently was John Tavener.  His ‘Fear no more’ from Cymbeline was aptly described in the programme notes as ‘searing and ecstatic with… dissonant harmonies and longheld chords’.  Magnificent forte and piano contrasts illuminated the marvellous text.  Gerald Finzi’s wonderful setting is familiar, but here and elsewhere the inexhaustible impact of Shakespeare’s words has inspired another worthy setting.

The Youth Choir rejoined Voices on the platform for five songs by Matthew Harris (b.1956), a highly productive American choral composer.  The first, ‘Tell me where is fancy bred’ (Merchant of Venice) was given a very straightforward setting; it demonstrated the excellent balance and dynamics of the singers.  ‘I shall no more to sea’ (The Tempest) and ‘When that I was and a little tiny boy’ (Twelfth Night) revealed the attractiveness of the settings, and also the skill of the choir with all members not only pronouncing vowels in the same way, but consonants also.  The latter song became quite complex and thick in texture.

The fourth song, ‘It was a lover and his lass’ (As You Like It) sounded rather conventional until a key change lifted the action, later reverting to the original key.  The final song, ‘When daffodils begin to peer’ (A Winter’s Tale) was written in quite a folksy style – there was even a Kiwi accent on the word ‘to’!

It was interesting to hear a programme of entirely English songs; the performances illustrated Dame Janet Baker’s assertion that English is not a difficult language in which to sing well – at least for English speakers who have been well trained.

The concert ended with two settings of ‘O mistress mine’ (Twelfth Night).  Andrew Carter’s was notable for beautiful word-painting and rich, multi-part harmony. Finally, a setting by doyen of British choral conductors, Sir David Willcocks, also rich in word-painting, the placement of the words being even clearer.  Interesting modulations ornamented the text.

The entire performance was characterised by captivating finesse, and did honour to Shakespeare.  Bravo!