Desires: A Song of Songs Collection
ORA Singers/Suzi Digby
rec. 2016, All Hallows, Gospel Oak, London
Texts and translations included.
HARMONIA MUNDI HMM905316 [71:20]
I’m a huge fan of Suzi Digby’s work with ORA. Not only are their choral performances of the very finest quality, but I love the way they curate their discs as a dialogue between ancient and modern; between the work of familiar composers and the work of contemporaries.
They follow that pattern here too, though the balance is slightly skewed towards the early. This time their motivating sequence is to explore how composers past and present have responded to the extraordinary texts of the Biblical Song of Songs. A lengthy but extremely worthwhile introductory essay puts the Song of Songs into historical and theological context, and explains why it is “one of the most beautiful, most feared, most misunderstood books” in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It’s a good introduction, but what really matters is the music, and it’s extraordinary.
Predictably, the Renaissance polyphony is an absolute delight. Antoine Brumel’s Sicut lilium moves slowly but with tremendous beauty. Clemens non Papa’s Ego flos campi moves more quickly, but both opening tracks demonstrate the luminescence that the ORA singers manage to find to bring this music to shimmering life. The acoustic of All Hallows’ Church helps, and it’s wonderfully captured by the engineers, but there is a focus and delight to the sound that’s really very special indeed. Ceballos’ setting benefits from something similar, and it’s fascinating to compare his Mediterranean approach with the altogether cleaner, English lines of Robert White’s setting. White’s Tota pulchra es is also interesting to hear alongside the plainchant setting of the same text, a variety of singing that is an unusual departure from ORA, but which suits the men of the choir very well.
There is a beautiful, and entirely appropriate, sensuality to the musical texture of Gombert’s Quam pulchra es, where the men alone layer the lines of the text on top of one another in a most alluring manner, before the full choir summon the awesome architecture of Victoria’s Vadam et circuibo civitatem with extraordinary beauty. Palestrina responds to the sensuality of Duo ubera tua with his customary cleanliness of line.
As usual, though, the newer works make for fascinating companion pieces. Perhaps there aren’t as many of them as there have been on ORA’s previous albums, but what is here is very good. Gabriel Jackson’s I am the Rose of Sharon marries a meandering melody with effectively simple harmonies, and there is fantastically appealing clarity to Francis Grier’s lovely setting of Dilectus mehus mihi. Jonathan Dove’s Vadam et circuibo civitatem, newly commissioned for this disc, is a direct response to Victoria’s setting of the same text, and draws particular reference to Victoria’s anguished opening, which Dove directly quotes and uses to build his own structure of translucent beauty. The other commissionee, John Barber, sets the same text that opens the disc, giving it a pleasing circularity, and he marries the steady harmonic structure of Brumel with a sensuous halo of harmony that I found most attractive.
So the Renaissance works tend to hold sway over the contemporaries here, and there might not be quite as much of an element of “answering back” to this disc compared to ORA’s earlier discs. It’s still a thing of beauty, though. Both Renaissance and contemporary repertoire is extremely well chosen, and even if the performances weren’t so excellent, this disc would still be a through the centuries. Explore with confidence.
Simon Thompson
Previous review: John Quinn
Contents
Antoine BRUMEL (c.1460-1512/13) Sicut lilium inter spinas [2:21]
Jacob CLEMENS non Papa (c.1510/15-c.1555/56) Ego flos campi [4:36]
Gabriel JACKSON (b.1962) I am the Rose of Sharon (2001) [6:00]
Rodrigo de CEBALLOS (c.1525/30-c.1581) Hortus conclusus [5:10]
Plainchant: Tota pulchra es [2:03]
Robert WHITE (c.1538-1574) Tota pulchra es [6:49]
Francis GRIER (b.1955) Dilectus meus mihi (1987) [7:22]
Nicolas GOMBERT (c.1495-c.1560) Quam pulchra es [5:18]
Tomás Luis de VICTORIA (1548-1611) Vadam et circuibo civitatem [8:18]
Jonathan DOVE (b.1959) Vadam et circuibo civitatem (2017) [8:53]
Sebastián de VIVANCO (c.1551-1622) Veni, dilecte mi [4:41]
Giovanni Pierluigi da PALESTRINA (1525/26-1594) Duo ubera tua [3:42]
Juan ESQUIVEL (c.1560-c.1624) Surge propera amica mea [3:13]
John BARBER (b.1980) Sicut lilium (2017) [2:48]
