James MacMillan’s Roman Catholic faith has
been a profound influence on and source of inspiration for much
of his music. In particular, it’s led him to compose a good deal
of music inspired by the events of Holy Week and Easter. These
have included his magnificent
St. John Passion (
review),
Seven Last Words from the Cross (
review)
and his earlier orchestral triptych,
Triduum (1996-97).
Visitatio Sepulchri (Visit to the tomb) is roughly contemporaneous
with Seven Last Words from the Cross. Originally conceived as
a ‘sacred opera’ for seven soloists (SSATTB and male speaker)
it is presented here in the revised version for chorus and chamber
orchestra in which each of the original solo roles is allotted
to a section of the choir. This is, I think, the first recording
of the work in this format though I see from the Boosey &
Hawkes website
that there was an earlier recording of the version for solo
voices, which is no longer available. The notes accompanying
this CD are by Stephen Johnson and they are very useful. However,
I’d recommend that listeners also take a look at the composer’s
own note on the Boosey’s website, which usefully supplements
Mr Johnson’s thoughts.
The work is a powerful one. The first of its three movements
is purely orchestral and it depicts the Crucifixion of Christ
in music that, at the start, is violent, jagged and aggressive.
Eventually this gives way to what Stephen Johnson calls a “quasi-choral
section” for strings. At first hearing this music may seem to
offer repose after what has gone before but it’s unquiet music
and it sounds to me as if it portrays exhaustion and the last
death throes of the spirit.
The second section depicts the actual visit to the tomb. In
the Gospels we read how some of Christ’s female followers visited
the place where he had been buried very early the next morning
to find the tombstone rolled away, the tomb empty and an Angel
there to greet them. In MacMillan’s piece the words of these
women are sung by the female singers, obviously, while the male
voices depict the Angel. This music may mean less to non-believers
but I found it quite revelatory as an aural imagination of the
scene. Imagine, if you will, a small group of women, already
traumatised by the events of the previous day, visiting a place
that was strange to them – a garden, we are told, in which the
tomb had been created – in the half-light of dawn. Their fear
and confusion are tellingly conveyed in MacMillan’s music while
the imaginative orchestral colouring conveys extremely suggestively
the atmosphere of the surroundings. It’s a brilliant piece of
writing. Later in the movement MacMillan sets some verses from
the medieval Easter hymn, ‘Victimae Paschali laudes’.
The third movement, which follows without a break, is a setting
of the Te Deum. This extended setting occupies nearly half of
the duration of the entire piece - 23:32 in this performance
- and it’s a remarkable conception. At the start you can hear
that the choral parts have their roots in the old plainchant
melody of the hymn but MacMillan has utterly transformed it.
Fragments of the text and of musical phrases are hurled around,
it seems, from one voice part to another and the overall effect
is one of a wild tumult of praise. Meanwhile the amazingly busy
orchestration adds to the ferment. This opening section of the
movement is impassioned, full-on music with a consistently strong
rhythmic impulse. I would imagine that it’s hugely demanding
of the singers.
Around 7:00, at ‘Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem’, the
plainchant melody is heard again, more richly harmonised than
before, and this ushers in a calmer episode; and not before
time – the listener needs the respite from the teeming invention
thus far heard. Actually, it feels like more than seven minutes
has elapsed, so frenetic has been the pace of the musical argument
up to this point. The calmer section is quite extended but the
energy levels pick up again around 14:58, at ‘et laudamus Nomen
tuum in saeculum’. At 18:58, led by the trumpets, the music
gathers itself for a final major-key peroration of no little
splendour, in which the plainchant theme is again prominent.
However, the composer has one more surprise in store. When everything
seems set fair for a Big Finish the music starts to die down
(at 20:00) and as the orchestra subsides almost to nothing we
hear the choir whispering what I think are the last couple of
lines of the hymn – even listening through headphones it’s almost
impossible to make out the words, which I’m sure is intentional.
After all the preceding forthright praise of God MacMillan is
surely emphasising here how tiny and puny is mankind compared
to the Creator. So ends an extraordinary but very impressive
setting of the Te Deum. It’s the culmination of what is a powerful
and moving work.
Sun-Dogs is very different. It’s for unaccompanied chorus
and though quite a number of unconventional vocal effects are
employed, thirteen years on from Visitatio Sepulchri
we find MacMillan employing a different and, superficially,
‘easier’ and more approachable musical language. The piece is
cast in five movements and the words are chiefly by the poet
Michael Symmonds Roberts, who has provided texts for several
other MacMillan pieces, notably his opera The Sacrifice
(review),
as well as the choral works Quickening (1998) (review)
and The Birds of Rhiannon (2001) (review).
The words – and the work itself – are somewhat ambiguous in
that various ancient symbolic views of dogs are juxtaposed and
contrasted. Thus, at various points in the score we find the
dog portrayed as a killer and as man’s faithful companion while
religious symbolism also comes into the equation. If all this
sounds esoteric or contrived it’s actually far more convincing
and works better than I’ve described it.
Within the five movements MacMillan’s writing is very varied
and highly imaginative. There is richly harmonised homophonic
writing in the first movement while the third is a virtuoso
piece, quickly paced and full of urgency. Stephen Johnson suggests
this movement might be suitable as a test-piece in an advanced
choral competition. All I can say is that the contestant choirs
would have to be extremely proficient to do justice to the music
in the way that the excellent Netherlands Radio Choir achieves.
The longest movement, the fourth, is the most far-reaching,
both musically and philosophically. MacMillan has some of the
singers intoning words by Symmonds Roberts in the foreground.
These words describe dogs offering half-chewed food to their
owner and the text is set to chant-like music. Meanwhile, quietly
in the background other members of the choir sing Christ’s words
at the Institution of the Eucharist. Put the two ideas together
and you have some potent symbolism. One feature of this movement
puzzles me. A couple of times we hear some of the performers
whistling a jaunty little tune that has no obvious connection
to the rest of the music; what does it signify? This track on
the disc lasts for 7:18 and a note in the booklet refers to
a “drawn-out fading away”. In fact, if you play the disc at
a realistic volume level for domestic listening I think you’ll
find that, even if you listen through headphones, all you can
hear after 6:22 is silence. The last movement has a vivid, dramatic
opening for the first of the three stanzas of Michael Symmonds
Roberts’s poem. The remaining two are set to much calmer, thoughtful
music – and once again that jaunty whistling reappears; it clearly
has a significance that currently eludes me.
Along with the Chandos label, BIS has done sterling work to
bring the music of James MacMillan to a wide audience through
an enlightened series of fine recordings. This latest offering
is another important addition to the catalogue. It presents
two highly contrasting works by this outstanding composer, both
of which are fascinating and repay careful listening.
The performances are absolutely superb. Both the playing and
the singing are incisive and assured and I’m sure the composer
will have been delighted with the results. I listened to this
disc in CD format. The recorded sound is in the demonstration
class, in every respect; in particular the percussion in Visitatio
Sepulchri is reported with stunning realism. James MacMillan
is one of the most important contemporary composers and admirers
of his eloquent and stirring music should hasten to add this
excellent CD to their collection.
John Quinn
Downloads available from http://www.eclassical.com
Netherlands Radio Choir; *Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic;
Celso Antunes/*James MacMillan 
