In January 2010 I attended one of a series of concerts presented
in Birmingham by Ex Cathedra to celebrate their fortieth anniversary.
This particular concert featured a cappella choral pieces
in forty parts and included works by Alessandro Striggio, Thomas
Tallis and Gabriel Jackson. Also on the programme was Earthrise
by Alec Roth, commissioned for the occasion and receiving its
first performance. I was greatly impressed at a first hearing
and, reviewing
the concert for MusicWeb International Seen and Heard, I concluded
by saying “I’m impatient to hear it again”.
Well now, with this disc the opportunity has come and with it
the chance to evaluate the piece at more than a single hearing.
Having had that opportunity I’m firmly of the view that
Earthrise is a very fine work indeed. My initial impressions
were confirmed but there’s no substitute for hearing a
work several times. In brief, the commission from Ex Cathedra,
which arrived in 2009, coincided with the fortieth anniversary
of the Apollo 11 moon landing and gave Roth his inspiration.Earthrise
is divided into three sections and is scored for unaccompanied
choir, divided into forty parts. (I haven’t seen a score
but I suspect that the full division into forty parts is not
achieved all the time.) The texts that Alec Roth has set - in
Latin - are drawn from the Psalms, and the Old Testament books
of Isaiah, Job and Proverbs. In addition the work begins with
a setting of one of the Advent Great ‘O’ Antiphons
and another of the Antiphons, reprising material from the first
setting, is heard at the very end.
It seems to me that Roth has selected some wonderful, rich texts
and, having done so, that he has set the words in a way that
emphasises their potency and which brings out the powerful imagery
in the texts. I was greatly impressed by the sense of space
and awe that Roth brings to the second section, entitled ‘Contemplation
of The Earth Seen from Space’. Even better in some ways
is the final section, ‘A Plea For True Wisdom And Understanding.
This is the most extensive movement and the bulk of it is a
setting of words from the Book of Proverbs. I suspect that it’s
here, above all, that the music divides into forty parts; certainly
the musical texture is the richest we’ve heard in the
whole piece. For quite a lot of the time the main idea is a
slow hymn-like melody, which proceeds slowly and serenely. Round
the hymn other sections of the choir sing decorative scalic
figures. This rather put me in mind of the finale of the Second
Symphony of Sibelius; Roth’s music has a comparable sense
of majesty but it also has a grave beauty which, when combined
with the words he has selected, is very moving.
It is intelligent planning to follow Earthrise with Hymn
to Gaia because for the ancient Greeks Gaia was the Earth
goddess. Actually, the piece comprises two hymns. As well as
an adult choir Roth involves a children’s choir. The adults
sing the hymns, in harmony and in the original Greek, while
the children sing, simultaneously and in unison, an English
translation. The music for the children is not straightforward,
I suspect, but if I may say so Roth’s work seems to be
an object lesson in how to expose young musicians to contemporary
music and involve them in its performance in a way that challenges
them and yet is not impossibly daunting. Ex Cathedra, with its
well-established Academy for younger singers, is perfectly equipped
to perform this interesting work.
The whole of the second disc fits together on several levels.
Over the last four years Alec Roth has collaborated on several
projects with the distinguished author Vikram Seth (b. 1952).
In fact Seth has just published a book, The Rivered Earth
(Penguin, 2011), which describes their collaborations, includes
the libretti for all their joint works and contains an account
by Seth of “the pleasures and pains of working with a
composer.” A disc that included two of the earlier Seth/Roth
collaborations was reviewed
by the late Bob Briggs in October 2008. Bob was impressed by
the music on that disc and I fancy he would have relished these
pieces also. He described Roth’s music as “music
of strength, originality and sensuality” and he went on
to say that “Roth’s is a true original English voice.”
I hadn’t read those words until after I’d finished
listening to these new discs but I think the music bears out
Bob’s judgement.
Common to that disc and to this one is the violinist Philippe
Honoré who, I now learn, is the dedicatee of Seth’s
acclaimed novel, An Equal Music. Here he plays Alec Roth’s
five-movement Partita for solo violin, Ponticelli (‘little
bridges’).
Here we come to the other person who binds this second disc
together: the English poet, George Herbert. As a boy in India,
Vikram Seth first encountered Herbert’s poetry and gradually
he came to know it much better and to love it. As he writes
in the booklet notes, in 2003 he acquired the very house, near
Salisbury, where George Herbert lived from 1630 until his death
in 1633. The grounds of the house include five little bridges
- hence the title of the violin work. In 2007, Seth, who was
in India at the time, wrote the six poems that Alec Roth sets
in Shared Ground. Indeed, during Seth’s absence
Roth was staying in his house - Herbert’s former abode
- and he wrote the music at that time. Seth says of the poems:
“Though the mood and spirit of these verses are my own,
they are formally modelled on [specific] poems by Herbert.”
Fascinatingly, Alec Roth has so designed Shared Ground
and Ponticelli that the two works, though independent
compositions, can be played together, in which case the first
movement of the choral work is followed by the first movement
of Ponticelli and so on. Though the works are treated
separately on this CD Signum include in the booklet a note explaining
how you can programme your CD player to combine the two works
in this way: it works very well and makes for intriguing listening.
There’s some very fine choral writing in Shared Ground.
Once again Alec Roth proves his ability to respond acutely to
words in the music that he writes. He also displays a seemingly
intuitive understanding of how to write for voices - there’s
always clarity in the textures though they are often very rich.
I must confess that I don’t yet understand all of Vikram
Seth’s poetic imagery, especially the words of the sixth
and final poem, entitled ‘This’. It’s in this
movement that Roth’s music is the most complex and texturally
rich in the whole work. There’s some very beautiful homophonic
choral writing in the first two settings while the fifth is
the most energetic. Perhaps the most remarkable movement is
the fourth one, ‘Host’. In this, if I interpret
the poetry correctly, Seth describes his decision to buy George
Herbert’s former house. As an appendix, if you will, he
adds to the end of the poem an inscription, by Herbert, that
is carved on a stone in the north wall of the house. This is
sung by the choir; previously in the setting, the role of the
choir has been largely to provide support for a tenor soloist
- the excellent Samuel Boden. As I listened I thought more and
more of Vaughan Williams’ wonderful ‘Love bade me
welcome’ from his Five Mystical Songs and I’ve
since realised that this is the very Herbert poem that Seth
had taken for his model in writing this particular poem. I should
hasten to say that Roth’s setting is no pastiche of RVW’s;
if anything, perhaps it’s a homage. But I think this,
above all, supports Bob Brigg’s contention that Roth’s
is a true English voice.
Is ‘Host’ a homage to Vaughan Williams? I don’t
know. Nor do I know if Ponticelli is a homage to Bach
but there seems to me to be more than a nod in the direction
of Bach’s solo violin partitas. The first movement, in
addition, seemed to me to have in the writing a whiff of an
Indian raga; is this a compliment to Vikram Seth? The
second movement is a songful, meditative soliloquy while the
central movement consists of slow, searching music of no little
depth. Here, I think, is real Bachian gravitas. The fifth and
final movement is the longest and the most varied though, thematically,
it remains tightly organised. Here, in particular, the writing
makes significant demands on the soloist’s virtuosity
but Philippe Honoré is equal to all these demands. Whether
heard alone or in combination with Shared Ground it seems
to me thatPonticelli is a most interesting piece.
The disc concludes with a setting for choir of a Herbert poem
but The Flower is not included just as a filler. Not
only is it a lovely setting in its own right; Roth used the
thematic material in the second movement of Ponticelli.
There’s a lot of important and stimulating music here
- all recorded for the first time - and, without exception,
the performances are fully worthy of the music. Jeffrey Skidmore
and his excellent singers clearly believe in Alec Roth’s
music and not only do their performances demonstrate very high
standards of singing, they also radiate conviction. I’m
sure the composer must be thrilled with the advocacy that his
music receives here. The recorded sound is excellent and the
documentation is very good. I hope these recordings will disseminate
Alec Roth’s music to a wide audience.
John Quinn
Philippe Honoré (violin)