CHELTENHAM MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007
Vocal and choral music by Sir Michael Tippett; Aaron Copland; Julian Anderson; Eric Whitacre; Charles Ives; Morten Lauridsen; Leonard Bernstein Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor); Emma Brain-Gabbott (soprano); Kate Woolveridge (mezzo-soprano); Peter Wilman (tenor); Stephen Gadd (bass); Julian Wilkins (piano & organ); City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus conducted by Simon Halsey Cheltenham Town Hall 11.07.2007 (JQ)

It’s not all that often that one hears the audience chuckling at a concert, but that’s exactly what happened at this Cheltenham Festival evening during Julian Wilkins’s exuberant performance of Charles Ives’s delightfully wacky Variations on America for organ. This is a piece that’s almost subversive in the way that Ives puts the very formal tune – and the organ – through its paces. The introduction was hilarious at times as Wilkins skilfully exploited the registrations available to him. Indeed more than once I was put in mind of those superb vintage Tom and Jerry cartoons. Although the piece contains several musical belly laughs Wilkins’s performance was also very witty, not least in the minor key variation. It was all huge fun and greatly enjoyed by the audience.

This was the sole instrumental item in a programme in which the CBSO Chorus picked up the American theme of the festival to give us an adroitly chosen and well varied programme, containing music by American composers and by English composers inspired by Americana.

The first English offering came right at the start in the shape of the celebrated Five Negro Spirituals from Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. These are superb pieces and they received a marvellous, eloquent performance. Particular highlights were ‘Nobody knows’, in which the clean articulation of the choir when singing quick music very quietly produced a palpable tension, and ‘Go down, Moses’ in which the choir displayed a most impressive dynamic range in support of Stephen Gadd’s powerful delivery of the melody. The concluding ‘Deep River’ was deeply felt and moving.

The other English offering gave me – belatedly – my first opportunity to hear music by Julian Anderson. This composer’s music has been attracting plaudits for some time now and on the evidence of his Four American Choruses (2002-3) it’s not hard to see why. These are unaccompanied settings of four gospel hymns by Ira D. Sankey and they were commissioned while Anderson was Composer-in-Association with the CBSO. Introducing the set, Simon Halsey told us that when Anderson received the commission he’d never sung in a choir before so he took himself off to sing for a year with the London Philharmonic Choir to gain an understanding of how a chorus works from the inside. To judge by my first hearing of the work that resulted I’d say that Anderson spent his time well for though the pieces are obviously hugely demanding they don’t make outlandish demands on the singers.

The first piece, ‘I’m a pilgrim’, is a warm, homophonous setting that features some fascinating harmonies. It’s followed by ‘Beautiful Valley of Eden’. This is a complex piece, so complex, in fact, that it requires four separate conductors, one for each section of the choir. As Halsey put it, the conductors "all ignore each other" and the four groups of singer are "supposed to meet occasionally". How on earth it all fits together – especially since the three sub-conductors all faced away from

Halsey and from each other – I haven’t a clue but this rich, elaborate choral collage does work and, praise be, Halsey brought everyone together at the end. ‘Bright Morning Star!’ is an ecstatic piece, which I found very impressive. The final chorus, ‘At the fountain’ splits the choir into twelve parts. Over dense choral harmonies the soprano and alto soloists weave their blues-inflected lines. The music struck me as being searching in more ways than one. I was hugely impressed with this work and with the assured performance it received. I’m impatient to hear it again and I’m resolved to invest in the CD http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Oct06/Anderson_nmcd121.htm which these same forces have made of this piece, which will also give me the chance to hear more music by Julian Anderson.

The rest of the programme contained music from the other side of The Pond. I suspect that, in part, the selection of five of Copland’s Old American Songs was included to give the soloists a bit more to do. The programme booklet erred in advertising two choral arrangements by Irving Fine for only one was heard, a charming setting for female vices of ‘Simple Gifts’. The other piece that we expected to hear in an arrangement by Fine, ‘I Bought Me a Cat’, was actually sung as a solo by Stephen Gadd. I’m glad we heard it in the original version for Gadd made a superb job of it, responding well to the broad humour, and his impressive repertoire of farmyard noises deservedly brought the house down. He also did well in ‘The Dodger’ and Kate Woolveridge sang ‘Long Time Ago’ with feeling and warm tone. Unfortunately Peter Wilman made a much less favourable impression in ‘The Boatmen’s Dance’. This is a song much more suited to a bass or baritone in any event – why on earth wasn’t Stephen Gadd asked to do it? But Wilman made matters worse by forcing his tone and by his physical mannerisms, swaying all over the place and raising and lowering his copy in a most distracting way. Frankly, he was over-parted.

After the interval there were two short, fairly recent pieces for unaccompanied choir, one placed on each side of the Ives organ work. Last year I was very impressed http://musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Mar06/Whitacre_CDA67543.htm

by a CD of choral music by the young American composer, Eric Whitacre (b. 1970). Simon Halsey offered us one of the works that appeared on that CD, hope, faith, life, love. (1999). This is one of Whitacre’s e.e. cummings settings, Three Songs of Faith. The setting, the text of which consists of just eight separate words, is often characterised by clouds of dense choral harmonies but it soars ecstatically on the word "Joy" before subsiding to a rich closing cadence on the word "Soul". My previous encounter with the piece had been in a performance by a chamber-sized choir, Polyphony. It was fascinating to hear it expertly sung by a large choir.

The other unaccompanied setting was Morten Lauridsen’s O magnum mysterium (1994). This is a superb, radiant piece but I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t becoming a little too ubiquitous. Simon Halsey told us that the piece has achieved over 3,000 performances and even before it started I wished he’d chosen another Lauridsen piece – the lovely setting of O nata lux would have been just as effective in its place. As it was I felt that this performance was the one relative failure of the evening. The choir sang it superbly – as they sang everything else. The problem was that, just for once, Halsey got the dynamics wrong. When I got home I checked the score and, sure enough, the opening is marked pp. With the best will in the world one couldn’t say that this performance started any quieter than mp. For me this fatally undermined the music, depriving it of its essential sense of awe and mystery. Also it meant that when the ecstatic climax arrived – and even that is actually only marked forte - its effect was diminished. I must report, however, that the ending was beautifully managed with a superbly sonorous quiet bottom D from the basses underpinning the very last chord.

The evening finished with Bernstein’s marvellously inventive Chichester Psalms. These were given in the version – which I prefer – that has accompaniment by organ, harp and one very busy percussionist. This was a memorable performance. In the first movement, which is vigorous and exciting, the choir was splendidly incisive. The second movement, a setting of Psalm 23, is dominated by a solo which I’ve variously heard sung by a treble, soprano, mezzo-soprano or counter-tenor – I think I’m right in saying that the composer used the latter type of voice on his first recording of the piece. Here the soloist was the young counter-tenor, Iestyn Davies. He gave, quite simply, the finest performance of this solo that I’ve ever heard. His plangent timbre and expressive voice was ideally suited to the music. The third movement features a long, memorable melody, which is in 10/4 time, I think. Simon Halsey and his singers quite rightly made the most of this but the music was never over-indulged. The hushed final pages were sung with superb control and feeling by the choir, bringing to a memorable end a memorable concert.

This stimulating and thoroughly entertaining programme was clearly enjoyed by the large audience. I’ve never before heard the CBSO Chorus ‘live’ outside of Symphony Hall, Birmingham. There, on a much bigger stage, one isn’t quite so aware of how big a group it is. The Cheltenham Town Hall stage was packed – I guess there must have been around 120 in the choir – and what a treat it was these days to see a choir that boasted and effective large tenor and bass sections; this took me back to the substantial Yorkshire choral societies I remember from four decades ago. But, as the saying goes, size isn’t everything. What mattered much more was the excellence of the choir. The tone was satisfyingly full in all sections; the dynamic range was hugely impressive; there was great clarity, both of diction and in terms of the balance between the various parts of the choir. And on top of all that there was evident enthusiasm for the music. For all this Simon Halsey must take the chief credit. This concert confirmed his well-established credentials as a superb choral trainer. If I have a criticism I wish he’d cut down on the balletic style of conducting and some of the flamboyant hand gestures: it’s self evident that his choir is so good that it doesn’t need this kind of visual "stimulus" to encourage it to give of its very considerable best.

That, however, is a relatively minor point. The abiding memories of this concert are of a refreshingly interesting programme, superbly executed. When we look back at this year’s Cheltenham Festival I’m sure that this wonderful evening will be seen clearly as one of the high points.

 

John Quinn

 

Back to the Top     Back to the Index Page