A Glorious "Messiah"

Early Music Vancouver’s presentation of Handel’s Messiah was probably the most overwhelmingly spiritual, emotional, and musical experience in all my years of encountering this familiar work. Last Saturday, details I had never heard leapt out from the score under the imaginative and inspiring direction of conductor Ivars Taurins. The Pacific Baroque Orchestra joined forces with the Vancouver Cantata Singers (sounding great under their director Paula Kremer) and four outstanding soloists who delivered a truly indelible and moving musical experience.

The opening Sinfony was played with great energy and a wonderful sense of occasion. When the A section was repeated, rather than merely playing it softer, as is the usual custom, Taurins varied the dynamics and colours a great deal more in the repeat.

I have rarely heard a performance where there was such a merging of the words being sung and the orchestral colours. In “Comfort ye”, tenor Thomas Hobbs mellifluous voice was resting on a sort of cushion of string sound. I liked the conductor’s tempo choice in the aria, “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion”, giving the music a wonderful sense of movement. In the brief prestissimo introduction and the accompaniment to “For he is like a refiner’s fire”, conductor and string players conjured up with those rapid 16^th-notes an effect like flickering flame. In the recitativo accompagnato and aria that follows, the string colours and the way the musicians played those two-note slurs matched perfectly bass Peter Harvey deeply-felt singing of “For behold, darkness shall cover the earth” and “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light”. 

In the aria, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd”, the tempo set by Taurins and the way the strings were coloured created a real sense of repose. As well, the brief postlude was truly beautifully played, and echoed the emotions of the words just being sung. In the aria, “He was despised”, the strings played the descending figures with a sense of real sorrow and vulnerability, matching perfectly the strikingly poignant singing of alto Krisztina Szabó. For me, the feeling of the aria was even more deeply felt in the repeat of the A section. There was an incredibly hushed quality in the music at the words, “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”. With the words “He gave his back to the smiters”, the attack of the dotted-rhythmic figures made a sound like hitting, evoking the image of Christ’s scourging. Then in the introduction to the bass aria, “Why do the nations so furiously rage together”, Taurins whipped up a real sense of urgency in the orchestral playing. 

The solo voices were uniformly excellent. Joanne Lunn’s singing of the recitatives conveyed a sense of wonder that I found incredibly moving: 

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them… / And the angel said unto them: Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy… / And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host.

Her singing of the aria, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion” was exhilarating in its lightness as well as its sense of musical pulse. Lunn’s singing of the aria’s many melisma passages was breathtaking. In the aria, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace”, Lunn handsomely handled the subtle shift from G minor to B-flat major in the opening phrases. Kirsztina Szabó’s singing of “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd” truly brought across the overwhelming compassion of the words. Tenor Thomas Hobbs has an acute sense of the timing of the music. In the brief recitative, “He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn; the Lord shall have them in derision”, he delivered the lines with an incredible sense of urgency. Peter Harvey sang the aria, “Why do the nations so furiously rage together” with wonderful energy and a resounding virtuosity. In “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light”, he sang this great bass aria with real drama, making use of the brief eighth-note rests (for instance, at four measures after B) to great effect. Yet, in the recitative, “Behold I tell you a mystery” was sung with a confiding tone. 

The players of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra played with their usual high standard. In “The trumpets shall sound”, solo trumpet Alexis Basque shone with his beautiful shaping of phrases as well as its musicality. Having the two trumpets playing from the side of the choral loft during “Glory to God” was an inspired idea - Handel’s instructions are for the trumpeters to play “from a distance and rather softly.”

Last month’s Remembrance Day concert confirmed the Vancouver Cantata Singers’ status as one of the city’s finest choral groups. In that concert as well as for this past weekend’s Messiah performance, the group sang with their usual musicality, but also with intelligence and imagination. The singers responded to the lively tempo in “And the glory the glory of the Lord” and sang with amazing lightness and agility. In “And He shall purify” and in “All we like sheep”, the melismata were sung with a silken smoothness. In “And He shall purify”, there was a purity of sound and a lightness of texture.  There was a genuine feeling of exhilaration in “For unto us a Child is born”. The chorus “Surely, surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” was delivered with great energy and power. In “And with His stripes we are healed” the choir sang the music with varied, almost instrument-like, articulation, and a wonderful flexibility. There was an appropriately mocking quality and a suitable disjointedness in the vocal line, in their singing of “He trusted in God that He would deliver Him”. This disjointed quality of the vocal line also worked to wonderfully dramatic effect in “Let us break their bonds asunder”.  

The justly famous “Hallelujah” chorus was sung with a real sense of occasion, and certainly with the requisite majesty and grandeur. The varied dynamics in the phrase, “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords” added to the drama of the music. The choir sang the opening of “Since by man came death” (Grave) with beautiful blending, an organic wholeness, and gorgeous tone quality. I loved the slight decrescendo at the ending (Adagio) of “But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”. The singers acquitted themselves admirably in the very exposed opening of “Blessings and honour, glory and pow’r be unto Him”. The great “Amen” was sung with great depth of feeling, giving this already memorable evening a real sense of communion.

I believe it is no exaggeration to say that we live in a post-Christian age. That said, the fact that people flock year after year to performances of Handel’s Messiah tells me that we, all of us, no matter what we profess to believe (or not), are in search of something beyond our everyday existence, something transcendent. For me, this performance of Handel’s masterwork had truly brought these divinely inspired work alive. 

Wishing everyone a joyous Christmas and a new year that will bring a return to peace for so many parts of the world.

                                                                                                            Patrick May

The Polish Romantics

Last evening, Tobias Koch played the second of his two recitals in Vancouver. While his first recital featured music extremely familiar to everyone, last night’s recital highlighted composers, I would venture to guess, few in the audience had heard about.

The title of the recital indeed describes it all – The Polish Romantics – a concert of 19^th century Romantic piano music from Poland. Rather, music from the Poland in people’s heart. As Professor John Glofcheskie writes in his excellent programme notes, “The programme of keyboard music by Polish Romantics might also be called Music of Stateless Poland.” Poland lost her independence in 1795, and the arts; music, in particular, became a point of refuge for stateless Poles, living in their own land perhaps, but under the subjugation of other empires. Composers, both professional and amateur, wrote mazurkas and polonaises, quintessentially Polish dance forms, as a sublimation of their patriotic feelings as well as a lament for Poland’s tragic history.

Michal Kleofas Oginski’s 1794 Polonaise in A minor, subtitled “Farewell to the Homeland,” was the first such piece performed last night. All the pieces Koch played last night were charming, sentimental, and melancholic, especially interesting was Jozef Elsner’s Rondo à la Mazurka in C major, an utterly simple and charming piece – the word “cute” almost comes to mind. Elsner was Chopin’s composition teacher, and hearing that piece by the older composer really highlighted the difference between mere talent and towering genius. In the first half, Koch also performed the earliest polonaise by Chopin, the Polonaise in B-flat major, KK IVa-1, written in 1817 when he was seven. Hearing that early work was almost like hearing the earliest symphonies and concerti by Mozart. The forms may be simple, and the scope may be small, but the seeds of genius were already present.

Edward Wolff’s Hommage à Chopin: Rêverie-Nocturne was beautiful, and came close to capturing the mood of Chopin’s own masterful Nocturnes. In Glofcheskie’s notes, he writes that Wolff was for a time Chopin’s copyist, but he would “pinch something and print it” as his own composition! Perhaps he did learn a thing or two from the master in all his “borrowings”.

The pianist-composer Maria Szymanowska, whose reputation extended beyond her native Poland, was represented by a Polonaise in F minor, written 1820. Chopin heard and apparently admired Szymanowska when he attended one of her Warsaw concerts.

In the second half of the concert, Koch played pieces by composers that came after Chopin, but had obviously been influenced by him. The two mazurkas, one by Karol Mikuli, Chopin’s own student, and another by Ignacy Friedman, were for me the largest in scope and inventive. The two pieces by Paderewski were charming examples of the famous pianist-composer’s many miniatures.

By way of contrast, Koch played a small sampling of works by Chopin; the first half ended with the Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Op. 50, No. 3, and the evening ended with the monumental canvas of the Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Op. 44.

Koch bid farewell to Vancouver with a generous four encores – a polonaise by J. S. Bach, from the Anna Magdalena Notebook, Egon Petri’s transcription of Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze, and two more Chopin – the Waltzes in A minor and F minor {Op. Posth.)

In general, Koch seemed a little more restrained in his use of rubato last night. While I found his playing on Friday evening beautiful indeed, Koch’s playing of these morsels equally valid and justifiable. Throughout the evening, his playing of the mazurkas and polonaises was idiomatic and filled with genuine feeling for the music.

We must thank Tobias Koch for giving us this very interesting and important programme, and for introducing us to works that are new to us. This was not just a concert of charming salon music. Hearing music by precursors of Chopin, his contemporaries and near-contemporaries, as well as composers who were influenced by him, really highlights Chopin’s own unique and inimitable genius and places his compositions within historical perspective.

I certainly look forward to Mr. Koch’s next appearance in Vancouver.

Chopin's Last Concert

For the second year in a row, Early Music Vancouver and The Vancouver Chopin Society jointly host a period piano specialist in a Chopin recital. This year, pianist Tobias Koch graced the stage of Christ Church Cathedral with two programmes. Last night’s recital was a “reimagining”, or recreation of the last recital Chopin played on October 4, 1848 in Edinburgh. Appropriately, Koch played on a restored 1852 Broadwood Boudoir Grand piano, as did Chopin (not the same Broadwood obviously), the same programme that was on that last recital.

Even though there were no “big” works presented – no “Heroic” Polonaise, noSonatas, no Scherzi– the programme was a formidable one, especially considering Chopin’s extremely weakened state. The composer was apparently so weak at this point that he had to be carried up the stairs. For a man with such delicate health, the evening must have presented an enormous physical challenge. 

Mr. Koch appears to be a man of robust health, but his playing throughout the evening recalled for me the delicacy of how Chopin must have played. Mazurkastook the pride of place in last night’s concert – Mazurkain A-flat major, Op. 7, No. 4, 3 Mazurkasfrom Op. 7, and all three Mazurkasfrom Op. 59. Koch’s playing of the Mazurkas was, to my ears, idiomatic and completely convincing. The artist plays these “dances of the soul” with much rubato, probably more than we are used to today. In many ways, his playing of Chopin probably harkens back to the days of Cortot and Paderewski, in the freedom of expression, as well as the generous use of breaking the notes between the hands, something that is frowned upon by some today. In these Mazurkas, Koch also made us aware of the element of silence, and the idea of punctuating the music with it. He brought out the heartbreak in the Mazurka in A minor(Op. 59, No. 1), the Gallic elegance in the Mazurka in A-flat major(Op. 59, No. 2), and the robust energy of the Mazurka in F-sharp minor(Op. 59, No. 3).

The artist’s playing of the Impromptu No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 29 gave the impression of one long breath from beginning to end. In the Op. 25 Etudes(Nos. 1, 2, 7 and 5), the legato playing was quite remarkable, with one note seemingly dissolved into, or fused with, the next. Under Koch’s hands, I heard, especially in these Etudes, completely new colours. In the E minor Etude(Op. 25, No. 5), the opening 16^thnote-8^thnote motifs sounded like splashes of colours. The gorgeous left hand melody at m. 45 was played with palpable warmth and a glowing beauty in the sound.

In the Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1, Koch really gave the sense of the music floating and the melody gliding along with it. The dynamic at the passionate outburst at m. 49 (marked fff) sounded less forceful because of the limited dynamic, but no less passionate. In the two Op. 27 Nocturnes, the Nocturne in B major, Op. 62, No. 1, as well as the Berceuse, Op. 57, there was truly remarkable legatoand cantabileplaying throughout.

It was said that Chopin never gave two performances that were the same, and that he would always give the impression that he was improvising. In the 19^thcentury, pianists would sometimes interpolate notes into certain passages when they played Chopin. Koch observed this tradition (again, something almost no modern pianists would attempt, or would have the know-how to do so) in his playing of the Grand Valse Brillante in E-flat major, Op. 18 as well as in the Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2, but doing so always very much within the bounds of good taste, and with a sense of appropriateness. 

In the Prelude in E major, Op. 28, No. 9, the dynamic range was a little narrower than what we are used to with performances on a modern instrument, but without sacrificing the sense of drama or grandeur. The Prelude in C-sharp minorthat follows was played with a breathtaking lightness.

Koch’s playing of the Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 45 really highlighted the inner beauty of this remarkable and very forward-looking miniature. In the Ballade in A-flat major, Op. 47, he brought out the intricate design, as well as many inner voices that are so often buried. I really liked his pacing in this long and tricky work, as well as the characters he brought to each section of the music. I was first surprised by the relatively subdued way he played the coda and ending. However, when I examined the score, I noticed for the first time that the composer only marked fortethroughout.

Throughout the evening, Koch’s playing was imaginative, idiomatic, soulful and always musical. The relatively soft sound of the Broadwood piano made me feel as if I was eavesdropping on someone’s playing for oneself. Through a combination of the much-darkened hall, the beautiful sound of the Broadwood, and Koch’s playing, the result was a truly magical evening. 

In the pre-concert talk, Koch spoke about his choice of playing with the printed music, indicating that it really had been the tradition until Liszt, who started playing “by heart”. In addition, Koch shared with the audience that he always learns something, even in the middle of a performance, when he has the score in front of him. Indeed, playing from the heart is always more important than playing by heart. 

While we would, regretfully, never know how Chopin really played, Koch’s magical performance made me feel that we had been transported back in time. Judging from the inspiring silence throughout the evening, I have a feeling that the audience felt the same as well.

Janusz Olejniczak plays Chopin

To hear Janusz Olejniczak play Chopin is like hearing the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra play Johann Strauss. There is a beguiling naturalness in the music making that makes it sound so “right” – in every inflection, every accent, every rubato taken. While it is true that great Chopin interpretation has extended far beyond the Polish border, it was obvious from Olejniczak’s playing this weekend that this music is in his blood, his body and soul.

The two concerts this weekend has been a first collaboration between Early Music Vancouver and the Vancouver Chopin Society. Part of Early Music Vancouver’s interest in this presentation lies in the fact that part of the recital was played on a beautiful 1852 Broadwood piano, lovingly restored by local piano restorer Marinus van Prattenburg. The idea behind the concert was for the audience to experience two very different sound worlds – the sound of a period instrument (Chopin died in 1849) as well as that of a modern Steinway grand. Other than the pleasure I derived from listening to this much loved music, hearing these two very different instruments had been in itself a fascinating experience.

Olejniczak began both recitals with Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. posth., first on the Broadwood, then on the Steinway, just to show the acoustical difference between these two instruments. The Broadwood has a narrower dynamic range but, under the hands of an artist who knew what he was doing with the instrument, not a narrower range of colours than the Steinway. The Steinway naturally had a much more commanding sound as well as a larger projection. With the Broadwood, I had the impression that I was eavesdropping on someone’s playing. Olejniczak created that intimate sound, or rather, created that palpable mood of intimacy, throughout the evening, and on both instruments, just a little more so on the Broadwood.

Between the two recitals, Olejniczak performed a good cross section of his more than fifty Mazurkas – Op. 17, No. 4, Op. 24, Nos. 1 and 2, Op. 30, No. 4, Op. 41, No. 2, and Op. 68, No. 2. There is a Polish word – zal – a word that represents the soul of a Pole. The basic meaning of the word is a bittersweet melancholy. But it also encompasses the feeling of suffering, sadness, of losing everything – a feeling that one sometimes feel when there is no sun and one is alone in a cold house. According to Liszt, the word can also mean “rage”, which is not only interesting but also paradoxical. Chopin’s music, even the most intimate ones, can have a lot of anger. Chopin himself admitted that most of his music is permeated with zal, and Liszt added that the word colours the whole of Chopin’s compositions.

It is also the music of exile, perhaps the most powerful source of inspiration for any artist.

Olejniczak’s performances of the Mazurkas contained all the aforementioned qualities. He employed much rubato in his playing of the Mazurkas, but always with impeccable taste, as well as a sense of - for lack of a better word - rightness.

In the two Mazurkas in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4, as well as Op. 68, No. 2, two works that contain some of the most desolate music the composer ever wrote, there was a feeling of deep sadness recollected from afar. In the Mazurka in C major, Op. 24, No. 2, Olejniczak conveyed the exoticism of both the opening Aeolian mode melody, which could be a rustic dance, or the singsong of a Polish street peddler, and the more lyrical, Lydian mode melody at mm. 21 to 36. Throughout both recitals, but especially during the Mazurkas, I had the feeling that Olejniczak was improvising, almost re-composing these works as he played.

This feeling of melancholy was carried through in Olejniczak’s choice of Waltzes he played, both on the Broadwood – the Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69, No. 1 and Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2., the latter work being, for me, one of Chopin’s greatest works. In the difficult opening phrases of the Waltz in C-sharp minor, he had just the right amount of lilt as well as a beautiful inflection of those brief phrases. In the B section of the work, there was a gossamer lightness that was quite breathtaking. In Saturday’s performance, Olejniczak’s playing of the bass notes from m. 177 to the end, almost as a secondary voice, was particularly affecting.

In the Polonaise in A major, again played on the Broadwood on both evenings, there was a real feeling of dance in the opening measures, so often missing in performances bent on conveying the “bigness” of sound. In fact, Chopin expressly wrote only forte in the opening. I loved the way he played the opening trill at m. 41, with a palpable tension that immediately conveyed the drama of the entire section. In the tricky final measure of the Polonaise, Olejniczak added an extra bass octave before the A major chord to have more of a feeling of finality, something the composer may himself have done?

For the second recital, the artist played two of the Preludes, Op. 28 – the one in A major (No. 7) and the one in C minor (No. 20). In the C minor Prelude, Olejniczak beautifully but subtly brought out the middle register in the third iteration of the theme (m. 9).

O lejniczak’s playing of the Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1, again perfectly embodied the seemingly contradictory emotions in the word zal. From the somber opening chords to the frightening outburst of the B section, and back to the restless return of the opening theme, the pianist played as if taking us through the composer’s stream of consciousness. As well, his performance of the Nocturne in E minor, Op. posth., gave us a glimpse of the gorgeous sound he elicited from the Steinway, and brought out the otherworldly beauty of this early work.

On both evenings, the balance of the second half comprised of three large-scale works. I had not been so moved by the Scherzo in B-flat minor, Op. 31, for a long time, as I was this weekend. In his last Vancouver recital, Murray Perahia played a note-perfect but, for me, emotionally ambivalent performance. It was nothing like the range of emotions and colours Olejniczak took us through in his playing. Every note in the opening triplets could be clearly heard, yet he managed to bring forth Chopin’s sotto voce marking, as well as conveying a sense of urgency with these few opening notes. And there was an ardent quality in his playing of the beautiful con anima section at m. 65.

The artist brought an uncanny freshness I did not think possible with the oft-played Ballade in G minor, Op. 23. As with all great Chopinists, there was a sense of totality, of organic unity, in Olejniczak’s approach towards the Ballade. The danger with a powerful modern piano is the possibility of an ugly or percussive sound, when someone “pushes” the instrument hard. Olejniczak can be a powerful player when he chose to be, but even at the most dramatic moment of this already dramatic work, the pianist’s tone was never forced – colossal, yes, but always round and musical. In the treacherous coda, his playing was utterly confident, and never betrayed even for a moment the possibility of failure. There was also an incredible lightness in the playing that intensified the excitement and tension of the music.

The Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53, perhaps the unofficial national anthem of Poland, his playing was simply thrilling. The dignity, pride, power, beauty, and rhythmic acuity of his playing reminded me only of Arthur Rubinstein, and I can think of no higher compliment. In the beginning of the E major section, there was a roar in the sound of the sforzando chord – a most interesting aural sensation. In the coda, Olejniczak built the music to such a pitch of excitement that the final chords at m. 179 became a catharsis.

Incredibly, this was the first appearance in Vancouver of this great artist, a charming and soft-spoken man who gave the impression, when he played, that he was merely playing for a few friends. Earlier this season, the Vancouver Chopin Society presented Seong-Jin Cho, a supremely talented young artist at the outset of his career. Now, we have a very different kind of artist, at the full maturity of his musical development. With Marc-Andre Hamelin, Rafal Blechacz, Andras Schiff, and Alexander Gavrylyuk still to play in the coming months, Vancouver audiences will have much wonderful music-making to look forward to.

February 5, 2018 

Handel's Messiah

Early Music Vancouver presented, incredibly, for the first time Handel’s perennially popular Messiah this weekend. I attended one of four performances of the oratorio, and found the performance both musically satisfying and spiritually uplifting.

For their presentation, EMV had assembled a strong cast consisting of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Vancouver Cantata Singers (under Paula Kremer), soprano Yulia Van Doren, Mezzo-Soprano Krisztina Szabó, Tenor Charles Daniels, and Vancouver’s own Baritone Tyler Duncan, under the direction of Alexander Weimann, who also played the harpsichord.

All four soloists for the performance are outstanding artists. Vocally Van Doren was the strongest of the four, and her singing of many of the florid vocal lines had an effortless quality as well as a palpable feeling of joyfulness.  This was particularly evident in her exhilarating performance of the aria, “Rejoice greatly”. As well, her performance of “I know that my Redeemer liveth” had a simplicity of feeling and a naturalness in delivery. Also memorable was Szabó’s deeply felt singing of the alto aria, “He was despised and rejected”.

To my ears, the soloists all meant what they were singing. Tenor Daniels, in particular, made every word he sang charged with meaning. I felt this especially in the many accompanied recitatives, recitatives, arioso (“Behold, and see if there be any sorrow”) in Part II of the oratorio. In “Why do the nations so furiously rage together”, Duncan delivered the aria with incredible power and dizzying vocal prowess as well as a palpable sense of urgency, and I could not help but feel that the words of the aria are particularly apt for our times.

Kudos to Paula Kremer and the Vancouver Cantata Singers for their always beautifully nuanced, textually clear, and always musical singing really made them one of the evening’s highlights. In some of the choruses, Alexander Weimann set tempi for the singers that are challenging to sing. The choir more than rose to the occasion in the dizzying speed, agility, accuracy, and lightness of their singing. In choruses such as “For unto us a child is born” and “All we like sheep”, there was an incredible feeling of excitement and exhilaration.  In “Surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”, the choristers infused the music and the words with an incredible intensity of feeling.

The Pacific Baroque Orchestra has been a cornerstone of Vancouver’s early music scene. Concertmaster Chloe Meyers played with great confidence and beautiful articulation. I particularly enjoyed her playing of the striking violin figures in “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron”.

It was quite a sight to watch conductor and harpsichordist Alexander Weimann in action, sometimes standing or half sitting while playing, keeping all of the performing forces together. The ensemble was impeccable, the coordination between orchestra and singers was always at one with each other, and it was a reading that was intensely beautiful and musical. In the final “Amen”, Handel’s genius and the talent and hard work of the musicians all came together to conclude this incredible evening with a final benediction. For me, it was a performance that very much moved.

It is probably safe to say that we live in a post-Christian age. Yet, year after year, people flock to performances of Handel’s Messiah, and recordings of the oratorio continue to be made and are sold. On top of the emotional association every December of doing “something Christmassy” – and Handel’s Messiah certainly beats another performance of Nutcracker - could it be that we, even when we want to deny it, are in search of something transcendent? Surely when we hear those beautiful and inspired (by the Holy Spirit no less) words being sung, we could not help but be moved?  In the words of Saint Augustine, all of us are “wired” for God, and nothing in our world would ever be able to finally satisfy us  - “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee”.

Perhaps we are, all of us, no matter how much we protest otherwise, in search of an “invasion of grace” into our lives.

Patrick May

December 4, 2017

Heaven on Earth

It was St. Augustine who said, “He who sings, prays twice.” I was thinking of that statement yesterday as I was enjoying the heavenly performance by the Choir of Kings College, Cambridge under the excellent direction of Stephen Cleobury in a beautifully balanced programme of liturgical and liturgically centered music.

Right from the first notes of William Byrd’s Rorate coeli, I was captivated by the richness of these young voices, so richly nuanced, singing with a purity and uniformity of sound. Indeed, the clarity of the choir’s diction was readily apparent in their performance of John Mundy’s Sing Joyfully.

I was reminded of the choir’s long and distinguished tradition when it sang Orlando Gibbons’ This is the record of John. Gibbons, as the excellent programme notes informed us, was a former King’s chorister when his elder brother was Master of the Choristers! (Much like the Vienna Boys Choir could boast of Franz Schubert as a former member.) In addition to the beautiful tenor solo, I was struck by how the meaning of the text was underscored by the choir’s singing of this work and in Byrd’s Laudibus in sanctis that followed.

Almost as a segway into the French choral music that followed, organ scholar Richard Gowers gave an atmospheric performance of Le Gibet, the second movement in Maurice Ravel’s monumental Gaspard de la Nuit. Gowers successfully brought out the frightening stillness of the music while giving it forward direction.

Olivier Messiaen’s O sacrum convivium was an incredible challenge for any choir in accuracy of pitch and tuning, and it was no surprise at all that these young choristers so excellently rose to the challenge. The choir brought out the darker hue as well as the beauty in dissonances in the music. At the end of Gabriel Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11, the choir held on to the final chord slightly longer than the piano accompaniment, thus allowing the sound of their beautiful voices to linger in the air for a brief moment. The choir followed with Maurice Duruflé’s setting of Ubi caritas, and ended the first half with a wonderfully lively performance of Francis Poulenc’s Hodie Christus natus est. In the Poulenc work, I noticed the incredible, almost instrument-like flexibility of the choir.

After the interval, the choir began the second half with Henry Purcell’s dramatic Jehovah, quam multi sunt. There are some effective examples of word painting in this work, effects that the choir brought out beautifully: the sudden feeling of repose in their singing of the line, “Ego cubui et dormivi” (I laid me down and slept), as well as how the singers highlighted the fragmented melodic line in, “dentes improborum confregisti” (Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly).

The concert followed with two works by Giovanni Gabrieli – Exsultavit cor meum and O magnum mysterium. In the first of the two works, I couldn’t help but wonder how the overlapping entries would sound within the acoustics of Venice’s Saint Mark’s Cathedral, where Gabrieli was principal composer. The choir’s sense of timing was impeccable in O magnum mysterium, where the composer gave us the piquant effect of a syncopated  “Alleluia”. The singers brought out the richness of Purcell’s harmony in I was glad, as well as the beautiful dark colours in his setting of the line, “O pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

King’s college organ scholar Henry Websdale brought out the contrapuntal clarity in his performance of Gibbons’ Fantasia (1612) on the lovely sounding chamber organ, a very nice change of palate before the final works of the concert.

After Anton Bruckner’s Christus factus est, the choir continued with Charles Villiers Stanford’s O for a closer walk with God. In the Stanford, there was a lovely blending between the voices of the boy soprano voices with the voices of the older choristers. In the line “a light to shine upon the road”, there was a wonderfully effective outburst of sound from the choir. For the final line, “that leads me to the Lamb,” the choir gave us an incredibly beautiful and plaintive decrescendo towards the end. Two more works, Percy Whitlock’s peaceful Jesu, grant me this, I pray and Johannes Brahms’ Schaffe in mir, Gott (Op. 29, No. 2) ended this richly rewarding afternoon of music.

Throughout the concert, I kept wondering about the sound of the choir within their magnificent Chapel. Within the Chan Centre, the choir sounded, to my ears, slightly dry. I can only imagine that in the King’s College chapel, with the choir sing facing each other and the tall ceiling that reaches the heavens, there would be much more resonance, more “bloom” in the sound of the voices.

What a joy and privilege it was to hear this justly famous choir. And what a life it must be for these young men, living and breathing great music from morning to evening, at the same time receiving a world-class education. Whether or not they go on to become professional musicians, I am certain that this kind of experience will serve them well, personally and professionally, for the rest of their lives.

Patrick May

March 27, 2017