WREVEALED

Writtle Singers Summer Concert

03.07.10

As exemplified by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, the best kind of choral concert these days is a journey with a destination, not just pretty aural scenery. A knowledgeable guide helps, too, making sure we don't miss anything along the way.

Christine Gwynn's Writtle Singers unfailingly provide a fascinating trip, and this summer's “exploration” was one of their finest.

The idea was to look at some of the structures, colours and textures of choral music; so as not to make the route too predictable, the programme listed the composers alphabetically. Along the way we heard polyphony in mirror image from Byrd, a cheeky alehouse round, a Latin American song with just two chords and a canary to its name, an enigmatic Ave Maria from Verdi, an intricate double canon from Purcell and two wordless numbers – Bach's Familiar Air, and Christine's own ingenious eight-part arrangement of the overture to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro to end the journey. The “words”, precisely articulated, artfully suggested the colours of the original instrumentation.

The adventure began, appropriately enough, with Sumer is Icumen In, in which we could all join.