Guest Musicians
The Tender Flower
Lanercost Priory, 24 July
No review available.
We subsequently performed this programme in Stokesley, Whitby, and Brompton-by-Sawdon (where William and Mary Wordsworth were married).
The Peaceable Kingdom
In the beautiful setting of St Mary’s Parish Church, Wigton, The Wordsworth Singers gave a most distinguished concert of American choral music.
The Singers were evidently at ease with new conductor, Mark Hindley, who also showed his gifts as an organist in two solo items, and as a scholar in the informative programme notes.
The concert took its title from the evening’s most substantial item, Randall Thompson’s The Peaceable Kingdom, based on paintings by the Pennsylvania quaker, Edward Hicks (1780-1849). These in turn took their inspiration from Isaiah’s vision of a perfect world where “the wolf shall lie down with the lamb”.
Those familiar with singing the Psalms will know how much scope there is for word-painting. And the articulation of the text is crucial in the present piece, backed up by a feel for the vivid colours of the narrative. The sought-after place is, in fact, a long time coming, preceded by a string of lamentations perhaps more suggestive of Jeremiah than Isaiah.
Randall Thompson’s musical idiom is harmonically plain with echoes of the Shakers, the fuging tunes and even the Pilgrim Fathers. So the onus is very much on the choir to make the most of a variety of textures and rhythms. And how well they did this! Vivid contrast informed the opening number, while the second Woe unto them demanded a chant-like articulation where the basses set a very good example.
Howl ye made me think of Belshazzar’s Feast. I don’t know quite what is required by this imperative, but the singers were convincing in evoking a Middle-Eastern street scene – nothing English-leafy-suburban about their tone whatsoever!
In contrast, The reeds by the brook was delivered with a sad, cantabile lyricism, the tenors drawing things to a memorable close.
The righteous eventually get their reward in a simple but demanding chordal passage – Ye shall go out with joy. The sonority became quite radiant as all the trees of the field clap their hands – the last-named action conjuring up some delightful musical onomatopoeia. The final gladness of heart was deeply moving.
The concert began with Alleluia, the same composer’s best-known work. This is an ambivalent piece, as I learnt from the programme note, commissioned as a fanfare for the much-loved Tanglewood Festival, but affected by the composer’s despair at the onset of World War II. It was convincingly done.
The second half of the concert – after an Interval that gave opportunity to admire the stained-glass windows given by Melvyn Bragg – began with Samuel Barber’s celebrated Adagio in its Agnus Dei vocal arrangement.
Starting this piece, with its softly purring seventh chord must be very taxing – rather like the dreaded woodwind chords in the Midsummer Night’s Dream overture. But the choir got going well at a practical tempo that kept up a flowing four-in-a-bar. The help of one or two East European voices would no doubt have been welcome on the bottom line, but the basses sang quite beautifully in the cello-like passage where they have the tune. The other parts were equally responsive to the beauties of this piece – the effect of which on the American psyche is, I think, comparable to that of Nimrod in Britain.
Barber’s lyrical genius also flowered in the exquisite song To be sung on the water. It was beautifully done as were two pieces by composers of later generations – Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium and Eric Whitacre’s Sleep. So enchanting were the sopranos in this last item, as in fact was the whole choir, that a wish was expressed for a recording to be played last thing at night!
To give the Singers a well-earned break, Mark Hindley built up the organ’s resources to good effect in Aaron Copland’s Episode, off-setting this serious piece with a nimble performance of Pietro Yon’s light-hearted Toccatina. There was a great sense of enjoyment from the audience, as indeed there had been throughout the whole evening.
Andrew Seivewright
A Peal of Marmalade
On Saturday St Andrew’s Church buzzed with an eager audience of parents and friends for a musical recipe for marmalade.
Children from Stainton C of E Primary School, the Wordsworth Singers and musicians of the ‘Marmalade Philharmonic’, all under the inspiring guidance of James Grossmith, a former director of the Wordsworth Singers, joined in an imaginative and colourful programme celebrating the Marmalade Festival at Dalemain.
Two songs by the Wordsworth Singers warmly conjured the atmosphere of a scented orange grove full of promise of the marmalade to come. Then recipes for the marmalade, words by Gervais Markham and Elizabeth Rainbow, were set to music by Liz Sharma.
Oranges and Lemons were added in a new, chunky arrangement by Daryl Runswick, especially written for the Wordsworth Singers and this concert. The boiling and bubbling were reflected in Fruit Machine by Bryan Kelly, where the fruit is spinning fast and thick, stirred by a magic arm.
The Marmalade Suite, composed by Liz Sharma, was interspersed with readings by Michael Pilling about the history of the preserve and evocative interludes from the nicely balanced orchestra.
The children from Stainton School, admirably well-trained by Mrs Helen Dunham, praised the zesty taste, which they preferred to caviar at the Ritz.
Finally, The Wordsworth Singers reminded us of A Magical Place where all the ingredients were gathered in golden jars, and brought the concert to a satisfying close.
Sheila Fletcher
Voci di Venezia
For his first concert as conductor of the Wordsworth Singers Mark Hindley didn’t choose an easy path but one which challenged the choir and in the main was very successful. His programme entitled “Voci di Venezia” was given in St John’s Church, Keswick last Saturday and consisted of music from the sixteenth and seventeenth century associated with St Mark’s, Venice either through influence or directly. Such composers as Monteverdi, Giovanni Gabrieli and Schütz may be familiar to many of us but there were also works by less well known composers such as Willaert, Andrea Gabrieli, Croce and Hassler. The challenge of performing these works comes in their construction and the forces they employ. Only one of the works was written for the normal four part choir, with which we are so familiar, but the thirty two singers were frequently split into two and sometimes three choirs. To add to the difficulty of performing these works the choirs were sometimes placed around the Church to the front, sides and behind the audience with the conductor having to control these polychoral effects whilst standing in the middle at some distance from the performers. In addition to the choirs there was also a very fine brass quartet consisting of two trumpets and two trombones who joined with the singers as a separate group. To hear this type of music live, performed in such an authentic way is a very rare and overwhelming experience and one that any electronic media cannot accurately replicate.
One must congratulate the performers on the ease with which they repositioned themselves in the church between each piece which helped the concert flow. Only a choir of the calibre of the Wordsworth Singers can really do these pieces justice as they make considerable demands on the performers in both the complexity of the writing and the vocal range. Not all the vocal entries in the contrapuntal sections were assured and there was some lack of focus in some of the more complex rhythms and change of metre,nevertheless the overriding experience was of an excellent choir with a true musical understanding. There were some real highlights and the performance of Schütz’s motet Der engel sprach zu den Hirten and works in the second half by Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and Hassler will not easily be forgotten.
Mention should also be made of the brass who played with great musicality in two solo works and enhanced enormously many of the choral works. This was an excellent start to Mark Hindley’s reign as conductor and if this programme is anything to go by Cumbria is in for some very interesting vocal concerts which should not be missed.
JCG