SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Cheltenham Festival 2008 (3) : From Spem to Et Exspecto - Music by Thomas Tallis, Olivier Messiaen and Maurice Duruflé.Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra/Timothy Reynish; The Oriel Singers/Tim Morris; St Cecilia Singers/Russell Burton; Carleton Etherington (Organ) Tewkesbury Abbey 7. 7.2008 (JQ)

Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium
Olivier Messiaen: Le Banquet Celeste
Thomas Tallis: O sacrum convivium
                    Salvator mundi
                    Loquebantur variis linguis
Olivier Messiaen: Offrande et Alleluia Finale
Maurice Duruflé; Quatre Motets sue les themes gregoriens
Olivier Messiaen: O sacrum convivium
Olivier Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum


I don’t know who dreamed up this programme but let me say right at the start that it was one of the most intelligent, perceptive and unusual concert programmes I have ever encountered. Not only did the choice of music offer some thrilling and unexpected juxtapositions – Tallis and Messiaen being the obvious one – but also the actual construction of the programme was extremely thoughtful. Thus, for example, it was altogether fitting to follow Messiaen’s meditation on the Holy Eucharist, Le Banquet Celeste, with the communion motet by Tallis. A little later on we found a thrilling organ piece by Messiaen giving way to music by Duruflé, another French organist-composer.

Apart from the distinction of all the performances we heard in this concert and the quality of the music performed two other things made it a very special occasion. The first was the truly magnificent surroundings of Tewkesbury Abbey, surely one of the finest of all non-cathedral churches in Britain – and surpassing quite a few cathedrals in architectural splendour, in my view – and the second was the inspiring use of the building’s space by the performers.

All the performers heard in Part One were local musicians. The two choirs are crack chamber choirs while Carleton Etherington is the Organist of Tewkesbury Abbey. After the interval the students from the RNCM, under the experienced guidance of Timothy Reynish, were very welcome visitors.

The construction of the programme had a superb logic so it is only right to describe the concert in the order in which it took place. The first half was performed as a sequence, uninterrupted by applause. This worked superbly and the choirs took advantage of the organ solos to relocate themselves very discreetly to different parts of the church before singing again. Proceedings opened with Thomas Tallis’s celebrated motet in forty parts, for which the two choirs combined under Tim Morris. I think there were slightly more than forty singers involved – I’d have guessed at around fifty-five. On more than one occasion I’ve seen this exceptional piece performed in churches with the singers split into groups and placed at intervals down the side aisles. I was mildly disappointed this didn’t happen on this occasion but I imagine the logistics would have been too serious to overcome. Instead the singers were ranged in a very wide semi circle in front of the rood screen. As it was, from my seat near the front, I found it surprisingly easy to pick out the different choirs at times, despite the complexity of Tallis’s polyphonic textures. Tim Morris controlled the performance with impressive authority and he shaped it very well, making the most of the contrasts in the music. It must be a hugely demanding piece to sing but the combined choir sang with great assurance. This was a splendid performance with which to open the programme.

Carleton Etherington’s splendidly atmospheric performance of the Messiaen’s early organ piece, Le Banquet Celeste (1926) made a wonderful contrast. This devout, slow contemplation of the Eucharist was an admirable foil, in its sophisticated simplicity, to the richness of Spem in alium. We returned to Tallis for three of his Latin motets from the Cantiones Sacrae of 1575. By this time the choirs had moved into the choir stalls and the extra distance between them and the audience worked beautifully. Russell Burton secured a supple and nicely moulded account of O sacrum convivium from the St Cecilia Singers. The other two pieces were, in their different ways, more outgoing and Tim Morris directed strong performances from The Oriel Singers. I especially liked the joyful delivery of the Alleluias in Loquebantur variis linguis

Another organ solo from Carleton Etherington was, in every way, poles apart from his first choice. Le Banquet Celeste is one of Messiaen’s very earliest published works. Offrande et Alleluia Finale, on the other hand, is the concluding movement from his very last organ work, the vast, eighteen movement Livre du Saint Sacrement (1984). This movement is one of Messiaen’s exuberant, exciting toccatas. Etherington gave an impressively agile yet powerful performance that generated lots of electricity.

The St Cecilia Singers, now back in front of the rood screen, sang Duruflé’s exquisite motets superbly. As the collective title indicates, each of the motets is based on a fragment of plainsong. In this performance the relevant piece of plainchant was sung by a solo tenor immediately before the motet in question. I’ve not heard this done before but I thought it worked very well. The cool beauty of the first motet, ‘Ubi caritas’ (my personal favourite), was a welcome contrast after the huge sounds of the Messiaen toccata had died away. ‘Tota Pulchra es’, a Marian motet, is for ladies voices only and in this performance the music flowed like pure, clear spring water. The remaining motets were equally successful.

The last word in the first half was given to Messiaen as The Oriel Singers sang his sole motet, the gorgeous O sacrum convivium, from far away on the steps of the high altar. The quiet stretches of this little gem were sung beautifully but I just had a feeling that in the brief passages where the music is slightly louder that perhaps Tim Morris overstated his case a fraction.  As the music drew to a close I looked at my watch and was amazed to find the best part of an hour had passed. The whole sequence had been a marvellous experience, superbly executed.

A miniature by Messiaen closed the first half but there was nothing remotely miniature about the sole offering in the second half. Everything about Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum is on a huge scale. Written in 1964 to a commission by the French Government to commemorate the dead of the two World Wars, Messiaen’s piece is lavishly scored for 18 woodwinds, 16 brass and no less than six percussionists playing all manner of gongs, bells and tam-tams. Indeed, looking at the vast array of percussion instruments assembled I suspect that every gong in the entire Greater Manchester area had been transported down to Tewkesbury for the occasion. In yet another imaginative touch most of the lights in the Abbey were dimmed for the performance, which just added to the ambience.

Messiaen’s music is on a truly monumental scale and he conjures up some quite amazing sonorities from the orchestra. The menacing, low sounds with which the work opens are almost primeval. The first movement was built to a terrifyingly loud, gong-drenched climax. After this Timothy Reynish made a very long pause, as he was to do after each of the first four of the work’s five movements. I don’t know if these pauses are specified in the score but they were hugely effective and sustained the tension long after the echoes had died away.

In the second movement we heard some excellent, highly exposed solos from the flute, oboe and clarinet. The confidence with which these hugely demanding solos were delivered exemplified the superb technical standard of the entire performance. As with so many of Messiaen’s works birdsong is never far away. In the third movement he depicts the cry of a rare Amazonian bird. In the programme note the composer was quoted as saying of this bird’s call that it “surprises and bewitches the listener with disjointed melodic jumps, colour changes and dynamic contrasts.” Actually, that strikes me as a pretty fair description of much of the music of  Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum itself.

There was some truly fabulous wind playing in the fourth movement. The woodwind parts here sound ferociously difficult but the precision and tuning of these young players was quite amazing. Finally came the slow, majestic processional that constitutes Messiaen’s finale. This movement bears the superscription “And I saw a great multitude”. The music is underpinned by slowly pulsing gongs while the brass intone a long processional hymn. It’s immense music of huge reach and suggestive of vast spaces. It demands a grand and resonant acoustic to make its effect. The Abbey was an ideal place for this music and I wondered if the building has ever before resonated to such sounds. Mr Reynish and his players unleashed the cumulative power of Messiaen’s music to thrilling effect and one could visualise in the mind’s eye, as the composer surely intended, a never-ending procession of souls.

The performance as a whole was a stunning achievement. For once the word “awesome”, used in its correct sense, was entirely appropriate. This magnificent account of Messiaen’s visionary score was a thrilling culmination to one of the most exciting concerts I’ve attended in a long time.

John Quinn

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