King's/Parry - Lenten Choral Music, 21 March 2018

Cadogan Hall

Palestrina: Stabat Mater

Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah (Part 1)

Poulenc: Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence

Lassus: Stabat Mater

Byrd: Ne irascaris, Domine; Civitas sancti tui

Brahms: Warum ist das Licht gegeben, op.74 no.2; Schaffe in mir, Gott, op.29 no.2

Choir of King’s College, Cambridge

Ben Parry (conductor)

Time was I could hear the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge almost any evening I chose, at least during term time. (If I remember correctly, Mondays were reserved for the mixed voice King’s Voices.) Not that I did, of course: I tended to go to my own chapel services more than others’; I also tended to prefer the services down the road at St John’s, less packed with tourists and thus seemingly less of a ‘concert’. I also preferred, in many ways, the more ‘Continental’ sound of St John’s to the typically ‘English’, whiter sound of King’s. Nevertheless, it was always quite an experience, first to set foot in that masterpiece of late Perpendicular Gothic – pay no heed to its cultured despisers, the same sort who will tell you that St Paul’s is a monstrous hybrid – gowned (and thus in slightly better seating than the non-Cambridge congregants), and to hear that celebrated choir, which, through radio and other recordings, I had known for so long before my time in the city that was essentially my home for fifteen years.

Ben Parry, an old boy from the choir and Assistant Director of Music at King’s, substituted for Stephen Cleobury, who was recovering from a bicycle accident. Parry certainly knew the choir and how to play to its strengths; it is difficult to imagine anyone having been disappointed, even in the almost diametrically opposed (to its echoing Chapel home) acoustic of Cadogan Hall. If some tempo choices, perhaps especially in the closing Brahms motets, seemed chosen more to help the boys than on ‘purely’ musical grounds, there is no great harm in that. The business of a collegiate (or other) choral foundation, after all, is far more than providing concert material; indeed, that is not really its business at all. Perhaps those works by Brahms, Warum ist das Licht gegeben? and Schaffe in mir, Gott, the latter a setting of part of Luther’s translation of the Miserere (Psalm 51), will have flowed more readily, especially in the relationship between different sections, and indeed have benefited from surer intonation, but there was much to enjoy, especially in their respective closing sections.

Two settings of the Stabat Mater, by Palestrina and Lassus, opened the concert’s two halves. Both were nicely shaded, without jarring (to my ears, without any) anachronism. The performance of the former imparted, when called upon, a real sense of ‘dec and can’ (decani and cantoris) antiphony in a different setting. It perhaps sounded closer to Monteverdi than often one hears, less ‘white’ than I had expected. Whatever the Council of Trent’s suspicion of the poem, I was struck by the essential simplicity, however artful, of the music and by the guiding role of words. Lassus’s setting came across as darker, a little more Northern perhaps. (He was, after all, Kapellmeister in Munich.) Within the context of an undoubtedly ‘Anglican’ performance, full of tone yet not too full, the sound seemed – or maybe it was just my ears adjusting – to become a little more Italianate as time progressed.


Poulenc’s Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence offer a challenge, not least intonational, to any choir, and are more often heard with older (female) voices. In these forthright performances, there was – rightly, I think – no great attempt made to ape other performing traditions, but there was nevertheless sometimes a harshness, even perhaps, in the closing ‘Tristis est anima mea’, an anger, we do not necessarily associate with the choir. The shading of ‘Vinea mea electa’ was intelligent, fuller than Anglican reputation would have you believe. If intonation proved far from perfect, especially in the opening ‘Timor et tremor’, nor should one exaggerate; one always knew where the music and indeed the text were heading.

The music of Tallis and Byrd is home territory for King’s – albeit here without the trebles. Naturally, in their absence, countertenors came more strongly to the fore. Parry wisely made no attempt to do too much in terms of word-painting in the Tallis; the words speak for themselves, and did so here especially on the Lenten cries for ‘Ierusalem, Ierusalem’ to return to her God. The two Byrd motets offered, for me, the highlight of the concert. Without a hint of blandness or routine, there was simply – or not so simply – that ineffable sense of ‘rightness’, of ease with the music, the composer’s recusancy notwithstanding. Music and words spoke freely, in greatly satisfying performances. As we heard in both, ‘Sion deserta facta est, Jerusalem desolata est.’ And yet, there was comfort to be had, if not in the wilderness and desolation of Jerusalems heavenly and earthly, then in their artistic representation – which is doubtless as it should be.

R.I.P. Sir David Willcocks (1919-2015)

King's Choir/Cleobury - Vespers and Mass for King Henry VI, 4 February 2015

Hall One, Kings Place

Robert Parsons – Ave Maria

Plainsong Vespers

Dunstable – Ave maris stella

Magnificat secondi toni

Robert Hacomplaynt – Salve Regina

Tallis – Videte miraculum

Thomas Damett – Beata Dei genetrix

Plainsong Kyrie

Byttering – Nesciens mater

Roy Henry – Sanctus

Plainsong – Agnus Dei

Leonel Power – Ave Regina caelorum

Robert Fayrfax – Magnificat ‘Regale’

Choir of King’s College, Cambridge

Stephen Cleobury (conductor) 

 

One of the best stories – true, I think – about the late, greatly lamented impresario, Gérard Mortier, concerned his handling of a philistine donor to the Salzburg Festival. Unimpressed at Mortier’s opening up of the operatic repertoire, especially to the great musical dramas of the twentieth century, the person in question gave a large sum, on condition that it fund a production of an Italian opera. Mortier took the money and staged Busoni’s Doktor Faust. I similarly admire Stephen Cleobury’s chutzpah in his introduction to an otherwise bizarre programme note (whose perpetrator I shall charitably shroud in anonymity). ‘When I was asked to devise a programme on the “minimalist” theme,’ Cleobury writes, ‘the idea of a plainsong based sequence immediately suggested itself, since a single unadorned melodic line so obviously fits this theme.’ That, it would seem, is how music from the Eton Choir Book and the Old Hall Manuscript, together with other early English music, came to be performed in a concert series entitled ‘Minimalism Unwrapped’. Just as well, since a programme of ‘holy minimalism’, or whatever it calls itself nowadays, would have had me give Kings Place a very wide berth indeed. What we heard, in genuine celebration of the quincentenary of the completion of the fabric of King’s College Chapel, was an admirable performance of a complete Vespers and a composite Mass, sandwiched between later Marian motets and two Magnificat settings from the Eton Choirbook. If such music be the food of minimalism, play on; and what, one might ask, would not qualify?

 

The concert opened with the Ave Maria by Robert Parsons, a staple of Choral Evensong. Perhaps the choir took a little while to adjust to an acoustic about as far removed from that of King’s Chapel as I can imagine; or perhaps it was my ears. At any rate, the revelation of its voices, tenors first, eventually trebles, offered a decent curtain-raiser to the main body of the first half. The boys then left the stage until after the Marian Vespers sequence. An edition of Sarum chant made by Jesse Billett (a sometime choral scholar) was employed: particularly fitting, given that rite’s use in royal foundations. The first antiphon and psalm (113) did not always offer lines as precisely honed as this bright acoustic might have preferred, but ultimately, that was of little import: throughout, there was a fine sense of chant that was an everyday friend. This was, of course, a concert rather than a service, but more than a remnant of the latter lingered – in a very positive sense.

Within the chant lay two works by John Dunstable (or Dunstaple, as we are now supposed to call him): an Ave maris stella and Magnificat. What particularly impressed me about both was the way in which performance of the music clearly proceeded from plainsong. These were not performances intended to draw attention to themselves, but modest in the best sense of the word, typical of Cleobury’s best work. The Magnificat is the somewhat more ornate work, though such things are relative rather than absolute. Its contrast between solo voices (countertenor and tenor, the latter in particular growing in confidence as the performance progressed) and full choir offered variation for our ears in a recognisably modern sense, irrespective of intention and original context.

 

The boys returned for the Magnificat by Robert Hacomplaynt, Provost of King’s (1509-28), formerly of Eton, that other great foundation of Henry VI. Again, there was an increase in floridity, but again, there was a fine impression of the music arising from the plainsong we had heard, not least in a flexibility which, far from being inimical to metrical sense, actually contributed thereto. Marian sweetness and clemency were to be heard without a hint of sentimentalisation. Perhaps I am being fanciful, but I even gleaned an impression of intercession.

Tallis opened the second half, with his Videte miraculum, Marian according to more than one usage. Here we heard not a reversion but a forward-looking alternative to the Reformation, indeed a work of the Counter Reformation. How different things might have been? Or maybe not. Again, the motet was sung with all the advantages that daily – well, frequent – performances of such repertoire brings; again, the flow of a performance sounding horizontally conceived, impressed in its ‘natural’ manner. Trebles again left the stage, this time for the Mass sequence, ‘de Beata Maria Virgine’, incorporating music from the Old Hall Manuscript. From a casual glance of the programme, ‘Roy Henry’ might have seemed like a twenty-first-century interpolation: the Henry in question was, of course, ‘roy’ as in king, most likely Henry V. Leonel Power, a member of Henry’s Chapel, offered an Ave Regina caelorum, with other motets hailing, as it were, from Thomas Danett and (Thomas?) Byttering. All received honest, unexaggerated performances, which permitted that celebrated illusion of the music, or perhaps we should say the music and words, speaking for itself or themselves.

 

The closing performance was of Robert Fayrfax’s Magnificat, ‘Regale’. Mary sang her song joyfully and without affectation. Fayrfax’s long lines were relished, again in the best sense of an unassuming performance. The work – and I see no reason why we should not speak of this as a ‘musical work’ – sounded effortlessly, or seemingly effortlessly, as a whole. And if there was nothing on the level of a King’s Chapel echo to be heard, this wonderful polyphony continued to sound in my aural memory long after the concert had finished.

Giovanni Gabrieli (?1554-7 - 1612)

The four-hundredth anniversary of Gabrieli's death will fall on 12 August of this year. Let us hope - in vain, I fear - that a year neither blessed nor cursed by a host of auspicious anniversaries will bring a good number of performances. The motet In ecclesiis has a good claim to be Gabrieli's most celebrated composition; at any rate, it offers a fine introduction to or reminder of his polychoral writing: this is the Stockhausen Gruppen of its day. It is thought that the piece's origins - though sacred, the text is not liturgical - may lie in a ceremony, held annually on the third Sunday in July, in which the Doge and other Venetian dignitaries would attend Mass in the votive Church of the Redentore: building, ceremony, and music giving thanks for deliverance from the plague. Nevertheless, one can hardly help but think also of the galleries of St Mark's Basilica; nor can one help but sense that Monteverdi and Schütz lie just around the corner. Here are the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, and Sir David Willcocks:

 

In ecclesiis benedicite Domino. Alleluia.

In omni loco Dominationis benedic anima mea, Dominum. Alleluia.
In Deo salutari meo et Gloria mea.
Dominus auxilium meum et spes mea in Deo est. Alleluia.
Deus noster, te invocamus, te adoramus,
Libera nos, vivifica nos, Alleluia.
Deus, adiutor noster in aeternum. Alleluia.

Mozart Unwrapped (4) - King's College Choir/Cleobury, 11 March 2011

Hall One, Kings Place

Missa brevis in B-flat major, KV 275/272b
Divertimento in F major, KV 247, ‘First Lodron Night-Music’
Gradual (Introit): Sancta Maria, mater Dei, KV 273
Missa brevis in F major, KV 192/186f, interspersed with:
Church Sonata in F major, KV 224
Offertorium de B.V. Maria: Alma Dei creatoris, KV 277
Communion: Gregorian chant

Krysia Osostowicz, Giles Francis (violins)
Judith Busbridge (viola)
Bernard Gregor-Smith (violoncello)
Steven Stirling, Sue Dent (French horns)
Peter Buckoke (double bass)
Ben-San Lau, Parker Ramsay (Organ Scholars)
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Stephen Cleobury (conductor)


Mozart continues to be ‘unwrapped’ at Kings Place. I confess that I no more understand the designation than I did before – or than I did for Beethoven and Chopin – but more importantly, this exploration of sacred and other music for Salzburg offered a delightful evening. The Choir of King’s College under Stephen Cleobury made a welcome debut at the festival, joined by the Dante Quartet and other instrumentalists.

At the heart of the programme stood two missae breves. KV 275/272b, in B-flat major, opened the concert. The unassuming nature of the performance put me in mind of the delightful St John’s recordings of Haydn and Mozart under George Guest. (Cleobury was one of the Guest era’s numerous organ scholars.) That said, the sounds of King’s and John’s remain distinct: the former ‘whiter’, more ‘English’, the latter more ‘Continental’ in timbre. King’s, however, had been joined by a notably fruity tenor, especially prominent when intoning ‘Credo in unum Deum’. After the Credo, a little echo reminded me of its big brother in King’s Chapel itself, but the new location of Hall One, Kings Place, could otherwise hardly stand more distinct from the choir’s home. There were, then, no musical – or rather anti-musical – shock tactics; instead, straightforward musical virtues, such as clarity of line and diction, cleanness of counterpoint, and a decent affection for Mozart’s setting, were to the fore. The Sanctus sounded nicely but never pedantically ‘constructed’; structure is always central, indeed crucial, to Mozart performance. Boys’ voices had a particular opportunity to shine, well taken, in the Benedictus. And the lovingly extended ‘Dona nobis pacem’ music sounded every bit as catchy as it should be.

The rest of the first half was devoted to the First Lodron Night-Music. Three members of the Dante quartet and double bass were now joined by the remaining quartet member (viola) and two horns. This equally delightful divertimento received a performance that was sharp yet warm, and eminently cultivated, its first movement inflections effortlessly ‘natural’: characteristics that ought to go without saying in Mozart performance, yet are frequently notable only by their absence. Inner movements proved elegantly turned indeed, yet each possessed its own particular character, whether the ravishing horn beauties of the third or the joy of the inner parts’ interplay during the fourth. The latter’s minor-mode material provided dignified pathos, without exaggeration, whilst the pizzicato lines of the fifth movement were simply delightful. Mozart’s finale proved as cheekily catchy as the ‘Dona’ music from the mass, all the more so on account of the players’ resisting any temptation heedlessly to rush.



For the second half, the Missa brevis in F major, KV 192/186f, was presented semi-liturgically. That is, to say, there was no celebration of the Mass, but accompanying music was provided, from the introductory Gradual to Gregorian Chant – ‘Beata viscera Mariae Virginis, quae porta verunt aetemi Patris Filium. Alleluia' – which led straight into the Agnus Dei. South German Rococo joy was present, yet never overdone, in the opening Sancta Maria, KV 273: in Mozart, less so often proves more. Once again, musical structure was admirably clear. The Kyrie imparted an apt sense of earlier-century Neapolitan sacred music, its delights heightened once again by admirably cultivated string playing. Viennese style of Caldara and still more Fux came effortlessly to the foreground in the Gloria. It was a joy to hear the chamber organ (Ben-San Lau) for one of those glorious Epistle Sonatas that we seemingly never have opportunity to hear. (If only they could be programmed every time in place, say, of a Vivaldi concerto!) The Credo’s foreshadowing of the triumph of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony’s finale – its quintessentially Fuxian contrapuntal tag, C-D-F-E, here of course in F major, so F,G, B flat, A – was all the more welcome for being simply presented rather than hammered home. Alma Dei creatoris, the offertory hymn, was distinguished by a radiantly imploring treble line: how could the Mother of God decline to intercede? The censer – albeit English rather than full-bloodedly Austrian Baroque – was almost rendered visible in the jubilant ‘Osanna’.



I look forward to the second instalment on 12 October, when the Second Lodron Night-Music will join two further missae breves, in G major, KV 140 and D major, KV 194/186h, the latter interspersed with further Gregorian chant, the D major Church Sonata, KV 245, the Offertorium, Venite populi, KV 260 and that ineffably sublime late motet, Ave verum corpus, KV 618. For further details concerning ‘Mozart Unwrapped’, click here.