A Boy was Born
Saturday 3 December 2011 St Saviour’s Church, St Albans
The first Chamber Choir concert of the season was an Advent programme including Britten’s remarkable A boy was born. This was completed when he was only nineteen, but shows all the technical mastery and striking originality that characterises this composer. Scored for adult choir in four to eight parts together with a unison children’s choir, the piece, a celebration of the coming of the Christ-child, mainly sets words from old English poems and carols, but also includes a wonderfully atmospheric setting of Christina Rossetti’s In the Bleak Mid-Winter. St Albans Chamber Choir was delighted to welcome the St Albans Abbey Girls Choir for this performance.
The Abbey Girls Choir, formed in 1996, is regarded as one of the finest ensembles of its type in the UK. In addition to the Britten, they also performed settings of Christmas texts by Warlock, Howells andVaughan Williams, conducted and accompanied from the piano by their director Tom Winpenny.
The Chamber Choir also sang John Tavener’s Hymn to the Mother of God, and contrasting settings of Hodie Christus natus est byPalestrina and Poulenc, and O Magnum Mysterium by Gabrieli andPoulenc. The concert included the premiere of choir member NicholasHare’s carol Welcome Redemption’s Dawn, and closed with the spirited and witty arrangement of The Twelve Days of Christmas by Andrew Carter.
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Water, water everywhere
Saturday 2 July 2011 St Saviour’s Church, St Albans
Water, water, everywhere was an exploration in music of spectacular weather events, perilous sea voyages and dangerous sea-life, featuring works by some of the most exciting contemporary composers of choral music, and exploring those two great British obsessions – the seaside and the weather!
Richard Rodney Bennett, one of Britain’s most versatile composer/performers, celebrated his 75th birthday in 2011. Equally at home writing for film, the concert hall or as a jazz pianist, his atmospheric choral work Sea Change brilliantly explores new sound worlds with extraordinary and evocative effects. The work takes its title from Ariel’s song Full Fathom Five from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the setting of this by Vaughan Williams was also performed.
Bob Chilcott, described by the Observer newspaper as ‘a contemporary hero of British Choral Music’, was commissioned by the BBC Singers to write a jazz-inflected work for a tour of Japan. The result was the inventive Weather Report, in which Chilcott weaves together a tapestry of well-known weather rhymes to create an energetic, quirky, and highly entertaining piece.
The young American composer Eric Whitacre is one of the most popular of our generation. His extraordinary piece Cloudburst (1992) is written for 8-part choir, piano and percussion and recreates a rainstorm in music, with the singers clapping, snapping their fingers and slapping their thighs, all building up to the climactic moment when the handbell ringers of St Columba’s School joined in the splash!
The programme also included some light-hearted songs of the seaside and a succession of watery piano works including Ravel’s delightful Jeux d’eau played by multi-talented Royal Academy pianist Seb Grant.
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The sea, the sea
Saturday 30 April 2011 St Albans Cathedral AL1 1BY
Rawsthorne The Cruel Sea
Brahms Schicksalslied
Vaughan Williams
A Sea Symphony
Anna Gorbachyova (soprano) Toby Stafford-Allen (baritone)
Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony is an astonishing First Symphony that brilliantly fuses the British choral tradition with sumptuous orchestral textures which reveal the influence of Ravel. Composed at the same time as the Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, the work mixes moments of noble grandeur with spell-binding textures reflecting the mystical side of Vaughan Williams’s personality. Lovers of Brahms’s A German Requiem relished hearing his Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny) - a work too rarely heard in live performance. The concert opened with the stirring music composed for the classic film The Cruel Sea by Alan Rawsthorne.
With the Wormser Kantorei and St Albans Symphony Orchestra
Conductors John Gibbons and Stefan Merkelbach
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Intimations of mortality
Saturday 12 March 2011, All Saints Pastoral Centre, London Colney
William Byrd Infelix Ego
Orlando Gibbons What is our life?
Christopher Tye Peccavimus cum Patribus nostris
Robert Ramsey How are the mighty fallen
Robert Carver O bone Jesu
One for the chop? This was the working title behind the early music programme St Albans Chamber Choir presented on 12 March at All Saints Pastoral Centre, London Colney. In all the pieces chosen, either the words or the music were composed in the face of imminent death or in the hope of eternal life, but far from making for a miserable evening, the resultant music was sublime, for these works were written in the 16th and 17th centuries in a time of great religious faith. This was a rare opportunity to hear some spectacular pieces, large in scale both in the number of voices and in length compared to most works of this period.
The highly original and monumental O bone Jesu by Scottish composer Robert Carver (1485-1570) is written for 19 voices, and extended motets by Christopher Tye (1505-1572) and William Byrd (1539-1623) allow the genius of these composers full rein. There were also shorter works by Gibbons and Ramsey, and the Chamber Choir was joined by the Romaldi Trio, who performed music for mandolin, mandola and guitar. The title proved sadly prophetic, as the Pastoral Centre at London Colney, the Chapel of which provided a sumptuous acoustic for this programme, is now due to close at the end of 2011, so this may have been one of the last opportunities to enjoy such ethereally beautiful music in this special venue.
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Post- Christmas Blues
Saturday 15 January 2011, St Saviour’s Church, St Albans
With the Will Todd Trio and Bethany Halliday, soprano
Will Todd Mass in Blue
Karl Jenkins Brithday Madrigals
John Rutter A Parliament of Owls
“…Todd’s own Mass in Blue, an upbeat piece that was really uplifting. The choir … sang with gusto, clearly enjoying the work’s soaring lines and rich bluesy harmonies, and Halliday sounded free as a bird. Todd and his players were excellent throughout.” (Sheffield Telegraph)
This was the perfect antidote to dreary January days and the post-Christmas slump – a foot-stomping concert of jazz-inspired music!
St Albans Chamber Choir performed young British composer Will Todd’s Mass in Blue, joined by Will Todd himself and his Trio, and the thrilling young soprano Bethany Halliday, who has been enthusiastically commended for her vocal versatility after her many performances of this inspiring piece.This upbeat setting of the Latin mass is a brilliant blend of driving jazz grooves and clear, strong, choral writing, against which the piano and solo soprano voice weave and blend in a delightful aural tapestry. The work reflects not only the composer’s love of jazz music and his admiration of jazz performers, but also his own experience as an improviser, and since its premiere in 2003 it has been performed to great acclaim all over the world.
The programme also featured John Rutter’s jazz-influenced Birthday Madrigals, which were composed as a musical tribute for the 75th birthday of jazz legend George Shearing, and Karl Jenkins’s Parliament of Owls. Scored for piano duet, saxophone and percussion, this joyous celebration of animal collective nouns is full of rhythmic wit and catchy melodies.
A truly toe-tapping evening to cheer up the chilliest of January evenings – listen to these excerpts to see why!
http://www.willtodd.com/audio/MassinBlue-KyrieCliphi.mp3
http://www.willtodd.com/audio/MassinBlue-CredoCliphi.mp3
http://www.willtodd.com/audio/MassinBlue-SanctusCliphi.mp3
http://www.willtodd.com/audio/MassinBlue-BenedictusCliphi.mp3
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Remembrance
Saturday 20 November 2010, St Peter’s Church, St Albans
Herbert Howells Requiem John Ireland Greater love Herbert Howells Take him, Earth, for cherishing J S Bach Jesu meine Freude
Love, loss and faith have always inspired great music, and nowhere is this more evident than in the works of Herbert Howells (1892–1983), mainly remembered today as an outstanding composer of music for the Anglican church. The great loss of Howells’ life was the sudden death of his nine-year old son Michael in 1935; out of this tragedy came Howells’ masterpiece Hymnus Paradisi, one of the greatest pieces of English choral music ever written. This incorporated substantial parts of an earlier work, the Requiem: although this was begun before his son’s death, Howells clearly considered both works to be such personal outpourings that he did not release either for publication until much later, the Hymnus in 1950 and the Requiem not until 1980, only three years before his own death.
Howells’ unaccompanied motet Take him, Earth, for Cherishing was composed in the spring of 1964. Dedicated ’To the honoured memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States of America’, the work was premiered later that year in Washington, D.C. The moving text, a translation of a 4th century Latin poem, is brilliantly set to express not only the deepest feelings of profound loss, with which Howells was personally so familiar,but also the great Christian message of the hope of resurrection. Two centuries earlier, J S Bach composed his affirmation of faith, Jesu, meine Freude for the funeral of a prominent member of the congregation at the Leipzig church where Bach was Cantor. Although not written in response to a personal loss, this, the longest and most musically complex of his six motets, is nonetheless one of his most heartfelt works.
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Peace
Saturday 26 June 2010 – All Saints Pastoral Centre
For the St Albans Chamber Choir’s summer concert, Musical Director John Gibbons once again draws together an inspiring programme of varied music from the Renaissance to the present day, much of it rarely performed. Randall Thompson was one of the great American composers of the twentieth century. The Peaceable Kingdom was inspired by the painting of the same name by the nineteenth-century American artist Edward Hicks. Pro Pace, a cycle of three unaccompanied Latin Motets, by John Joubert is a beautiful work of great emotional power. These pieces were performed between the movements of Josquin des Prez’s Missa Da Pacem.
The Missa da Pacem, although often attributed to Josquin des Prez (c. 1440–1521), has been the centre of much scholarly debate as to whether it really is the work of the great Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer. However, this wonderful work, based on the chant melody “Da pacem” (“give peace”), certainly ranks among the polyphonic masterpieces of the early 16th century.
John Joubert (born 1927) is one of the most respected and distinguished of senior British composers. His three Pro Pace Motets, though written at different times, form a triptych on the subject of peace. The first, composed in 1955, is a setting of a 9th century Latin prayer for deliverance from the Black Death which for Joubert stood for the threat of atomic annihilation. The second is a 10th century Latin lament for the day on which man first invented weapons for use against his own kind, and a protest against such use, and the final one seeks to equate Christ’s victory over death in the Passion story with the eventual victory of non-violence.
The works of the American composer Randall Thompson (1899–1984) are rarely heard outside the States so this is a welcome opportunity to hear one of his greatest works, The Peaceable Kingdom. Written in 1936, its inspiration was the painting of the same name by the 19th century American primitive artist Edward Hicks, with texts drawn from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah. The work was written at a time when American composers were trying to build a distinctly American style and is considered a masterpiece of American choral music.
An atmospheric setting of the Lord’s Prayer Pater Noster by the young contemporary Latvian composer Rihards Dubra, and Drop, drop slow tears, a piece by the young British composer Brian Moles, until recently a Lay Clerk at St Albans Cathedral, together with works for solo violin, completes the programme.
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Magna Carta Celebration
Mahler Symphony No 2 ‘Resurrection’
Saturday 12 June 2010, St Albans Abbey
A celebration of the anniversary of Magna Carta, for which the Chamber Choir joined forces with St Albans Symphony Orchestra and Watford Philharmonic Society to present Mahler’s Second Symphony. This was preceded by a performance of Howard Hanson’s Song of Human Rights and Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.
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Rossini – Petite Messe Solennelle
Saturday 24 April, St Peter’s Church, St Albans
St Albans Chamber Choir welcomed the Spring with Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, a piece that never fails to lift the spirits of all who hear it. Written in 1863 when Rossini was 71, the Petite Messe is neither small, solemn nor particularly liturgical in spirit, coming as it does from the pen of a composer whose considerable reputation was built upon his many grand comic operas. In his own comment on the work, Rossini acknowledged that it was one of his ‘sins of old age’, and said ‘Delight must be the basis and aim of this art’.
The Petite Messe, with its beautiful melodies, rhythmic vitality and joyous choruses, is a delight throughout. Written initially for private salon performance, the work is scored for small chorus, a solo quartet and the unusual accompaniment of piano and harmonium. Four young award-winning soloists joined the Chamber Choir for this performance:
Anna Gorbachyova – soprano
Amanda O’Brien – contralto
Philip O’Brien – tenor
James Oldfield – bass-baritone
Whilst Rossini was composing what was to be his last major work, the young Fauré was still a student. The much-loved Cantique de Jean Racine of 1865, a setting of words by the famous 17th century dramatist and poet, was his first significant composition and, with its lush harmonies, it has become one of his most popular works.
The Chamber Choir also performed two very beautiful and uplifting unaccompanied part-songs, Delius’s To be sung of a summer night on the water, and Finzi’s My Spirit Sang all Day, and the programme wascompleted with pieces by two award-winning contemporary American composers whose works have featured in the Chamber Choir’s recent concerts, Nocturnes by Morten Lauridsen and Sleep by Eric Whitacre.
Gloria – music for choir and brass
Saturday 27 February 2010, St Albans Abbey
With Onyx Brass
Singing with brass instruments has a long and distinguished history, with the Venetian composers of the sixteenth century placing choirs of singers and brass players in all four corners of St Mark’s Basilica to dramatic effect. The principal works in this programme were The World is charged with the Glory of God (1969) by Sir Arthur Bliss, a former Master of the Queen’s Musick, a setting of John Skelton’s meditation on the Passion, Woefully arrayed, by our conductor John Gibbons, and one of John Rutter’s most popular pieces, his Gloria. There were also two superb polychoral pieces by the great Renaissance composer Gabrieli, and works by Bach, Schutz and Bruckner.