Tag: choral

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!

Energy and commitment with Bach Choir’s Christmas Oratorio

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Cantatas (or Parts) Nos 1,2, 4, 6

The Bach Choir, the Chiesa Ensemble and Douglas Mews (organ) conducted by Peter Walls with soloists: Nicola Holt, Megan Hurnard, Oliver Sewell and Kieran Rayner

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

Sunday 15 December, 3:30pm

Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, in six parts, might be one of a kind, though I have come across a reference to a tradition of five-part oratorios in Lübeck in the same period.  It is classified in the Bach catalogue as one of three ‘oratorios’: the others are one-part works for Ascension and Easter; both the Ascension and Christmas oratorios seem closer to the passions in their use of recitative from the Evangelist.

The Christmas Oratorio consists of one cantata for each of the six days of Christmas: 25, 26 and 27 December, 1 January (the Feast of the Circumcision), the Sunday after New Year and the Epiphany (6 January).

Bach adapted them, in part, from three secular cantatas, BWV 213, 214, 215 (written for the Dresden court in 1733), for performance over 1734/35 in the two principal Leipzig churches, Saint Thomas and Saint Nikolai. According to the title page of the printed libretto they were all performed in the morning at Saint Nikolai but the 3rd and 5th cantatas were omitted at Saint Thomas in the afternoon. Whether or not meaningfully, the same two were omitted from this performance in the Catholic cathedral.

The choir is in fine shape, the four soloists fresh-voiced and accurate, and their accompaniment by Douglas Mews and the specifically created Chiesa Ensemble (mainly NZSO players), all under the direction of Peter Walls, brought about a very satisfying performance, given the limited rehearsal time for singers and players together.

It opened with a brilliant chorus buoyed by jubilant timpani and brass, at a steady, imposing tempo. Here, as in all but the second part, Bach’s vivid orchestration, depicting this turning-point for the world’s salvation, was fully demonstrated, while the choral part was delivered with a gusto that assured us that we were launched into a confident and energetic performance.

The busiest of the soloists, tenor Oliver Sewell, in the role of the Evangelist, began with the account of Christ’s birth according to Luke, intoning with clear diction in appropriately declamatory style; followed by alto Megan Hurnard, in the role of Mary, with her recitative and aria that contrasted with the opening spirit through its more intimate expression.

Sewell took other roles in addition to the Evangelist; though his voice is true and attractive, I noticed an increasing tendency, as the performance continued, to slur words in a rather un-Germanic manner.

The first and second Chorales of Part I presented a more subdued character as oboes were replaced by either cor anglais or oboe d’amore; the second chorale opened with bass Kieran Rayner in delightful contrast with the women’s voices, and continuing interestingly in its alternating verses. So it was good finally to hear Rayner with his solo aria, ‘Grosser Herr, o starker König’ projecting with clarity and confidence. All his later excursions were admirable.

Part II begins with a pastoral sinfonia, in an altogether more peaceable vein. As appropriate to the cantata that deals with the Annunciation of the Shepherds, the oboists again picked up cor anglais and oboe d’amore (Bach scored it for two oboe d’amore and two oboe da caccia – the predecessor of the cor anglais).

Other instrumental colours emerged. The tenor aria in Part II, ‘Frohe Hirt, eilt’, with conspicuous organ continuo, was accompanied by brilliant flute obbligato that became increasingly sparkling in its ornamentation; though Sewell seemed here to have too many words to fit comfortably into its speed and complexity.

Also in Part II is one of the most striking and beautiful arias, ‘Schlafe, mein Liebster’, a short verse but luxuriantly enveloped in rich reed sounds, elaborated with breathtaking skill and imagination and sung beautifully by Megan Hurnard; sustaining some of her more expressive words with singular beauty.

A hint that more rehearsal might have been useful came, for example, in the chorus ‘Ehre sei Gott’ towards the end of Part II, as it was joyously sung if slightly muddied.

Apart from a recitative ‘Furchtet euch nicht’ in Part II, soprano Nicola Holt waited till Part IV for a substantial entry. She shone in ‘Flösst, mein Heiland’, a not unattractive tremulous touch in her voice, with prominent oboe obbligato: an obbligato that includes the repeated echoing of the rhetorical words ‘Nein’ and ‘Ya’, which has attracted the disapproval of certain scholars. Because this section was taken from the cantata BWV 213 where it was set to words considered suitable, it’s been called an incongruity and inappropriate in this situation, even ‘risible’ for one commentator.  Unorthodox perhaps, but words and music seem to me a droll but quite effective device by which to vary the narrative.

Only at the end of Part VI do all four soloists sing as a quartet: only the tenor sang from the pulpit which had been used throughout for solos, while the other three sang (though I couldn’t see) from the floor; they remained individuals rather than a seamless ensemble. And a return to the bellicose character of the opening choruses brought the work to a close with brass and timpani blazing away and choir in full flight, though tiring a little, perhaps, to acclaim Christ’s quasi-military victory over death.

 

Festivities and farewells at the NZSO’s Messiah

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:

Handel – Messiah

Anna Leese (soprano) / Russell Harcourt (counter-tenor)

James Egglestone (tenor) / Teddy Tahu Rhodes (bass)

Orpheus Choir of Wellington

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Richard Gill (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 14th December 2013

A woman said to me as we were walking together out of the hall after Saturday evening’s  “Messiah” performance by the Orpheus Choir and the NZSO players, “You know, I NEVER get tired of it!” And judging by the work’s popularity and its ability to draw full houses year after year, it’s a sentiment shared by a lot of concertgoers.

Of course, there are a number of reasons for Messiah’s perennial popularity – firstly, it’s  one of those works whose greatness can’t seem to help but shine forth from every individual recitative, aria, chorus and instrumental interaction. Running hand-in-glove with this is the music’s sheer, direct appeal – whoever decreed that the greatest music ought to be fraught with difficulties, complexities and obscurities for the listener obviously forgot to tell Messiah-lovers.

One of the x-factor qualities which keep Messiah is that there are seemingly endless performance variables – because Handel himself could never settle on a “final version” of the work, there exist different performing editions deriving from different premieres. Then there’s more-or-less constant discussion between musicologists and performers regarding “how” the work ought to be interpreted. And there’s the built-in circumstance of every performance being different in any case, given that no two singers will put across the notes the same way, nor will any two conductors produce interpretations that sound like one another.

It all adds up to something that seems to have built-in renewability – had I but world enough and time I would have talked with a dozen people after the performance and explored a variety of ideas and feelings as to Messiah’s enduring popularity and appeal. In this respect I think it’s unique among choral works – perhaps only the Verdi Requiem could claim to enjoy anything like the same level of popularity.

Saturday evening’s “Messiah” certainly had a number of memorable features which readily contributed to the occasion’s unique quality. Right at the beginning of the concert, the orchestra leader Vesa-Matti Leppanen took up a microphone upon making his entrance, and paid a glowing and heartfelt tribute to the orchestra’s Double-Bass Section Principal, Hiroshi Ikematsu, whose final concert it was with the orchestra that evening.

Most interestingly, Vesa-Matti spoke about the relationship of the double-basses to the rest of the orchestral strings, assuring us that sound-wise, it was really Hiroshi’s double-bass which “led” the orchestra, and not the Concertmaster’s violin. It was obvious that such an inspirational and vibrant player and leader, returning to Japan, his home country, to live, will be sorely missed by the orchestra.

The conductor was Richard Gill, whom I had encountered a couple of years ago as conductor of the orchestra in a couple of lecture-demonstrations of various pieces of music  (I remembered well the evening devoted to Dvorak’s New World Symphony). He gave us music-making whose tones leapt from the pages which was bright, alert and alive. His tempi were generally swift and his phrasings with both singers and instrumentalists were detailed and spontaneous-sounding. I didn’t agree with everything he did – in places I thought his disavowal of any rhetoric a bit severe (the opening tenor solo, for example, which was very matter-of-fact), and the choir’s enunciation of the words a bit TOO clipped –  in the phrase “Unto Us” for example, from “For Unto Us a child is born” – and I thought his tempo simply too fast for “He was Despised” – a reading which divested the music of much of its sorrowful feeling, so that the result was a bit of a dry-eyed exercise. A pity, too, he left out the middle section and the reprise of “The Trumpet Shall Sound” – though from the singer’s and instrumentalist’s point of view it was possibly a welcomed excision. And were my ears deceiving me, or did he make a small cut in the  penultimate chorus “Worthy is the Lamb”, just before the re-entry of the timpani and brass towards the end?

These things were all outweighed, however, by the positive aspects of his direction – clear, strong, energetic instrumental and choral lines, encouragement of expression and sharpness of focus in the singing, real and vivid characterization of some of the sequences. I especially liked the choral attack in places like the opening of “Surely he hath borne our griefs” – the Orpheus Choir sounded right onto it, giving the music both power and glint, the sopranos especially a delight all the way through. Another highlight of his direction was the setting of certain instrumental passage for solo instruments , which gave the music a quiet intensity, an intimate quality – an example of this was in “I know my Redeemer liveth” which seemed to have an extra immediacy when accompanied by those solo string lines. Again, during the Amen chorus, the single strings sounded wonderful and made a great contrast with the tumult of the choir’s contrasting “Amens”. Things like this gave his music-making real distinction and individuality without any sense that I could discern of trying to be different just for its own sake.

The soloists also gave great distinction to the evening, especially the two home-grown voices, Anna Leese, soprano, and Teddy Tahu Rhodes, bass, both of whom really commanded and filled out what they sang. A more gentle and tremulous impression was made by both the tenor James Eggleston and counter-tenor Russell Harcourt. Russell Harcourt had a sweet, more feminine voice than one sometimes gets with counter-tenors, who can often be a bit “hooty”.

Tenor James Eggleston managed to blend heroic and poetical tones at the beginning of his opening recitative “Comfort Ye” – but I though his runs throughout “Ev’ry valley” were a bit short-winded in places, not quite free and liberated enough. However he interacted well with the chorus throughout the sequence describing Christ’s being mocked and humbled by the spectators and soldiers, beginning with the sequence “All they that see him laugh him to scorn” – and the chorus work was again terrific and vivid and engaging.

Though I felt Anna Leese wasn’t entirely comfortable with the longer coloratura runs in places, such as during “Rejoice Greatly”, the more lyrical and declamatory parts of her solos simply took wing throughout the evening, and her voice filled the hall so magnificently. I thought she had a number of particularly striking moments, generated by her resplendent vocal-quality – firstly, her describing the Shepherds in the fields watching over their flocks before they were astonished and made afraid by the appearance of the angel and the heavenly hosts; and secondly, her radiantly taking over the solo line from the counter-tenor in “He shall feed his flock”. But the highlight was, for me, her singing of “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, accompanied so enchantingly by solo violin and ‘cello. And where she began the aria’s second sequence “And though worms destroy this body”, her voice seemed to go into some kind of transcendental realm of vocal ecstasy, to the point where it actually gave me goosebumps listening to her!

The other singer to make an enormous impression, and not just through dint of his physical presence, was bass Teddy Tahu Rhodes. From the outset he seemed right into the world of the music, putting the words across with tremendous power and focus. In fact, of all the solo singers he seemed the most confident and commanding in delivering both a strong, yet flexible vocal line. The bass arias from Messiah are all so distinctive and characterful in themselves, in any case, but he wasn’t content to simply leave things at that – every individual item was delivered with great “ownership” and thrilling surety. With such singing and playing as we enjoyed here, it was a pity we didn’t get the whole of the aria “The trumpet shall sound”, which of course, in its entirety, with a contrasting middle section and a reprise of the opening, is both a gift and a real “ask” for both singer and instrumentalist.   But what we got was so splendid as to make us truly grateful. Cheryl Hollinger’s trumpet-playing was gleaming and golden throughout, and in tandem with the singer made a stunning impression.

It all added up to a performance of considerable distinction, one by no means perfect (is there any such thing as a perfect performance of this masterpiece?) but always with something individual and exciting to say. The audience “buzz” at the concert’s end was ample testimony to what these musicians had achieved – the NZSO ought to feel well pleased with its bringing together these talents for our great delight! Joyeux Noël to all!

Puer natus est nobis – Christmas music for the ages from the Tudor Consort

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Tudor Consort presents:

Puer natus est nobis – (A Boy is Born to Us)

Christmas Music from the Renaissance

Music by Anon., Lambe, Byrd, Guerrero, Tallis, Palestrina, Mouton and de Lassus

The Tudor Consort

directed by Michael Stewart

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Hill St., Wellington

Saturday 7th December, 2013

The great liturgical feast-times throughout the year are simply wonderful for music and music-making, as there’s plenty of added value in terms of “something in the air”, as with the Tudor Consort’s recent “Puer natus est nobis” (A Boy is born to us) concert at Wellington’s Sacred Heart Basilica.

Opening the concert with a beautifully-wrought example of Sarum Chant, the choir readily evoked both a stillness, and the steady, inexorable beat of time with its processional throughout the body of the church. The voices resoundingly floated the words and tones of the text bearing the Advent tidings, all the while encircling and passing through the congregation/audience, and then ascending to the sanctuary. I thought it a wondrous and cherishable evocation.

Director Michael Stewart then welcomed us to the concert, making a point of assuring us that the singers had paid particular attention – with the help of a “expert” whose name I can’t recall, but who was apparently present at the concert! – to Middle English pronunciation of the older texts. Certainly the sounds took on an added vitality when authentically expressed and coloured, somehow enlarging our imaginative capacities for appreciating the distances in space and time this music was making via these performances to reach us.

I loved the more angular and less moulded effect of these vocalizations – the 15th Century anonymous carol There is no Ros had an enchantingly “modal” flavor, the variation between solo and ensemble voices creating beautifully terraced intensities between verses. And the more robust male-voice Hayl Mary, full of grace from the same period took on a similarly penetrating period awareness, the voices seeming to relish the salty tang of those dialects.

In the concert’s first half there were two pieces written by Walter Lambe, both found in the famous Eton Choirbook – the first, Stella caeli (A Heavenly Star) Michael Stewart admitted to not REALLY being a Christmas song, but was a piece he really liked. Certainly the long, rolling lines of polyphonic blending made an impressive effect, a kind of crescendo-like build-up towards a sequence of dissolution and gradual regrouping, line-by line, complete with unexpected dynamics that gave the music a dramatic, almost theatrical feeling.

My description of the piece is, of course, based on the Consort’s performance of its wonderful textures and contouring, as with the same composer’s similarly dramatic (and this time unequivocally seasonal) Nesciens mater, with its gleaming soprano lines and contrasting male-voiced sequences towards the end – again, great and satisfying intensity was generated by the singers and their director in this glorious music.

We would have felt cheated without the Coventry Carol in a concert of this kind, and the Consort didn’t disappoint, giving the heart-rending story plenty of poignancy and bite in appropriate places – hackles appropriately rose when the men’s voices characterized King Herod’s murderous brutality with black, stentorian utterances. More delicate and softer in outline was Sweet was the Song, from a source I’d never heard of previously, William Ballet’s “Lute Book” c.1600, a piece with a soaring soprano line and rich harmonies.

William Byrd’s joyous and energetic evocation This Day Christ was Born rang as resplendently as church bells, with a veritable hubbub of voice-writing conveying great excitement and joy among mankind, here beautifully realised, along with an amazingly stratospheric soprano line. “Good old Byrd, eh?” was the immediate response of my companion at the concert, who had sung in various choirs, and thus encountered (and enjoyed) the composer’s music as a performer.

After the interval our ears were largely transported across the English Channel and into Europe, with a quick trip back for a piece by Thomas Tallis at one point. To begin we were treated to two enchanting 16th Century “dance” carols from Spain, the first the anonymous Verbum Caro factum Est  and, following immediately, Francisco Guerrero’s A un niño llorando al yelo (To a boy crying in the cold). Back to England we were then taken, for Tallis’s intense and tightly-knit Videte miraculum (Behold the miracle), plainsong lines alternating with closely-knit harmonies, and melismatic phrases repeated to hypnotic effect.

Then came music from the great Palestrina, firstly his Hodie Christus natus est, occasioning a double choir formation and featuring festive energies and colorful exchanges. What wonderful roulades of sound from the women! – gleaming soprano lines culminating with joyous “Noels” at the end!  Nobler, and more intense, was O Magnum Mysterium, music charged with a kind of noble spirituality. Though the question-and answer “Quem vidistis”  (Whom did you see?) sequence took up the second part, the choir had returned to its normal formation, the writing doing the work of differentiation between the voices, with their skillfully layered intensities and beautiful finishing “Alleluias”. Lovely performances.

Two more names to conjure with at the concert’s conclusion – firstly Jean Mouton, who was born in 1459, the best part of a century earlier than Orlande de Lassus. Mouton’s Quaeramus cum pastoribus (Let us seek with the shepherds) was another “question-and-answer” work, firstly describing the scene and then questioning the Christ-child, expressed in music with gentle, open textures and comfortably-shared lines. More complex and energetic was Orlande de Lassus’s Resonet in laudibus (Let praises resound), one whose title gives a clue as to its musical character, or characters, as here, across the different verses – the Consort’s singing encompassed the opening’s sturdy declamations as whole-heartedly as were treated the different variations, the final sequence returning to great jubilation with the words “Magnum nomen Domini Emmanuel” (Great is the name of the Lord Emmanuel) – an appropriate and celebratory way to finish the concert.

A small point at the concert’s end – had Michael Stewart allowed his choir to remain in the Sanctuary after taking his bow, retired for a moment, and then returned, we could have acclaimed the Consort’s and its director’s performances for even longer! They certainly deserved it.