Tag: choral

An overwhelming Missa Solemnis from the Orpheus

Posted on by Peter Mechen

PSATHAS – Luminous

BEETHOVEN – Missa Solemnis

Emma Fraser (soprano) / Bianca Andrew (mezzo-soprano)

Cameron Barclay (tenor) / Kieran Rayner (baritone)

Orpheus Choir

Vector Wellington Orchestra

Marc Taddei (conductor)

Welliington Town Hall

Sunday, 29th April 2012

Along with his last symphony, which he finished at about the same time, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, completed in 1824, is justly reckoned to be the finest and grandest of his public utterances as a composer. One commentator went so far as to term the work  a “sacred symphony, one whose secular counterpart (the Ninth Symphony) followed shortly afterwards”.

The composer called the Mass “my greatest work”, which perhaps explains in part the somewhat bewildering duplicity with which he arranged to receive advances for the work from at least six publishers before settling on a seventh, as well as privately selling ten prepublished copies to various royal patrons. Obviously Beethoven wished that what he held so dear ought to be similarly regarded by the outside world, more especially so as his financial circumstances at the time of writing the Mass were even worse than usual.

Financial considerations aside, Beethoven’s intention, according to letters written to his patron, the Archduke Rudolf, was “to awaken lasting religious feelings both in the singers and in the audience…..there is nothing loftier than to come nearer the Deity than others and, and from here to distribute the heavenly rays among Mankind….”. With these sentiments firmly in mind, the words “Mit Andacht” (With devotion), found written over the opening of the score, is the overriding instruction for the performers.

Which is all well and good, except that those same performers are confronted with a work bristling with difficulties, one whose composer demonstrated little concern at various places throughout the score for ordinary human capabilities. At almost any stage in the work’s performing history, it seems as though its challenges have been emphasized almost to the exclusion of its actual content – thus the Musical Times of 1882 pronounced in no uncertain terms that “The work is impossible. No human lungs can withstand the strain imposed by it.”  And despite today’s orchestral and choral standards being of the level of technical excellence hitherto undreamed of, critics and listeners continue to report performance woes and mishaps – this from a review of a recent London performance, for example:

“Time and time again could be heard many of the soprano singers striving to meet Beethoven’s very severe demands on them, only to be undermined by a substantial number of their colleagues merely screaming at the note and missing. The tenors too were often wild, with individual voices coming through. That Beethoven’s demands are severe should not mean that listeners have to make allowances……”

Of course, Beethoven’s score for the Missa Solemnis has long been cited, along with various of his “late” works as embodying the idea that the composer refused to compromise his artistic vision to the limitations of instruments and musicians of his era – – hence his oft-quoted reply to a violinist who complained that a passage in one of his last quartets was virtually unplayable: – “Do you think I care about your miserable violin when the Spirit speaks to me?” – in other words, the idea counted far more than its execution.

All of which gives the impression to the uninitiated listener that the Missa Solemnis is a kind of intractable musical monster, created by a somewhat deranged creative spirit – certainly some of Beethoven’s contemporaries were shocked by what they actually heard of it, particularly the militaristic interpolations towards the end of the work’s final movement, the “Agnus Dei” –  a hapless critic lamented “what these strange trumpet-fanfares, the mixing in of recitative, the fugued instrumental section, which only destroys the flow of ideas…..what the hollow, unrhythmical bizarre timpani strokes are intended to mean, only dear Heaven knows…”. Of course, succeeding generations of music-lovers have more readily accepted Beethoven’s revolutionary attitudes to traditional form and expression – writing as early as 1861 the acerbic critic Eduard Hanslick, after hearing a performance, wrote about the work’s “sublime ideas” and admired its creator’s “double majesty of genius and adversity”. In this sense the composer was correct when he remarked to a friend “my music is not for this, but for a later time”.

Even in our time the work has the power to startle and surprise listeners unprepared for its boldness and daring. And these were precisely the qualities which were brought to the fore by the Orpheus Choir, the Vector Wellington Orchestra and four radiantly-voiced soloists under Marc Taddei in the Wellington Town Hall on Sunday afternoon. The concert actually featured another, shorter work as a kind of prelude, John Psathas’s fanfare Luminous, one whose intensities, though very different to those of the Missa Solemnis activated both our sensibilities and the sound-vistas of the hall, and put us in a “tingling” frame of mind, ready for the coruscations of  the Beethoven work. I thought that, in this respect, it was good programming, even if I for one would have been happy with having the Mass as a “stand alone” experience.

Throughout the whole of the first part of the work, the Kyrie, Gloria and Credo, Beethoven is in his grandest, most imposing mode, with energy and drama to the fore, and frequent contrasts between fast and slow, loud and soft, music with “attitude writ large”. By contrast, the two following movements, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, are generally more intimate and personal-sounding, apart from a few irruptions of energy (at the words “Pleni sunt coeli in terra” during the Sanctus, for example, and during the latter part of the Agnus Dei, when the composer reminds his listeners all too palpably of the horrors of war).

I would doubt that there’s another work in the standard repertoire that puts a choir through its paces to the extent that this one does – throughout these first three movements the energy levels of the singers are taxed to an incredible extent. Very wisely, Marc Taddei called for a “tuning-break” between the Gloria and the Credo, one which I appreciated as well, as one is otherwise literally bounced by the composer from one alpine peak to another, between the two sections. But in general, I could have wept for joy at the strength, power and beauty of the Orpheus Choir’s  singing throughout. Such a great deal is required by the composer of his singers, and I thought the choir’s stirring commitment to the task was as much a tribute to its Music Director Mark Dorrell as to the other “Marc” who directed the performance with such inspirational élan and all-encompassing energy.

As for two or three places where the choir was pushed fractionally beyond its limits by the conductor, such as the fugal conclusion of the Credo and the aforementioned “Pleni sun coeli” in the Sanctus, the momentary ensemble imprecisions proclaimed a certain spirit of risk-taking, of going to extremes entirely appropriate for such a work in performance – a case, perhaps, for the idea that the pursuit of perfection is in itself a greater undertaking than its actual achievement. Conductor Marc Taddei certainly seemed like a man possessed throughout, inspiring his musicians to put themselves on the line and give it all they had. At the same time, his sense of the work’s overall structure remained admirably clear-sighted, so that, in his hands the work sounded every bit like the masterpiece that it’s reputed to be.

Heroes of equal standing were the orchestral players, every section covering itself with glory, realizing all of the work’s demands throughout – the brass I thought were outstanding, the horns in particular – and of course they all had a fine old time during the Agnus Dei, putting across Beethoven’s militarist evocations of the perils and sufferings of war. What an extraordinary sequence this made,  the raw force of the composer’s message here given plenty of power and intensity by singers and players alike, right up to the work’s somewhat abrupt ending.

Pivotal in this scheme of things were the four young soloists (all of whom, in a context of such awe-inspiring grandeur of expression, looked excessively youthful!). As it turned out, Emma Fraser, Bianca Andrew, Cameron Barclay and Kieran Rayner made a veritable dream team of voices. They were placed at the back of the orchestra and in front of the choir, as though they were singing in an integrated space, rather than “out the front” – and this worked well because their voices had the heft to be clearly heard. Baritone Kieran Rayner had a little difficulty in this regard because of the lowness of some of his notes, although higher in his range the voice “told” with no impediment. All made a beautifully blended sound as well as handling their individual lines with great aplomb. Especially affecting was their singing in the Sanctus and Benedictus, sounded in tandem with the orchestra’s concertmaster Matthew Ross, whose violin solo triumphed over a couple of uncertain moments to contribute to the work’s most sublimely beautiful passages.

This was a performance that I’m sure will be talked about for a long time to come – all credit to conductor, choir, orchestra and soloists for their part in creating our very own and much-cherished version of the stuff musical legends are made of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Full Monte – Baroque Voices let ‘er rip for us

Posted on by Peter Mechen

THE FULL MONTE (Concert Two)

Claudio MONTEVERDI – Madrigals (Books 2 and 9 – exerpts)

Baroque Voices, directed by Pepe Becker

Continuo: Douglas Mews (harpsichord) / Robert Oliver (bass viol)

Stephen Pickett (theorbo / baroque guitar)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Wellington

Sunday 22nd April, 2012

Trying to analyze either truth or beauty brings one to despair at the inadequacy of one’s own command of language. And faced with the truth and beauty of a body of music such as Claudio Monteverdi’s madrigals, I’m conscious that any words I might try to muster up to connect with, describe or explain any aspect of such glorious sounds are not going to match that selfsame glory. The exercise makes one realize anew just why it is that music is regarded as conveying so much more than words ever could.

I’m forced to accept the realization that the best way of telling other people about Monteverdi’s music is to encourage them to experience some of it for themselves. And happily, this is what that wondrous group of musicians and associates, Wellington’s  Baroque Voices, led by Pepe Becker, have decided to make possible for us regarding those justly famous collections of madrigals by the Italian composer, no less than nine books of them, written over a period of more than fifty years, a virtual compositional lifetime.

The group’s aim is to present the entire collection of these works in concert, over a period of four years. The first in this series of concerts was performed almost a year ago last May, one that I attended and afterwards reviewed on RNZ Concert (as a footnote to this present review, I offer my notes from that radio interview, not a word-for-word transcript, but something which contains the essence of what was discussed on air).

Now the group has undertaken a second concert, true to its word, for our delight and pleasure. As they did with the first “The Full Monte” presentation, Baroque Voices aren’t  intending to slavishly follow the composer’s chronological order, but aim for some variety by setting groups of works from different eras in juxtaposition with one another. So it was that this concert alternated madrigals either singly or in pairings from Book Two and individually from Book Nine throughout the afternoon – which meant that we were being constantly confronted by what sounded like music from two different composers.

We had the youthful (1590) more traditionally-influenced composer following the rules of what he called “Prima Pratica” (the older, more conservative way of composition), his works unaccompanied, according to Renaissance tradition, alternated with works from the Ninth Book (published posthumously in 1651), music from a different century, of course, it must be remembered – these madrigals are instrument-accompanied, and the vocal writing is far freer, less predictable,  band more varied, including canzonette (trios) and two-part works whose immediacy of expression are in some cases practically operatic in feeling and in inclination.

As much as I’d like to take credit for what I thought was a perceptive comment regarding Monteverdi’s writing style, I have to confess that the following came from a commentator surveying a number of recordings of these works, and writing about what he thought as the best way for the listener to approach this music. He said, “Trying to understand Monteverdi by working backwards from Handel and Bach doesn’t work, because Monteverdi’s music is the culmination of the Renaissance style, one which looked to express the meaning behind every word of text. He took the “poetry of sound” to its highest level of expression, and in the process, created something which strikes our ears today in places as fiercely modern.”

Between the two concerts the personnel of the group changed a little. Tenor Peter de Blois was replaced by Phillip Collins, joining the other tenor, Oliver Sewell, and bass Benjamin Caukwell took the place of David Morriss. Otherwise, the voices that had delighted us throughout the first concert were there again for the second, and continuing to do so. Pepe Becker’s and Jayne Tankersley’s angelic soprano tones ensured that our sensibilities were kept more-or-less constantly airborne – though very different in individual timbres (very likely an advantage) their blending of their individual lines in places created both mellifluous and startling results! Christopher Warwick’s reliable counter-tenor again wove strong interconnecting lines and enriched those middle vistas with enlivened tones.

Throughout, the blending and contrasting of vocal tones was a constant delight to the listener’s ear – right from the opening “Non si levava ancor”, from Book Two, in which the textures opened like those of a flower, contrasted the mood with a certain mercurial energy, then took up the longer lines once more.I enjoyed those instances of marvellously “attenuated” lines in which a second singer would add to an already existing held note, making for an incredibly intense effect. The song’s totality seemed like some kind of perfection of realization, beginning with impulse, then generating tension, and finally – fruition.

The second item, “E dice l’una sospirand’ allora”, also from Book Two, reminded me of Thomas Tallis in places, with “modal” sounding progressions. As the work progressed the performers excitingly widened and intensified its range of expression, up to the vehement and very dramatic ending, with the “addio” repeated, the words living and breathing. From Book Nine then came a dialogue “Bel pastor, dal cui bel sguardo” between a shepherdess and her lover, Pepe Becker and tenor Phillip Collins played nicely into each other’s and the music’s hands, with delightfully capricious phrasings and figurations, exciting coloratura and winsome echoing of some of the florid passages – most entertaining!

Among the many other highlights was the energetic “Se vittorie si belle” from Book Nine, in which the instrumental ensemble sprang to energetic life, the small baroque guitar displaying real “attitude”, as the instrumentalists matching the singers’ rapid-fire exchanges, the words combatative and flailing about in all directions. Another was the Book Two “Tutte le bocche belle”, with its sublimely stratospheric soprano parts, creating a feeling all around of ecstasy on the wing with the bell-like tones. And the two sopranos gave us another palpable thrill a few minutes later, with the superbly-wrought “Quando dentro al tuo seno” (Book Nine), concluding with a palpably searing clash of seconds from Pepe Becker and Jayne Tankersley which was then brilliantly and fantastically resolved on the phrase’s final note. Sensational stuff!

This ought to have been a literal show-stopper, but we in the audience were perhaps too stunned by the power of the music and virtuosity of the singing to respond immediately! –  and so we waited until the more playful and light-hearted “S’andasse Amor a caccia” (Book Two) brought with its ending the interval. In fact, my only criticism of the concert was that we spectators felt the pressing need to applaud more often, but were stymied by a mixture of inhibition and reluctance to disturb the “spell” of the music-making. We needed, I think, at least one opportunity, midway through each half, to let off a bit of steam and give vent to our appreciation.

I could go on through the second half of the concert highlighting various other “highlights”, the “terraced” beauties of the very first song in the second half, “Mentre io miravo fiso” from Book Two, with its solid underlying harmonic progressions; or the overt, Barbara Strozzi-like emotionalism and volatility of Book Nine’s extraordinary “O sia tranquillo il mare”, the singers having more than ample temperament, sensibility and sustaining power to do these works full justice. Nor was emotive power the exclusive property of the Book Nine madrigals, as we discovered with the performance of the beautiful but intensely dramatic “Dolcemente dormiva la mia Clori” from Book Two, with its lovely, elaborately-turned final cadential measures.

I did think the group right at the end could have chosen a fuller-ensembled madrigal with which to finish, rather than slavishly pursuing the numerical order of the Book Two set  which concluded with the single-sopranoed  “Cantai un tempo…” – as with the concert’s first half, it was the penultimate madrigal which I thought would have made a better and more concerted “finish” here, the Book Two “Ti sponto l’ali, Amor, la donna mia” with its roulades of intense, rolling sound and fearlessly-attacked high notes (soprano Jayne Tankersley in particular in spectacular form). But this, like the very few other criticisms I’ve dredged up, was a minor matter, as smoke compared with Pepe Becker’s and Baroque Voices’ stunning achievement in this music. Even more so than I felt at the conclusion of the first concert of “The Full Monte” in 2011, I now await with impatience the group’s third instalment of these remarkable works.

 

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Appendix

2011 Review: The Full Monte (Concert One)

Baroque Voices’ performances of music from the entire collection of nine Books of Madrigals

by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Baroque Voices: Pepe Becker (soprano) / Jayne Tankersley (soprano) / Christopher Warwick (countertenor)

Peter de Blois (tenor) / Oliver Sewell (tenor) / David Morriss (bass)

Continuo players: Douglas Mews (harpsichord) / Robert Oliver (bass viol)

Il Primo Libro de Madrigali (for five voices) 1587 (complete)

Madrigali e canzonette  (for two and three voices) from Libro Nono 1651

Concert 1 Sunday 1st May 2011, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Wellington

(from a review by Peter Mechen for “Upbeat” with Eva Radich)

 

PLAY MUSIC : Filli car e amata (Phyllis, my dear beloved) – Poi che del mio dolor (Since you enjoy feeding on my sufferings) (from Il Primo Libro)

“The Full Monte” – the title suggests revealing something or stripping something off, as in the film of the same name. So, what was done to or with Monteverdi?

Baroque Voices in this concert began what’s intended to be a complete survey of the Madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi. Monteverdi wrote nine books of Madrigals, and gradually evolved his own style of expression. So the early books are in the grand polyphonic tradition of the Renaissance, although one can hear distinctive voices striving for deeper and more overt expression every now and then. And by the time the composer came to write his later books he had ushered in a new style of vocal writing, much freer and more overtly expressive than the old. Baroque Voices performed the entire Book one of the madrigals and interspersed groups of them with selections from Book Nine, music that came almost a whole lifetime later, in fact.……..

How did the idea work, of alternating works by a composer from both the beginning and the end of his creative life?

It worked well – it was a situation where different ways of presenting the music would have made for an equally fascinating, but different, result. Part of the reason everything worked is that the music is so good, so instantly combustible to the ear, so that it became a case of registering differences rather than improvements. The early Monteverdi wasn’t at all shamed or cast low by what we heard of the later works. What was fascinating was how one often heard pre-echoes of the composer’s later style, so that the experience was more organic than one might have thought it would be..……..

So what are the differences between early Monteverdi and late Monteverdi in his madrigal writing?

When Monteverdi was young he wrote madrigals in the old-fashioned sense of the word -that is, following the rules of Renaissance Polyphony……….. These early works were unaccompanied five-part madrigals, and the rules consisted of things like having equal voice parts, preparing the listener for dissonances, certain prescribed chordal progressions were used, and the work’s musical structure was paramount.  By contrast, the later Monteverdi deals in bold dissonances, sudden tempo changes, radical harmonic shifts, chromaticism, florid vocal ornamentation – a generally more volatile and spontaneous attitude towards realizing the meaning of the poetic settings.……….We’ll hear two of these early madrigals: “Amor per tua merce” (Cupid, take pity on me), followed by “Baci soave e cari” (Sweet, dear kisses).

So, what do we expect the group to be doing in this group of two madrigals?

It’s music that’s very light on its feet, with the lyrical sections having  a lovely soaring quality. Listen for the lovely voice-blend in both works, and in the second madrigal the soprano’s unflinching attack on the high notes, even if the intonation isn’t absolutely true all the time. There’s a lovely blend achieved by the group here, and the ebb and flow of the work is beautifully controlled.…….

PLAY: Monteverdi “Amor per tua merce” (Cupid, take pity on me”) and “Baci soave e carry” (Sweet, dear kisses) from Book One of Monteverdi’s Madrigals for five voices (1587).

The music sounds amazing – what is it that you think gives it that compelling quality, that instant connection?

In this case, definitely a combination of the music and its performance. The music itself is extraordinary – last year with the performance of the Vespers by the same singers we got a tremendous demonstration of how vivid and communicative Monteverdi’s music can be – and even without that array of wonderful instruments these madrigals still have the power to engage. You can hear, especially in the later works but even occasionally in the earlier works, how, with such expressivity it was easy for this music to become operatic. Monteverdi’s concern with his vocal works was to give the words and their meaning pre-eminence over musical structures and harmonic progressions – he insisted that it was a case of “Prima le parole, poi la musica….” (first the words, then the music). HIs First Book of Madrigals, though it generally follows the traditional styles of the late Renaissance, occasionally gives an indication of the composer’s desire to pursue more modern styles of writing – he considered “the words are the mistress of harmony, not the servant”. Monteverdi had been criticized by at least one of his contemporaries for what were called “crudities” and “license” in his music, and his response was to coin the name “Seconda Pratica” (Second Practice), aligning himself with other composers who preferred the innovative style, and serving himself and his work apart from what he called the “Prima Practica” (First Practice) of the more traditional composers.

The performances sound terrific! – what was it like being there and feeling the force of it all?

Like all performing groups worth their salt, this group invites total immersion on the part of the listener. It was an incredibly involving experience, of course very much an art that conceals art, because this degree of involvement by the performers in this music  which washed over and all around us was of course possible through skills and techniques that enabled the singers to put the message across so tellingly. If one was looking for faults, there were moments of raw tone, and of one or two not-quite on the note unexposed entries, and a couple of instances of not-quite-matching figurations with singers in duet  but these were so few and far between, and often what might have seemed a rawness, a slightly off-pitched note, a momentary inequality of vocal figuration in duet, also created expressive effects of their own. Now music-making can only do that if it’s generally on an exalted level – like Alfred Cortot’s wrong notes on his recordings – “spots on the sun” I think one commentator called them.And the music-making by this group was of such brilliance, power and depth, that occasional minor lapses took on that “spots on the sun” quality. All in all, I thought the concert was an outstanding achievement.

So, we’re going to hear one of the later madrigals, from Book Nine, in fact – what does one listen for?

Well, it’s a wonderful example of how Monteverdi took his style along further – a very dramatic and theatrical setting of the words, with frequent irruptions of feeling inspired by the text’s meaning – you can hear and feel the surge of emotion and the graphic realization of the words “to cry for help to end my terrible torment”, for example – and then, at the end, the throwaway line “for she causes the words to break on my lips”. Remarkable.

Here’s Pepe Becker and Jane Tankersley, accompanied by Douglas Mews harpsichord and Robert Oliver bass viol.

PLAY: Monteverdi “Ardo e scoprir” (I burn) from Book Nine of Monteverdi’s Madrigals for two and three voices (1651)

Pepe Becker and Jayne Tankersley, sopranos, with Douglas Mews and Robert Oliver bass viol.

It does move the whole scenario that much closer to opera, doesn’t it? 

Well, of course Monteverdi had by now written his famous operas, which were among the first ever written. His earliest surviving opera, L’Orfeo, was first performed in 1607. One of the things that make these works really zing is the quality of the poetry – Monteverdi was using verses by some of the most famous poets of the time, Tasso, Guarini and Rinuccini, people whose use of emotive, sensuous imagery was unparalleled.

Even in the earlier madrigals which are more conventional and perhaps “reined in” emotionally compared with the later ones, the writing is of an order that Monteverdi was fully able to explore and push out the boundaries of what could be expressed – the poetry simply went with him – or, maybe, he simply went with the poetry.

To finish, here’s a couple of shorter madrigals from the First Book, in which you can hear the young composer already responding to the ebb and flow of the very emotional poetry. We’re going to hear the ensemble of Baroque Voices singing firstly “Questa ordi il laccio” (She it was who wove the snare”, followed by a look at a kind of Little Bo Peep of Monteverdi’s time, “La Vaga Shepherdess”.

PLAY TO FINISH: Monteverdi “Questa ordì il laccio”(She it was who wove the snare) and “La vaga pastorella” (The lovely shepherdess) (from Il Primo Libro 1587)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Secondary Students’ Choir, versatile and deeply impressive, prepares for tour to South Africa

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir in Concert directed by Andrew Withington

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Saturday, 14 April 1012, 7.30pm

Choral music seems to be on the up and up, not only here, but in other countries as well.  Any choir would be exceedingly proud to sing as well as this choir does; all the more surprising, because the members, from all parts of New Zealand, meet only in school holidays, and because every work (except the newly-commissioned one) was sung from memory. ‘Sung’ includes body percussion, actions, sign language and vocal sounds other than singing.

The choir is a two-year choir only; another reason for celebrating its continued excellent form and versatility.  At the climax of each two-year round, the choir travels overseas.  This year, it was to have been to Greece, for the International Society for Music Education conference.  That is presumably the reason for a new work being commissioned, to be sung in the Greek language, from John Psathas.

Sadly, as a result of the civil disturbances and the economic austerity measures there decreed by the European Union, this trip will not now take place.  At the end of the concert we were informed that a CD of the programme we heard will be made soon; perhaps that CD could be sent to Greece and played at the conference, as a poor second-best to having the choir live.  Instead, the choir will travel to a music festival in South Africa.

A generous 20-item programme greeted a near-full church.  Energy never seemed to flag, and the items were all sung well.  I counted 10 different languages employed; I’m sure this is a record in the annals of choral concerts I have attended – and they are many.  Each language sounded authentic and beautifully pronounced, including Icelandic, Swedish and Irish – not that I know these languages.  This level of proficiency takes hard work, but is ultimately only achieved through each singer making the vowels and the consonants in exactly the same way as the other singers; this also produces the clarity of words that marks this choir.

The opening was dramatic: with the church in darkness, the choir processed in, holding candles, while a single low note on the organ was echoed by quiet intoning from only the lowest and highest voices in the choir, in what sounded like Russian.

Then, with candles out and lights on, the familiar ‘Veni, veni Emmanuel’ was sung, beautifully balanced (as indeed was almost everything on the programme).  It became unfamiliar, in a wonderful arrangement by Zoltán Kodály, presumably in Hungarian.

Sixteenth-century composer Jacob Handl (not to be confused with G.F.) wrote mainly church music.  His ‘Resonet in Laudibus’ was one of the few familiar pieces on the programme.  Its splendid antiphonal effects and varied dynamics (double choir) were marked in the magnificent acoustic of Sacred Heart.

It was followed by one of the most well-known choral pieces ever written: ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah.  This was one of the least successful items.  Firstly, too much time was spent in the choir moving around into single choir format.  The basses, who shone in the first item, did not seem quite able to emulate the sound of an adult choir.  The organ accompaniment was rather mixed in style, and too much of the singing was at an unvarying double forte.  My note made at the time reads ‘they are certainly exploiting this acoustic’.  Nevertheless, it was a good performance.

Rossini’s ‘O Salutaris Hostia’ had the choir sounding like a much more mature group than the high school students they are.  The tone was rounded and beautifully warm; intonation was almost immaculate; as before, words were clear, and rhythm was spot-on.  No wonder this choir, or rather, its earlier manifestations, has won an impressive list of international prizes.  Here again, there were a few too many sustained double-fortes for this lively acoustic, and a few attacks were not quite together, or were not all on exactly the same note.  But this is carping.

Another good feature is that, without being stiff, the choir members stand still.  There is no obvious wriggling or wagging of heads.  And for all 61 singers to have memorised such a range of different music is astonishing.

Mendelssohn’s choral music is not as well-known as it should be, apart from Elijah.  The piece ‘Mitten wir im Leben sind’ was a lively example.  It was followed by ‘Geistliches Lied’ by Brahms, accompanied on the organ.  Beginning with a soprano solo, this was a quieter number, but built to a climax before dying away again.

Groups of items were introduced by various choir members and others; the announcement of the next piece was inaudible, despite the microphone, but having picked up ‘ovsky’ and perused the programme, I discovered it was ‘Rytmus’, by Ivan Hrušovský.  This very rapid contemporary piece was unaccompanied, like the majority of the pieces presented.  The Slovakian composer had certainly provided challenges, to which the choir was equal.  Pieces such as this would have benefited from brief programme notes.

Following a short interval, the choir presented the commissioned work from John Psathas: Nemesi, about the goddess Nemesis, who worked to maintain an equilibrium between good fortune and evil deeds.  Here, the choir used sheet music on stands, so that their hands were free for rhythmic clapping (both soft and loud, like that of Spanish flamenco musicians) and clicking fingers.  Other body percussion employed light foot-stamping, and non-voiced whispering sibilants and other mouth noises, while a small cymbal and a triangle were employed briefly.

A very effective piece, it made use of much chant-like singing and very spare writing.  Perhaps it relied a little too much on effect rather than choral technique; colours in sound rather than singing.  Alto and soprano soloists were splendid; this is a piece that could readily find a place in the repertoires of other choirs.  A partial standing ovation followed the performance, at which the composer was present.

Pieces by New Zealand composer Richard Oswin followed: ‘Sweet Sleep’, ‘Altered Days’, and three Gallipoli settings: ‘Gallipoli Peninsula’ (the poem by Alistair Te Ariki Campbell), ‘The last to leave’ and ‘The spirit of Anzac’.  The first featured lovely harmonies and sensitive treatment of the words, including some Maori words.  The next was sung with a New Zealand accent, and placed tricky parts against each other.  I liked the fact that it was characterised by a tone different from that used for Rossini or Mendelssohn, showing that the choir was able to vary how it sounded depending on the music and words in hand.

The first of the Gallipoli songs began with the ssh-ssh of  the sea coming in and going out on a beach.  The music eloquently illustrated the words.  The very touching poem was treated to lovely tone and a great bass sound.  Enunciation was so uniform that the words could readily be heard and understood.  The second song included some unison singing, which was very telling.  There was rich sound in the harmony sections.  The final song was a rollicking one – perhaps Gallipoli as the soldiers pretended it was as they were leaving, rather than how it really was?

After the second short interval, Paraire Tomoana’s ‘Toia Mai’ was presented, with guitar and many actions, and chanting from the men.  This and the following two items appeared to be sung without conductor.  The vigorous, full-throated tone from the men and the lively actions from the whole choir brought an enthusiastic response.

The altos and sopranos performed ‘Glettur’(by Stephen Hatfield, a Canadian composer), in Icelandic.  It involved them sitting or standing in groups, using appropriate actions and facial expressions as they apparently gossiped and ‘chatted’, with lots of rolled ‘r’s; the result was brilliant.

If plenty of verbal facility was needed for that piece, it was needed even more by the tenors and basses, especially the cantor; he had many tongue-twister words to sing, in the Irish ‘Dúlamán’ by Michael McGlynn.  It demonstrated a great dynamic range.

A Swedish song followed: ‘Glädjens blomster’, arranged by Hugo Alfvén (composer of the famous Swedish Rhapsody).  A short, attractive piece that opened with a passage of humming, it was very expressive.

Two French songs now; one by a Frenchman (sixteenth century but sounding very up-to-date), the other, ‘Dirait-on’, by an American, Morten Lauridsen.  The first, a very fast ‘La la la, je ne’lose dire’ that I was familiar with from a record of the King’s Singers.  This performance suffered nothing by comparison.

An arrangement by James Erb of the well-known ‘Shenandoah’ was accompanied on piano.  This was a very smooth and beautiful rendering, making something familiar sound fresh.  At the entry, the men were not quite on the same note, but elsewhere they were very fine.

A change of mood in the third of four American songs was an arrangement of Gershwin’s ‘S Wonderful’, with soloist Latafale Auva’A, who turned on the appropriate style and accent confidently, with great timing.  String bass and piano accompanied her; the audience loved it.

The next item, ‘Praise His Holy Name’ by Keith Hampton was lively, also with piano and bass, and had the choir animated throughout its repetitive phrases.  The final item involved plenty of clapping and actions, the choir moving around the church: the Samoan ‘Tofa Mai Feleni’.  It had a hymn-like quality, with shouting and shrilling at the end, and was sung in Samoan and English, with Samoan drum and sticks backing.

A standing ovation was rewarded with ‘Wairua Tapu’, accompanied by guitar, and with complex and varied actions, which a couple of friends suggested was actually New Zealand sign language – our third official language.

The choir is versatile; in a variety of genres it was equally successful. This is choral singing at its best.  One would be hard-pressed to find an adult choir in New Zealand as good as this, and certainly not one singing the entire repertoire (not counting the new work) from memory.

Congratulations and salutations, New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir!  Enjoy South Africa – I am sure you will represent us well.

 

Tudor Consort revives Schütz’s St Matthew Passion

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Heinrich Schütz: St. Matthew Passion

The Tudor Consort, directed by Michael Stewart, with John Beaglehole (Evangelist) and Ken Ryan (Christus)

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Saturday, 31 March 2012, 7.30pm

An appropriate pre-Easter work, this St Matthew Passion was presented in a slightly unusual way.   The choir performed from the rear of the sanctuary, while the audience was mainly seated in the choir stalls and on chairs placed in the sanctuary between the choir stalls.   There were a few people seated in the nave.  The performance took place in near darkness, with just enough light for the choir to be able to read their scores.  It made me think of being in a German church in the composer’s time, and hearing the work as the congregation would have.

By seating the audience close to the singers, and virtually not using the nave, the slow reverberation of the building did not assert itself as much as usual.  Ken Ryan’s rich bass voice suffered more from ‘feedback’ than did John Beaglehole’s tenor, or the choir.

Instead of the words being printed in a programme, the English translations of the sung German were projected on a screen placed between the choir and the audience.  The work is unaccompanied, and unlike J.S. Bach’s well-known Passion settings, there are no chorales or arias; apart from the final movement, the text is entirely St. Matthew’s gospel account of the events leading up to, and including, the Crucifixion, and of the burial of Jesus in the tomb.

Approximately 20 singers made up the choir; some of them took small solo roles.  In the gloom I could recognise only Andrea Cochrane, who took not only several female roles, but also that of Judas Iscariot; all were admirably delivered.

From the opening attack, with instant smooth tone, the choir excelled itself.  There was a wonderful unity of sound, and beautiful diminuendos.  The maintenance of pitch throughout the work (despite a few aberrations from minor soloists, particularly Caiaphas) was a marvel; John Beaglehole was utterly reliable, apart from slightly falling pitch in the part where he reports on what Pilate said. The tenor has a very big role – there was a great deal for him to sing, but he did not flag; this was quite a tour de force.  Michael Stewart had trained his singers well, with crisp rhythms and exemplary entries.  The semi-dark allowed the focus to be entirely on the music and the message.

Bass Ken Ryan varied his tone and expression to deliver the character of Jesus and the meaning of the words throughout the performance; tenor Beaglehole less so.  It could be argued that the Evangelist is the reporter, not an actor in the drama.  Towards the end of the work however, he gave more characterisation.  A large proportion of the music is for these two soloists only.

At 50 minutes long, Schütz’s work cannot readily be considered in the same class as Bach’s great, dramatic Passions.  Yet it has its own drama – in the word-setting, and the pacing of the various recitatives, Jesus’s utterances, and in the chorus numbers.  Some surprising harmonies for the chorus add to the drama.

The most dramatic part was that dealing with Pilate – both his role and that of the mob, demanding that Jesus be crucified.  Here, the chorus was very strong.  Women were part of the mob, but also part of the soldiers’ and priests’ choruses.   There was much interweaving of parts in these choruses, but also sections of homophony, and word-painting.

Beaglehole was very fine in singing the translation of Jesus’s utterance which in English is “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, and the lovely pianissimo from the choir set it off beautifully, in “He calleth for Elijah”.  Throughout, the German language was pronounced and projected very well.

The chorus of priests asking that the tomb be guarded was splendidly sung, as was the final chorus, “Christ to you be the glory”, which is the only comment on the action, the remainder of the words being all from the Biblical account.  This was sung poignantly and with feeling, and made an exquisite end to the performance.

This performance proved to be appropriate in another way: Radio New Zealand Concert has Schütz as its Composer of the Week for the coming week, so listeners can expect to hear this work again in the coming days.  Some of what follows is based on Indra Hughes’s introductory talk on radio.

Schütz wrote the St. Matthew Passion in his 80s, after he had survived the Plague, the Thirty Years War, and the loss of his wife and two young children.  His early tuition with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice seems to have resurfaced in this work; it is written in stile antico, not the more dense and complex (and exciting) stile moderno, which he also studied, later in life, with Monteverdi, Gabrieli’s successor at St. Mark’s.

With this tuition behind him, Schütz brought back to Germany elements of  the Italian style, which became a huge influence on the music of the latter country, not least contributing to the way in which J.S. Bach wrote his Passion settings, a century later.  This influence can partly be attributed to the fact that his employment was in Dresden, the centre of musical life at the time, in Germany.

It was interesting, though, that in his old age Schütz reverted to the counterpoint of stile antico for this Passion.  No instruments, no arias, no chorales or extended choruses in this work, although there are in others of his works.

Schütz’s is therefore an interesting time in church music history, since he straddled the renaissance and the baroque eras.

 

 

Resplendent Mozart Requiem from the Bach Choir

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MOZART (edited Süssmayer) – Requiem KV 626

Amelia Ryman (soprano) / Bianca Andrew (mezzo-soprano)

Thomas Atkins (tenor) / David Morriss (bass)

The Bach Choir of Wellington

Douglas Mews (organ)

Conductor: Stephen Rowley

St.Peter’s Church, Willis St., Wellington

Saturday 31st March 2012

Wiser, more experienced concert-going heads than mine would have been better-prepared for the likelihood that the Bach Choir’s Mozart Requiem performance would use an organ rather than the orchestra the composer specified. Having grasped this state of things upon entering the beautiful Church of St.Peter’s on Willis St. in Wellington, I simply had to deal with my own withdrawal symptoms at cardinal points (alas, no trumpets and drums at Dies Irae, no trombone at Tuba mirum and no remorseless, driving strings in the Confutatis maledictis, to mention just some of the obviously affected places). As well, I needed to put Gounod’s Funeral March of a Marionette out of my mind as best I could at the performance’s almost jaunty organ-only beginning. But when the choir entered with the words “Requiem aeternam”, everything changed dramatically.

Right from these opening phrases, the choir under Stephen Rowley’s direction sang with splendidly-focused tones and full-blooded commitment, rising to the challenge of “carrying” much of the work’s weight and momentum, in the absence of an orchestra. Once I’d adjusted my own expectations I actually found more to relish in Douglas Mews’ organ accompaniments than I expected to, even if parts of the Dies Irae without trumpets and drums sounded a bit undernourished. There were places I wanted more pointed instrumental emphasis, though in one instance (the beginning of the Lacrimosa) the organ blurted out a phrase rather alarmingly before being quickly brought back into line. But mostly the organ-playing served the performance well, a touch of awry ensemble at the first “Quam olim Abrahae” being more in the realm of an occupational hazard than anything else, I would think.

I was impressed with the choir throughout, their lines confidently placed and clearly-voiced across the spectrum, given that the men’s voices were always going to have to work hard by dint of comparative lack of numbers. But whatever imbalances there were I could hear the tenors and basses at almost all times keeping their lines alive and buoyant within the ensemble. Stephen Rowley drove the opening Requiem swiftly, encouraging dramatic attack and plenty of contrast with the more hushed tones at the repeated “Luceat eis”, and allowing the beautifully-floated tones of soprano Amelia Ryman plenty of room. The fugal Kyrie also went with a will, the ensemble crisp and energetic, and the women’s voices actually relishing things like their awkward “eleision” ascents leading up to the assertive final supplication.

One had to “sound” the trumpets and drums of the Dies Irae from within one’s imagination, here, though the musicians’ energies carried the day, the men at their exposed “Quantus tremor” not especially strong, but reliably alert. Then, at the Tuba Mirum the soloists took over the performance – a glorious, magisterial solo from bass David Morriss, negotiating his wide leaps with sure-voiced aplomb, paved the way for the others. Thomas Atkins’ opening notes sounded a tad stressful at first, but he quickly settled into a warm-toned “Liber scriptus”, while mezzo Bianca Andrew’s “Judex ergo” had a rich, velvety quality conveying a properly awed response to the apocalyptic solemnity of her words. Amelia Ryman’s purely-focused lines brought to us a beautifully-ascending “Cum vix justus sit securus?” the words repeated to expressive effect by a tremulously-voiced ensemble of soloists.

A confidently-propelled Rex Tremendae from choir and organ incorporated some lovely sounds from the women at “Salva me”, followed by the reflective Recordare, delicately begun by the organ, and richly-coloured by the mezzo and bass combination, Bianca Andrew and David Morriss, contouring their tones to great effect. The same went for Amelia Ryman and Thomas Atkins a few measures later, the soprano leaving behind a momentary awkwardness at the opening to enchant us with her ascent at “Sed tu bonus fac benigne”. Stephen Rowley then got the maximum possible dramatic contrast with the choir’s Confutatis maledictis, the desperately driving momentums of which brought the subsequent creepy chromaticisms of “Oro supplex et acclinis” into bold relief. Apart from the momentary organ outburst, the Lacrimosa was brought into being with lovely gravitas, Rowley controlling its ebb and flow of emotion with considerable sensitivity, the intensification of “Dona eis Requiem” melting naturally and organically into the final “Amen”.

As the work progressed the choir’s energies seemed constantly to renew themselves, the vigour and focus of the “Osanna” fugues carrying over to the final “Cum sanctis tuis”, and bringing things to a resplendent conclusion. But there was also dignity, tenderness and warmth to be had from the Agnus Dei, with Douglas Mews’ registrations deftly coloring the music’s different dynamics. And Amelia Ryman’s brief but beautiful lead-in to the concluding Lux aeterna had the choir responding in kind, then unerringly building things towards the closure of the work’s circle.

The soloists again came into their own in the Benedictus, the singing as finely-wrought as with the earlier Recordare, with solo lines and ensemble passages alike delighting the ear. The sounds we were given made for moments of great sublimity, even if the music in this instance was more inspired than penned by Mozart, who died before the Requiem was finished. This and the preceding Sanctus were completed by the composer’s pupil Franz Süssmayer, who arranged and reworked a good deal of the music. Fortunately, the music-making throughout this performance was of a quality which appeared to ennoble the ideas and efforts of those who worked to try and realize Mozart’s intentions. It made as though we had with us a real sense of the spirit of the composer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sixteen’s second concert, a cappella, a benchmark performance

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand International Arts Festival

The Sixteen  conducted by Harry Christophers

A cappella music by Tallis, Morley, Gibbons, Byrd, Sheppard, Tippett, Britten and James MacMillan

The Town Hall, Wellington

Saturday 3 March 7.30pm

The second concert by The Sixteen was devoted to music by composers born in Britain, not simply one who spent most of his life in the country, as was the first of The Sixteen’s concerts.

Two groups of Tallis’s ‘Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter’ were sung, four at the beginning and four at the end of the concert. They were a sort of purifying wash to introduce the audience to singing that was not too complex – in fact the first began with four men singing in unison – allowing the unprepared ear to adjust to the acoustic of the hall and to sample the sounds of many individual voices.

The choir is perhaps a little unusual in having more men than women, though that is because parts otherwise sung by female altos are here sung by male altos (or counter-tenors). It lent the ensemble a quality that set the exemplary sopranos in marked contrast to the weight of males singing the other parts.

Tallis’s ‘Salvator mundi’, in Latin, was a striking illustration of Tallis’s versatility, coping with the dangers of religious dogma as the country moved back and forth between Catholicism and Protestantism. And the choir demonstrated the contrast between Tallis’s setting of English and Latin texts as clearly as his shift from the vertical harmony of English music to traditional Latin polyphony.

The Latin element was very temporary and it was followed by English part-songs: Morley’s ‘April is in my Mistress’ Face’ and Gibbons’s very beautiful ‘The Silver Swan’; the weight and warmth of the men’s voices kept the mood from becoming too ‘hey-nonny-nonny’ in Byrd’s ‘This sweet and merry Month of May’. John Sheppard’s ‘In Manus Tuas III’ returned to a Latin text, opening with a demonstration of men’s voices in unison, and then a strong counter-tenor solo.

The first half finished in the 20th century however with, first, James MacMillan’s ‘Sedebit Dominus Rex’, given a subtle Scottish accent (it’s one of his Strathclyde Motets), an attractive separation of men’s and women’s roles, to produce singing of very great emotion.

There was a second piece from MacMillan’s Strathclyde Motets later: a striking contribution by women’s voices as well as the gentle opening section by basses, marked his ‘Mitte manum tuum’, again quite short and technically approachable.

The best known part of Tippett’s A Child of Our Time – the five spirituals – brought the first half to an end, with several opportunities for strong solo voices, particularly female.

Yet, what is it about a composer’s fundamental well-spring of invention and emotional power that consigns almost all of his music – apart from arrangements of existing melodies – to museum status almost within his own lifetime? No want of trying on my part, yet I feel impelled to revisit almost nothing even of the music I have on my own CDs.

The second half was also a satisfying mixture of the 16th and the 20th centuries; It began with three more Latin motets by Tallis, each with its distinct character, reflected in the tempo, in the varying amounts of legato singing, and the vocal colours produced by the choir.

The curious little dissonances (remarked in the programme notes) gave ‘O nata lux’ vitality; the next, ‘O sacrum convivium’, was by contrast sombre, calm and quite extended. The third motet, ‘Loquebantur variis linguis’, cleverly simulated a complex tissue of disparate languages through elaborate counterpoint: even those without Latin could have worked it out.

There was another Byrd motet, his masterpiece ‘Laudibus in sanctis Dominum’, that seemed to mark him as an English composer, set to song-like music in which vertical harmonies were as audible as the elaborate counterpoint.

The other major contribution from the modern repertoire were the Choral Dances from Britten’s opera Gloriana. For long, these were about all that was much performed from an opera that was inexplicably felt to be a ritual occasional piece, but is now firmly placed among Britten’s greatest operas. I was delighted to catch a performance a couple of years ago in the Ruhr, in Germany. Britten himself arranged this unaccompanied version of the dances, and I have to say, heretically, they did not make quite the impression on me that the original operatic ones did. They emerged, for me, somewhat affected and bloodless; but the performance of them was far from that.

The choir presented an encore: an arrangement by choral composer Bob Chilcott of a Tallis anthem.

Finally, the programme booklet was a model. It provided a wealth of rich and informative material about the choir and its director, but also writings about the composers and their social and political situation, and evocative thoughts about the nature of the music itself, all of which might deepen listeners’ knowledge.

Not enough of the audience bought the programme however.

From time to time I express my view that programmes for concerts – and other performing arts too – should be provided free. For a year or so New Zealand Opera did that, but later reverted to the practice of confining them to those who could pay the fairly high price for them. That is to sacrifice a valuable opportunity to deepen and broaden the audience’s knowledge of what it is hearing, a matter of even more importance now that most of the population under 50 is approaching the more serious arts without the benefit of any formal exposure to them at school where the sounds of good music (and poetry and foreign languages) can be implanted, perhaps subliminally, in the minds of the young – when that faculty is at its most receptive.

The major cost of programmes lies in the preparation of the texts and the design and formatting of the printing; for the fruits of those efforts to be restricted to a minority of the audience is a sad lost opportunity to educate.

The programme also took the trouble to ask the audience to refrain from clapping between the items in a group; the fact that few on the audience had programmes meant that there was applause between the numbers in Tippett’s Five Spirituals.

Truly festive Handel with The Sixteen

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Coronation Anthem “Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened”

Motet: “Silete Venti” / Psalms: Nisi Dominus / Dixit Dominus

The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra / Conductor: Harry Christophers

Soloist (Silete Venti): Gilian Keith (soprano)

NZ International Festival of the Arts

Wellington Town Hall

Thursday 1st March, 2012

Now, this is the kind of concert in terms of impact and quality that helps make a festival worth remembering. The trappings were, in fact, few – there were no bugles, no drums, just people-generated excitement, right from the initial “buzz” of queuing outside to actually get into the Town Hall, and up to the moment that these world-famous musicians walked onto the platform in front of us to begin their concert.

I wonder if people who attend concerts actually realize what a treasure the WellingtonTown Hall is in respect of providing experiences whose memory seems to embrace the “occasion” as well as the performance – it’s partly my being a bit of an event junkie that squeezes these remarks out of me, but I couldn’t help reflecting on the difference in atmosphere between this concert and last week’s in the Michael Fowler Centre which opened the Festival. The Stravinsky performances were themselves terrific – but I feel the MFC needs a LOT of extraneous help for any event to really “buzz”, whereas the Town Hall simply reflects and enhances what’s already going on.

This was one of two concerts offered by The Sixteen (my concert companion nudged me fiercely at one point and hissed, “I think there are seventeen” (of them)! – shades of “The Sound of Music”?….). One could have had, as here, Handel in a grandly ceremonial manner, readily encompassing all manner of structures and emotions as befits the work of a composer writing for public occasions; or one could have turned, instead, to the rather more circumspect a capella world of various native British composers over a period of several centuries.

I would imagine that, after experiencing the group’s performances of Handel, there would be a number of concertgoers who, like myself, wished they had purchased tickets to both concerts. In the words of Shakespeare’s Henry V, we such unfortunates will on Saturday evening be as those “gentlemen of England now a-bed” who “shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here”. One must, however, thank one’s stars that one heard the group on at least one of the occasions. And after all, pleasure can still be had from imagining how wonderful a second concert WOULD be, having already enjoyed one (a case of “Heard melodies are sweet, but….”, perhaps)…

For those who enjoy chancing their arm with the prospect of picking up last-minute cancelled tickets, The Sixteen is indeed performing again on Saturday, 3rd March at the Town Hall at 7:30pm, a program of British a capella music, ranging from works by Thomas Tallis to those by James MacMillan. In the meantime one can enjoy recalling the highlights of the group’s Handel presentation, involving various soloists, choir and orchestra.

One noticed immediately the intense focus of the sound, both from singers and players, obviously steeped in a performing tradition which has undergone a considerable revolution over the last fifty years. The modus operandi of such groups as The Sixteen sits firmly upon using the forces that the composer would have expected, and producing the sounds in a style that corresponds with period musicologists’ findings. Happily, these strictures were accompanied in this case by a performing style that set great store on sounds with a variety of tone, colour and nuance (emanating from, or else mirrored by, the expressive gestures of conductor Harry Christophers, as non-metrical as one could ever hope to find) – though all within the parameters of accepted baroque practice.

Beginning with the Coronation Anthem “Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened”, orchestra and voices commanded the hall’s sound-vistas, the phrases having at once discernible focus but an ear-catching “bloom”, with everything precisely balanced – one could set one’s ear to “find” any line or texture it wanted and follow its course. The fugal character of the section “Let justice and judgement…” found the composer employing sounds of structures and balances, suggesting the power of law and order. Here, the individual lines took on plenty of character, the timbres being allowed to “sound” instead of subjected to a homogenous blend, so that one was always aware of a quartet-like texture. The lively “Alleluia” had a sensuous feel in the dovetailing of the lines, tied together with an appropriately celebratory concluding note.

Gillian Keith was the soprano soloist for the motet Silete Venti, the text a colorful and descriptive evocation of the bliss which comes with faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The soloist had pure, bell-like tones and flexible energy aplenty to do the music justice, though I thought in places a slightly “kittenish ” aspect crept into her singing, one rather at odds with the subject matter of the motet. The text, I thought, wasn’t without its idiosyncrasies – e.g. “If you strike you cause no wound, your blows are as caresses….” – pardon? Set against her slightly-less-than-crisp articulation of the words in places was a freedom and flexibility of impulse and movement which the singer used to negotiate her runs throughout “Date serta” with such winning ease and grace as to disarm other criticism. And her breathtaking energies in tackling the flourishes at the repeat of “Veni, vein transfige me” in the first part was matched in excitement by her feathery, stratospheric vocal dancings throughout the conclusion’s gigue-like “Alleluiahs”, singer and instrumentalists particularly enjoying things like the effervescent exchange of triplet figurations just before the end.

After the interval we were rejoined by the choir for the two psalm settings, Dixit Dominus and Nisi Dominus, both youthful works (Handel was in his early twenties), but displaying their composer’s great precocity, not only in choral writing, but in his use of the orchestra. The more spectacular of the works, the slightly earlier Dixit Dominus, was wisely left to the end. It would be tiresome to reproduce all of my scribbled notes, inspired by the performances’ many felicities, but certain things deserved to be savored, such as the quality of the contributions from the solo voices within the choir. In the first of the Psalm settings, Nisi Dominus, both tenor and bass made a telling impression, the former’s “Vanum set” a pleasingly-shaped vocal arch of flexible tones, and the latter’s fiery, properly warlike “Sicut sagittae in manu potentis” (As arrows in the hand of the mighty) properly pinning back our ears. Throughout, I liked the bringing forward to the front of the platform the soloists from the choir, making for an almost operatic effect, and giving each voice’s utterance its proper focus.

Dixit Dominus made for an exciting and sonorous conclusion to the evening in this performance – muscular energy at the outset from the orchestra and incisive lines from the choir launched the work with a will – the brief occasional solo lines, with the voices remaining within the choir, struggled in places to be properly heard, though a couple of the more brightly-focused voices managed to make their tones “tell” in the midst of the music’s cut-and-thrust activity. The more extended, out-the front solos were superbly done, and beautifully accompanied. I particularly liked the teamwork of soloists, choir and orchestra at “Dominus a dextris tuis”, the solo voices overlapping and interchanging words and phrases with almost operatic excitement, followed by the unleashing of tremendous tensions at the words “die irae” from choir and orchestra. Among other ear-catching moments was the choir’s pointed staccato treatment of “conquassabit capita in terra”, the words spat out like machine-gun fire, their effect made to sting! Following this the soprano duet “De torrent in via bibet” was of soothing balm, two differently-toned voices blending to great effect.

Impossible to do justice to everything, here – in general, I thought Handel’s music magnificently served throughout, the music’s energies liberated, the textures enlivened, the beauties savoured. The Town Hall’s acoustic gave the performances all the immediacy they deserved, enabling us to enjoy to the full the talents of The Sixteen, their orchestra and their obviously charismatic director. It wasn’t surprising to find people on their their feet applauding at the end, demonstrating their appreciation and enjoyment.

 

 

‘Does a cappella singing get better than this?’ – Wellington members of the New Zealand Youth Choir

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Choral songs and anthems by Handl, Bruckner, Pearsall, Bàrdos, Richard Madden, Stephen Lange, Anthony Ritchie, Andrew Baldwin, Helen Caskie, George Shearing, with arrangements by Douglas Mews, Christopher Marshall, Stephen Chatman

Wellington Members of the New Zealand Youth Choir, conducted by David Squire

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace church

Wednesday 29 February 2012, 12.15pm

It was gratifying to see the church nearly full for the thirteen members of the choir who sang an interesting and varied programme.

Immediately they began, the choir had a wonderful, confident sound.  The opening item, ‘Resonet in laudibus’ was by Jacob Handl, a sixteenth century Slovenian composer also known as Gallus.  The pure sounds in this sympathetic acoustic made it hard to believe that there were so few performers.  Balance between the parts was excellent throughout the concert.

A long-term favourite of the Choir followed: Bruckner’s beautiful ‘Locus Iste’.  The singers’ start was not quite together, but that could hardly spoil such a supreme pearl of choral writing.

Another chestnut for this choir was sung: Pearsall’s madrigal ‘Who shall win my lady fair?’, a nineteenth century composition.  Its performance demonstrated how well the choir sings out to the audience, but also, as elsewhere in the programme,  how the singers vary tone, expression and word style as appropriate for each item.  To me, this is the mark of a really good, flexible choir.  It is not just a matter of dynamics.  The expression in this song exhibited both charm and subtlety.  Stresses on important words were carefully observed.

The Hungarian composer Lajos Bàrdos’s ‘Libera me’ was next.  The men opened a shade sharp in pitch, but overwhelmingly, the a capella singing was impressively secure, even, as in this piece, when singing intervals of a second.  The piece traverses various pitches, moods and dynamics.  It is in several sections: first declamatory, then low-voiced and sombre, then gentle and melismatic.

We now turned to New Zealand compositions.  Richard Madden’s ‘I sing of a maiden’ has been around for a while now, and has lost none of its exquisite beauty and delicious clashes that resolve so mellifluously.  The piece featured soprano and tenor soloists.  The breath control was remarkable.  If the singers are as good as this under-rehearsed (as David Squire described it), they must certainly be New Zealand’s top choir when fully prepared.  It must not be forgotten that the New Zealand Youth Choir of 1999 won ‘Choir of the World’ in Cardiff.

Stephen Lange’s ‘The cloths of heaven’, composed to words of John Keats, was a difficult piece, with many enchanting discords.

Another NZYC favourite: Douglas Mews’s ‘Sea songs’, an arrangement of early New Zealand folk songs about whaling.  This was rollicking and characterful music on a subject distasteful to us today, but an important industry in the early days of colonisation, and before.

Christopher Marshall’s arrangement of the traditional Samoan ‘Minoi, minoi’ is one of the most delightfully rhythmic songs one will ever hear.  It reminds us how music and dance are all one in many parts of the world.  It was sung more lightly than I have sometimes heard it, which is appropriate to the words of the love-song.

Jeffrey Chang, tenor, sang two solos, giving the choir a rest, with Michael Stewart (former choir member) accompanying on the piano.  Chang announced the songs in a clear voice, loud enough to be easily heard (take note, New Zealand School of Music lecturers and students!).  David Squire’s announcements of the other items were made using a microphone.

The first solo was ‘Song’ by Anthony Ritchie, with wonderful words by James K. Baxter, speaking of Jesus as a human, and his characteristic of mercy.  It was beautifully sung: expressive, effective, with very clear words.  Both songs were sung from memory.

The second was an arrangement by former choir member Andrew Baldwin, of the spiritual ‘Deep River’.  This did not come off quite so well.  The performance did not sufficiently express the emotions of a slave in southern USA – it was too matter-of-fact in places, although there were some lovely moments.  The register was a little too low for this singer.

The choir returned with a traditional Newfoundland folk song, ‘She’s like the swallow’, arranged by Stephen Chatman.  It began with women’s voices only, then the men joined in.  Once again, the clarity of the words was notable.

New Zealand composer Helen Caskie has written a three-movement work ‘Ten Cent Mixture’, to amusing poems by Fiona Farrell.  The first tells the story of a sun-burnt kiwifruit.  Here I heard the first harsh tone in the concert; perhaps this was the result of introducing humour into the voices.  Next was a song about leaving your dreams behind when you go to school (oh dear!), and the third was about going to see Mr Prasad at the dairy to buy lollies.

These were lively and ingratiating settings, sung with animation.  The last song particularly was very funny, and sung in appropriate humorous style.

The concert wound up with an arrangement by Andrew Carter of George Shearing’s ‘Lullaby of Birdland’.  Just as the Caskie songs were sung in a suitably childish style, so this swing number was rendered in the proper style, American accent and all.

Most of this repertoire is to be presented in Hawke’s Bay in April, with all 48 members of the full choir; the audiences there are in for a treat.  Does a cappella singing get better than this?  I ask this as someone who has just heard the King’s Singers live, in the splendid acoustic of Hamilton’s Performing Arts Centre at the University of Waikato.

 

 

Stravinsky at the Festival: Distinguished performances of powerful works heard by too few

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand International Arts Festival

Stravinsky:   Symphony of Psalms and Oedipus Rex

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus (Michael Vinten, chorus master), Joana Carneiro (conductor), Stuart Skelton (Oedipus, tenor), Margaret Medlyn (Jocasta, mezzo-soprano), Daniel Sumegi (Creon; Messenger, bass-baritone), Martin Snell (Tiresias, bass), Virgilio Marino (shepherd, tenor), Rawiri Paratene (narrator, speaker)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 24 February 2012, 8pm

As a Festival opener, this programme obviously did not have the appeal of the Mahler Symphony no.8 performed at the last Festival, when the hall was packed, and there were people sitting out in Civic Square watching the performance on a huge screen and hearing it relayed on loudspeakers.  Another draw-card on that occasion was the presence of the famous Vladimir Ashkenazy as conductor.

This time, by no means all the seats in the hall were filled, which was a pity, because these were fine and powerful performances.

My first reaction was pleasure at the appearance of the programmes.  The printed programmes in 2010 had a ghostly pallor, and the letters so skinny you could have driven a bus between them.  This time, the font was Times New Roman or similar, there was plenty of ink, no back-grounding of text, and they could be read even during the performance – most important when full libretti and translations into English were generously provided.

The other feature of the programmes were the copious and detailed notes provided.  There was far too much to read before or during the concert, but they make very interesting reading afterwards.  The New Zealand Opera Company has in the past sent programmes ahead of the season to those who book in advance; this practice could have been adopted here, with benefit to the audience’s understanding and appreciation.

The Chapman Tripp opera chorus was obviously augmented; some familiar faces that one doesn’t usually see in the chorus, graced it on this occasion.  My first impression at the opening of the Symphony of Psalms was that the choir was too far distant from the orchestra and the audience, making the sound likewise distant, and therefore the words did not have the clarity they should have.  We got volume at times, but seldom clarity.  This was the fault of the hall and the placement of the choir, not directly of inadequacy on the choir’s part.  If the performance had been in the Town Hall, the problem would not have existed; there would have been more impact.   The problem did not exist with the Mahler two years ago, because the choir was very much bigger, though so too was the orchestra.

Stravinsky’s unusual orchestration for this work provides plenty of wind players, and cellos and basses plus harp, two pianos, and percussion, but no violins or violas.  Therefore there was lots of rich, resonant low bass sound, while the incisiveness and wonderful colours of the winds were more apparent than usual, especially in the delicious melodies with cross-rhythms, played between Psalm 38 and Psalm 39.

Psalm 38 opened with spiky rhythms but they didn’t continue.  Instead, the effect was of long melismatic lines, like old Russian chants, though the work was sung in Latin.

The verses from Psalm 39 were given gentler treatment than the incisive previous psalm.  Sonorities built up; there were dense harmonies and clashes providing a rich sound – although some of the sopranos were a little too strident.  The final verse, ‘He put a new song in my mouth…’ was thunderous in its praise to God.

An Alleluia preceded Psalm 150.  These passages were quiet; the distance between choir and orchestra didn’t matter so much here, and there was some lovely singing. However, the choir, while good, and obviously very well rehearsed, sounded rather pedestrian in the psalm itself.   It again emphasised that a bigger choir would have coped better.

The psalm speaks of trumpets and other instruments; the NZSO instrumentalists fulfilled their parts radiantly, especially the ‘loud clashing cymbals’.  Despite their presence, this was a very lyrical verse, with the last section, ‘Let everything that breathes praise the Lord’ having an ethereal quality.

The pianists, Donald Nicolson and Rachel Thomson, had a very busy part in this last psalm. It ended with another Alleluia – quiet and exultant in tone. The growing woodwind tone against the choir’s soft intoning, along with piano and strings, was magical.  Stravinsky’s constantly shifting chords and soundscapes provided an experience unlike that to be had from any other composer; the result, satisfyingly unique.

Joana Carneiro is petite and very youthful in appearance, yet she conducts with energy and commitment.  In a radio interview prior to the performance, she remarked how good it was to have the narration in Oedipus Rex, since the music was so intense, complicated, yet direct, that time to breathe was needed.  She stressed that the music was not indulgent of the tragedies in the story; rather it was ‘about’ the story and characters.

One suspects that Festival Director Lissa Twomey (an Australian) programmed Oedipus Rex based on the success of this work at the Sydney Festival a couple of years ago, with the same conductor.  But with a much smaller population to draw on, and no full-time opera company here, its drawing power could not be relied on to be the same as in the much bigger city.  Maybe a semi-stage performance would have been more appealing – and it certainly would have conveyed the story in a more meaningful way.

Carneiro also said, and we experienced, that the choir was well-prepared.  The music of Oedipus Rex, she felt, was a pre-cursor of minimalism through its economy of means, but also employed leitmotif.  The latter helped to tie the story together musically, and gave something of a guide to the hearers.

Oedipus Rex, an opera-oratorio, was something completely different from the Symphony of Psalms, composed three years later.  Its similarity to the latter was probably confined to its reference back to polyphony, in the form of breaking up of the words, and the long lines.

Outstanding here, aside from the astonishing music, was the singing of tenor Stuart Skelton, as Oedipus.  This Australian singer has had great international success, and we were fortunate to hear him at the height of his powers.  His voice is  quite brilliant, and he has a wide range.  It cut through the textures without difficulty – strong, with great carrying quality, but never harsh or strident.  When he sang the words translated as ‘Your silence accuses you: you are the murderer! (to Tiresias), there was drama in every syllable.  His further accusation of Tiresias ‘Envy hates good fortune…’ featured high notes that were quite lovely, poignant and eloquent.

The other soloists could not measure up to Skelton, which is not to deny that they were good.  Their roles were all much smaller than that of Skelton.  Daniel Sumegi had the two roles of Creon and the Messenger, and his robust bass-baritone was effective and expressive, with wonderful low notes.  He had a very powerful passage in Act Two, singing ‘Jocasta the Queen is dead!’

Margaret Medlyn sang the mezzo role of the queen with perhaps less force at times than the part required, but nevertheless with appropriate levels of dramatic intensity.  Sometimes her music had echoes of the cabarets of Berlin.  The small part of the Shepherd was well sung by tenor Virgilio Marino.  (Was it really necessary to bring someone from Australia for a role with so little singing?).  He was particularly noteworthy for the duet with the Messenger, where they explain in Act Two that as a baby, Oedipus was found in the mountains.

Martin Snell’s smallish role as Tiresias was confidently and expressively sung, with lustrous resonance and deep, rich tones, but he did not always cut through the orchestra sufficiently.  However, his words were excellent.

An important role was that of the narrator, taken by well-known actor Rawiri Paratene.  He fulfilled it extremely well.  As Rachel Hyde said in her radio review, he was controlled and dignified.  His amplified words were very clear, his tone rich, and neither pompous nor intimate.  He struck the right note in giving the background commentary.

The male chorus sang for all they were worth in their demanding music, but occasionally were out of synch with the orchestra; more often the problem was that the words could not be sufficiently conveyed because the volume of the orchestra overwhelmed them.  At the distance the singers were, it was surprising that they kept together with the orchestra as much as they did; a tribute to their thorough preparation which meant they could keep eyes on the conductor much of the time.  Perhaps the conductor should have done more to tone down the dynamism of the orchestra.  However, it is really more a matter of the size and placement of the choir.  As Rachel Hyde said, the music in this work is really driven by the chorus, which has a large part, but too much in the background in this performance.

The orchestra was returned to its full glory with violins and violas, for this work.  The opening sound from choir and orchestra was tremendous.  Everywhere, we heard Stravinsky’s intriguing and innovative orchestrations brought out relentlessly; his invention knew no bounds.  The orchestra has a major role in Oedipus Rex, compared with its role in most operas or oratorios.

The chorus had its very effective moments, too: when they cry to Oedipus to solve the riddle of who murdered the king, Laius, their intoning of ‘Solve! Solve, Oedipus, solve!’ was startling.  It was strong again in the appeal to the goddesses that followed soon after; here, there was little accompaniment, allowing them to shine.  Soon incessant drumming was heard, adding to the doom-laden atmosphere, as they spoke of the many dead in Thebes, from the plague.

Again with incessant drumming, and with cymbal crashes, the chorus ‘Glory! Glory! Glory!’ sung in praise of the queen Jocasta (Margaret Medlyn) at the end of Act I was very fine, with tremendous unity in declamation.

In the second Act Margaret Medlyn had a long aria with piano – a most difficult part sung in very queenly fashion, and ending with swoops of agitation from the clarinet.  The chorus followed with a beautifully quiet entry, the singing continuing very smoothly over wonderful strumming on the strings.

One of Oedipus’s many notable moments came when he finally confessed to his crimes.  A fanfare followed this despairing utterance.  Skelton was a tremendous and very worthy Oedipus.

More good moments for the chorus: a very incisive short burst stating ‘The shepherd who knows all is here’, and strong, accurate and rhythmic singing of ‘He was not the true father of Oedipus’ (referring to Polybus).  Later, the difficult music for ‘The woman in the chamber…’ was rendered heartily and with precision.  The final chorus ‘Behold!  Oedipus the King!’ spilt out into immense noise from orchestra and chorus, but when full orchestra was employed, the chorus was overwhelmed.

Despite all, the chorus covered itself with glory, especially as amateurs amongst a stage full of professionals.

The performance of Oedipus Rex gave us a tremendous work, brought off with distinction.  It was powerful, shocking and complex, and a triumph (despite its flaws) for the performers and their unassuming young conductor, who held everything in suspense for an appreciable time at the end, so that the impact was not immediately lost in applause.

 

 

A Britten Christmas from Nota Bene

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

A Britten Christmas: Alla Marcia; A Hymn to the Virgin; Simple Symphony; Rosa Mystica; Sweet was the Song; The Sycamore Tree; Saint Nicolas cantata.

Nota Bene Chamber Choir, conducted by Michael Vinten, with soloists, and orchestra, Amber Rainey and Ken Ryan (piano) and Douglas Mews (organ) in Saint Nicolas.

Sacred Heart Mary Cathedral, Hill Street

Sunday, 11 December, 2.30pm

Hearing two programmes of Britten’s choral music in two days (less than 24 hours) may be some kind of record, apart from at Aldeburgh perhaps.   Saturday evening’s concert by the Tudor Consort in the same venue featured two major choral works; Sunday’s a third: Saint Nicolas, Op. 42.  Not as many people attended this concert as were at the previous evening’s, but for a sunny Sunday approaching Christmas it was a good-sized audience.

Sunday’s concert interspersed choral items with movements from the composer’s Simple Symphony in the first half, while the second half consisted of the cantata Saint Nicolas, written in 1948, to marvellously beautiful, musical and evocative words by Eric Crozier, who also wrote opera libretti for Britten.  It was written for the centennial celebrations of Lancing College in Sussex.   The saint is co-patron saint of the College, and of children, sailors and scholars.  He flourished in the fourth century, in what is now Turkey, being Bishop of Myra.

As I said in a review in April, Nota Bene’s performances are marked by accuracy, finesse and elegance.  One could add commitment, and dramatic qualities where required.

The programme commenced with the rather inconsequential Alla Marcia, an early work of Britten’s.  I found it rather dull, and poorly played by the scratch orchestra.  However, there were hints in Britten’s writing of greater felicities to come.

The choir, with semi-chorus behind the audience, under the gallery, performed A Hymn to the Virgin.  Especially for those of sitting towards the back of the church, this was very resonant.  The choir generally produced lovely tone; Sacred Heart is particularly good acoustically for voices, but perhaps not so fine for stringed instruments.  It is astonishing that Britten wrote this quite complex work, based on a medieval poem, when he was only 17 years of age.   The antiphonal words in Latin (the remainder being in English) were extremely effective.

The Simple Symphony Op. 4 is a joyous work, each movement having its own delightful character: Bourée; Pizzicato; Sarabande; Finale.  The movements were played separately between the short choral items.  The idea was, presumably, to divide up the latter from each other, thus giving both the singers and the audience breaks.  However, the performance lost both the continuity and the contrast of the symphony.  The start was ragged, but the playing improved as time wore on.

Rosa Mystica, written in 1939, was new to me.  To quote one of the choristers to whom I spoke later, “It’s like dabbing paint onto a canvas – a layered piece of different colours”.  The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins is full of imagery – another illustration of Britten’s feeling for fine words.  Much of the work was quite monotone, yet with the parts in layers.  It was beautifully sung, but not as appealing to me as most of his other writing for choirs.

The pizzicato second movement of the symphony was played very well on the whole, and conveyed its charm, the emphases in the phrasing given due weight.

Following that, the choir sang Sweet was the song; short, and sweet indeed.  The evocative, floating music for choir over a fine, dramatic solo from choir alto Stephanie Gartrell offered an attractive contrast in timbres.  Much of the solo was quite low in the voice, but the soloist’s rich voice came through well.

The slow third movement of the symphony provided the best playing so far; the cello solo was very fine.

As with the previous choral item, The Sycamore Tree was an early piece of the composer’s choral writing from the 1930s that was revised for publication in the 1960s.  The words are better known (and set to music by other composers) as I saw three ships.  It is a very lively piece, with plenty of variety.  A wide range of dynamics gave energy to the wonderful writing for voices.

The Finale from the symphony ended the first half.  The contrasting moods were communicated well, but intonation was often suspect.  Nevertheless, the orchestra made a good showing overall, particularly later, in Saint Nicolas.

Having sung Saint Nicolas several times with the Orpheus Choir in the 1980s, I have a particular affection for the work.  By its nature it is a dramatic piece, so it was good to see Nota Bene branching out, with the help of one of its members, experienced opera producer Jacqueline Coats, into enacting scenes, moving around the auditorium, and singing parts of the cantata from memory.

While the orchestra played the short orchestral introduction, the choir came on in mufti, representing peasant people, singing.  Then St. Nicolas (Benjamin Makisi) appeared through the door from the foyer (i.e. amongst the audience) and sang with boldness, vigour and drama in his tenor voice.  His solo is filled with sensitive, imaginative settings of Crozier’s wonderful words.  The choir responds with a graceful yet forceful utterance, “Help us Lord! To find the hidden road…”

The second section is titled “The Birth of Nicolas”.  The women narrate details of the birth (which they sang from memory while performing movements that acted out the words), while young Nicolas (Mark Wigglesworth) sang, or perhaps intoned, on one note, the words “God be Glorified” after each little episode.  His voice was even, clear, and true.  The bouncy, even jolly nature of the writing for the women showed Nicolas to be a robust character, and contrasted with the plainsong-like nature of the boy’s part.

Section III, “Nicolas Devotes Himself to God” describes Nicolas’s life in more of Crozier’s elegant words (“The foolish toy of time, the darling of decay…”) until the fourth part: “He Journeys to Palestine”, in which a storm while Nicolas is on board ship is illustrated most graphically in the music, both for the men of the choir (who sang from memory) and for orchestra.  This was very well done for the most part, but one section was rather messy – I suspect the pitch there was too low for most of the men.  A women’s semi-chorus in the gallery added its onomatopoeic contributions most effectively, although the orchestra was a little too loud for the semi-chorus to be fully heard.

Makisi sang “O God!  We are weak, sinful, foolish men…” with feeling, while the following solo “The winds and waves lay down to rest…” echoes in the music the change of mood with the change of weather.

Part V, “Nicolas Comes to Myra and is Chosen Bishop” features the choir singing in harmony (as against much counterpoint and layered writing) with organ, in perhaps my favourite bit of the work: “Come, stranger sent from God!”  It did not disappoint – strong, warm singing and blazing organ tones. This section ends in complete contrast, with intricate counterpoint, including the exhilarating “Amen!  Serve the Faith and spurn His enemies!”

After the choir and congregation sang “All people that on earth do dwell”, came the sixth section: “Nicolas from prison”.  In places Ben Makisi seemed unrehearsed; incorrect words (there were a lot to sing) and poor diction marred his performance, also a lack of commitment to the character.  For example, he sings “Yet Christ is yours – yours!”  This brought forth no mood-change, no irradiation of the texture, no great evocation of heavenly love.  The following words concerning God’s mercy were reflected in a change of music to placid cadences, though that was less represented in Makisi’s singing.

“Nicolas and the Pickled Boys”, section VII, features brilliant writing for choir and orchestra.  The character of winter cold and famine is wonderfully evoked, as is the triumph of the boys springing back to life.  Mark Wigglesworth was joined by Roman Dunford and Marcus Millad to walk through the church hand-in-hand to sing their Alleluias.  This section was quite moving, the more so for being acted, and sung from memory.

The penultimate section is titled “His Piety and Marvellous Works”.  This is sung entirely by the choir (using scores), its broad sweep of sound encompassing the many years of Nicolas’s being Bishop of Myra and the events that marked them.  The benign tone from the choir was echoed in the orchestra.  The choir disposed itself on all four sides of the church, giving added emphasis to the breadth of Nicolas’s ministry, and the different manifestations of his influence and miracles.  The final phrases “Let the legends that we tell” were a marvel of both counterpoint and harmony.

Finally, we reached “The Death of Nicolas”.  This section was characterised by noble settings of Nicolas’s words in committing his life to God, while the choir sings the canticle “Nunc Dimittis”.  The choir and congregation sang “God moves in a mysterious way” to end a marvellous, thrilling performance.

Britten’s imaginative writing was always faithfully rendered by the choir – can one ask for more?  The contribution of the orchestra was very significant, and especial mention must be made of the organist (Douglas Mews), the pianists (Amber Rainey and Ken Ryan) and the percussion section (Grant Myhill and Ben Hunt) for their major parts in the cantata.  Britten’s writing for the piano is individual, and always crucial to the mood and importance of the overall sound and texture.

Throughout the concert Michael Vinten directed his diverse forces admirably.  They included the audience (“congregation” in the printed programme), who joined in the two hymns prescribed by Britten.

Jacqueline Coats justifiably took her bow with Michael Vinten and Ben Makisi; her efforts resulted in a more meaningful experience, and was in the tradition of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde – I’m sure he would have approved.