The Saint Louis Chamber Choir was founded in 1956 by the British
organist, Ronald Arnatt. Currently they are led by another British
musician, Philip Barnes, who took over the direction of the choir
shortly after moving to work in the USA in 1988. The choir boasts
a membership of forty singers, though additional associate members
also took part in at least some of the items on this recording.
The choir has made
something of a habit of commissioning new pieces and, as the
title of this CD indicates, all four works included here were
written for them. With the exception of three movements from
Requiem all the recordings are premières. All the pieces
are for unaccompanied chorus. Three of the composers have had
close associations with the choir: Judith Bingham has written
at least two pieces for them while both Clare Maclean and Sasha
Johnson Manning have held the post of composer-in-residence.
The three female
composers represented here are all experienced singers as well
as composers. To the best of my knowledge Ned Rorem has never
been a professional singer but, as his choral works and his
many art songs attest, he has a natural affinity with the human
voice – and with words. In Ode to Man he sets some verse
from Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone. In keeping with the
traditional way of writing for Greek chorus, these four verses
are paired as strophe and antistrophe. The first pair is quite
vigorous. The second pair is taken at a slower pace. The music
of Section III is beautifully smooth and lyrical, with translucent
textures. Section IV is also lyrical and, arguably, even more
impressive than its predecessor, building to an ardent climax.
There’s a connection
between Ned Rorem and the work by New Zealand-born Clare Maclean.
This piece was commissioned by the Saint Louis choir to be included
in the same concert as a performance of Rorem’s Four Madrigals
on texts by Sappho. Maclean aptly chose to set words by
Sappho also but her setting is in Greek. The music has consistent
energy and dances along. The ending, which is somewhat abrupt
and enigmatic, comes as something of a surprise.
Not long ago I reviewed
and enjoyed a collection of choral music by Judith Bingham.
The work chosen here by the Saint Louis choir makes an equally
strong impression. The three movements, depict, as Philip Barnes
explains, “the challenges of Elizabethan [English] country life.”
The first and last movements set words by Edmund Spenser while
the middle section of the piece sets a seventeenth-century American
version of Psalm 23. The writing for voices is consistently
interesting, featuring some fascinating but never outlandish
choral textures. Having spent some time as a member of the BBC
Singers Miss Bingham writes with an intuitive and practical
understanding of choirs, it seems to me. The three movements
are suitably contrasted. The first, ‘Winter’, begins with what
Philip Barnes rightly describes as “abrasive vocal lines and
chilling harmony”. The quiet close of this impressive movement
is suggestive of the bleakness of winter. ‘Spring’, which follows,
is much calmer. The concluding movement, ‘Autumn’, is mainly
warm and relaxed in character. Through this movement a lilting
Somerset folk tune runs like a thread. I was very taken with
this work by Judith Bingham.
The most substantial
piece on the disc is the Requiem of Sasha Johnson Manning.
This English composer is another active singer and also a choir
conductor in her own right. She’s had a lengthy association
with the Saint Louis choir, for whom she first wrote music in
1998. Not long after that she was named their first composer-in-residence,
a post she held until 2006. Her Requiem has been completed
incrementally. Some of the movements were performed separately
over the last few years by the choir and they have previously
recorded the first two movements and the sixth of what eventually
became an eight-movement composition.
This Requiem is
unusual in its construction. The first three movements – ‘Requiem
Aeterna’. ‘Dies Irae’ and ‘Out of the Deep’ (Psalm 30) – are
all scored for SSATB. Then comes a setting for men’s voices
of Emily Dickinson’s ‘Let down the bars. O Death’, after which
the ladies sing Oscar Wilde’s Sonnet: On hearing the ‘Dies
Irae’ in the Sistine Chapel. Then comes a movement
in which the ladies sing, in Spanish, a poem by St. John of
the Cross, which is combined with a male voice setting of the
Nunc Dimittis. The penultimate movement is a setting for two
mixed choirs of Walt Whitman’s Toward the Unknown Region.
The full choir comes together for the last movement, ‘Lux Aeterna’.
I think it’s useful to list the movements in this way to show
not only that this Requiem is somewhat eclectic in terms of
the words set but also how Miss Johnson Manning imaginatively
varies the disposition of her forces.
The music is primarily
lyrical and thoughtful in tone. Most of the time it’s in slow
or moderate tempo, as you might expect. However, in the ‘Dies
Irae’, which sets only two stanzas of the sequence, the music
is much more dynamic and rather exciting. The palette of choral
sounds that Miss Johnson Manning produces is consistently fastidious.
In the opening movement I like the light textures that result
from the use of high voices or getting the lower voices to sing
at the top end of their registers. The setting of Psalm 30 (movement
III) is quite subdued for the most part and I admired this pensive
meditation.
The Dickinson setting
(IV) is short and in it, as Philip Barnes says, the singers
seem “warmly [to] embrace death”. It’s a most effective contrast
to follow this with the chaste sounds of female voices only
in V. Philip Barnes says that they “appeal for [death’s] postponement”
but the appeal is gentle in nature. There’s a short soprano
solo at the words “A bird at evening flying to its nest”, which
is beautifully rendered. This mainly calm movement contains
some beautiful music. The combination of Spanish and Latin in
VI adds spice to the music, which grows more complex and ecstatic
as the movement unfolds. The poem and the canticle are very
neatly juxtaposed in a most imaginative way. In some ways the
final movement (VIII) is the most satisfying. The music is tranquil
and flowing and the last three minutes or so have a particular
degree of warmth and radiance. At the very end a series of rich
chords brings the work to a beatific close. This Requiem is
a lovely, thoughtful and eminently approachable piece. I should
imagine that it’s quite demanding to sing, not least in terms
of sustaining the lines and keeping the pitch. Suffice to say
that the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus sounds to be fully equal
to the task.
Throughout the whole
programme, in fact, the choir’s singing is distinguished and
the sounds that they make fall most pleasingly on the ear. Philip
Barnes has clearly trained them extremely well and he directs
the performances with taste and commitment. Anyone who relishes
top quality unaccompanied choral singing will find much to enjoy
here. The choice of music is highly commendable also. All of
the music on this disc is very worthy of dissemination to a
wide audience and I hope that this CD release will achieve that
objective. The recorded sound is highly sympathetic. The engineers
have captured the natural resonance of the church skilfully
and have used it to add a natural bloom to the sound while retaining
admirable clarity. Useful booklet notes complete a notable release.
John Quinn
Further information about the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus is at
www.chamberchorus.org
The Saint
Louis Chamber Chorus/Philip Barnes 
