WALTHAM SINGERS SUMMER CONCERT

Great Waltham Church

18.06.11

This is Victoria's year, with choirs everywhere marking the 400^th anniversary of his death.

The Waltham Singers began with his Te Deum – a liturgical dialogue with a lone voice at the back of the church. Then the Missa Gaudeamus, a musical high point of the Spanish Renaissance, sung here with purity and precision. The Singers were on superb form, for this is complex writing; I particularly admired the triumphant optimism of the closing bars of the Credo, the crisply rhythmic approach to the climax of the Agnus Dei, and the richly glowing textures of the Gloria, with Andrew Fardell's sweeping gestures urging the singers to even greater eloquence.

The Mass was interspersed, not with organ solos or Plainchant, but with short works for four voices by other Iberian masters, performed by the gentlemen of the Orlando Consort, no less.

A wonderful tribute, and many groups would happily have left it there. But not the Waltham Singers; after the interval they brought us the amazing fusion sound of the Mantra project, in which the Orlando Consort are joined by tabla, sitar and the voice of Shahid Khan. One of the happiest outcomes was that Indian music seemed much less hermetically mysterious by the end of the evening, thanks to the witty and informative introductions by the performers.

All inspired by 16^th century musical missionaries who incorporated the traditions of Goa into their worship. I loved Encounter, with plainchant embroidered with an improvised alap, Tabla Talum, weaving the drums into melodic structure, and the summation of the sequence, Henna Night, blending polyphony, Arabic and an Indian wedding in a glorious celebration of music making. Though these cultural barriers were easier to break down than the traditional reserve of the British concert audience …

CONTRASTS

The Stondon Singers at the Priory Church Blackmore

17.10.09

Two Requiems were at the heart of the contrasts, presented by the Stondon Singers under Christopher Tinker.

First, the richly textured Requiem Mass for Six Voices of Tomas Luis de Victoria, written four hundred years ago in the Golden Age of Polyphony. The Singers began behind us, at the West End; the voices were blended and balanced perfectly for this evocative acoustic – the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei seemed to grow organically from a single stem. The mass was followed by two extracts from the same composer's Office of the Dead, ending with the substantial Libera Me. A superbly moving sequence – it deserved a much larger audience.

Herbert Howells' Requiem, composed in 1954, and given its amateur première by this very choir, includes only two settings from the traditional mass, amongst Psalms and a final word from Revelation: I heard a voice from heaven saying … blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours. The Singers' performance of this challenging work was notable for some fine solo work, subtle harmonies and the calm resolution of the close.

After these two sombre works, the last contrast was provided by Britten's Choral Dances from Gloriana – a peal of bells for Time, serenity for Concord, and a lively Homage to the Old Queen to finish.

image by Nick Robinson