'Morning Star' - The Gesualdo Six, 20 December 2024

Wigmore Hall

Palestrina (arr. Willcocks): Matin Responsory
Lassus: Conditor alme siderum
Praetorius: Nun, komm der Heiden Heiland a 6
Sally Beamish: In the stillness
Jacobus Händl: Mirabile mysterium
Cheryl Frances-Hoad: The Promised Light of Life
Plainchant: Rorate coeli
Byrd: Rorate coeli
Poulenc: O magnum mysterium
Anon (arr. Praetorius): Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
Anon: Angelus ed virginem
Plainchant: Ecce advenit
Cornelius: Weihnachtslieder, op.8: no.3, ‘Die Könige’
Eccard: Maria wallt zum Heiligtum
Clemens non Papa: Magi veniunt
Arvo Pärt: Morning Star
Judith Bingham: In Mary’s love
Plainchant: Vidimus stellam
Lassus: Tribus miraculis
Owain Park: O send out thy light
Bob Chilcott: The Shepherd’s Carol


Alasdair Austin, Guy James (countertenors)
Josh Cooter (tenor)
Joseph Wicks (tenor)
Michael Craddock (baritone)
Owain Park (artistic director, bass)

The eve of the shortest day of 2024 was especially miserable in London: cold, wet, and dark. All the more need, then, for an aural glimpse of the ‘Morning Star’ that gave its name to this Wigmore Hall concert from The Gesualdo Six. Rather than concentrate on Advent, Christmas, or Epiphany, the programme took us from one through another to the third. Indeed, it perhaps tried to do too much in too many pieces, a succession of very different, generally short music in some cases more merging into one than showing affinity and connection, though there were certainly exceptions to that. A packed audience, though, clearly enjoyed its evening, nowhere more so than in an encore performance of Jingle Bells, arranged by Gordon Langford. ‘Style’ might seem an unduly pretentious attribute, but for me it pointed out what had sometimes been missing elsewhere, certain standout pieces offering welcome relief. Perhaps a church acoustic would have imparted a warmer blend, or perhaps I was simply not in the right mood, but there were times – and I realise this is a matter of taste more than anything else – when relief in the guise of female voices might have helped. 

I had reservations, then, but this was also an opportunity to hear a good range of repertoire from chant to Palestrina to the present day, in the guise of artistic director Owain Park’s own O send out thy light, gratefully written for the group, in which instance they were clearly very much at home. Palestrina had appeared at the opening, in the guise of David Willcocks’s well-known arrangement of a Nunc dimittis as a Mattins responsory. Many will surely have recognised it in one guise or another, and it made for a fitting opening, followed by well if slightly anonymously sung Lassus (how I felt about a later example too) and more florid Praetorius, Nun komm der Heiland, which to my ears gave a more arresting impression. Plainchant and ‘Anon.’ often fared best, I think, deceptive simplicity permitting performances and their reception to hone in on melody and words, the mediaeval carol Angelus ad virginem gathering voices in a warm conclusion to the first half. 

Other highlights for me included the extraordinary wandering chromatic lines of Jacobus Händl’s Mirabile mysterium. They are anything but easy to sing, yet intonation never proved a problem. Nor did it in Poulenc’s O magnum mysterium, which emerged a little later as fitting complement in stillness and movement, although this was one of those cases when I felt the loss of women’s (or even children’s) voices. The expressive accomplishment of Byrd’s Rorate coeli was highly welcome, perhaps a first-half counterpart to the second-half highpoint of Clemens non Papa’s euphonious and, no coincidence, more extended Ephipany Magi veniunt. It was preceded by Joannes Eccard’s Maria wallt zum Heiligtum which likewise benefited from a degree more warmth. 

None of the twenty-first-century pieces seemed concerned with straining at the edges of modernity, Sally Beamish’s In the stillness purposefully reticent, almost belying the skill with which verbal and musical cadences coincided. Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Judith Bingham ventured further harmonically, the former a rare if doubtless coincidental instance of seeming to take its leave from its predecessor (Händl), the latter another welcome case of painting on a slightly larger canvas, which if not exactly ‘Romantic’ was not exactly un-Romantic either. Arvo Pärt’s Morning Star, well crafted and performed with sympathy, readily laid bare idea and processes. A somewhat dour Cornelius ‘Three Kings’, sung in English, suggested that the nineteenth century was in generally better avoided; unless, that is, we count Jingle Bells.

 

Prom 9: Finch/BBC NOW/Matiakh - Ravel, Beamish, and Rimsky-Korsakov, 21 July 2022

Royal Albert Hall

Ravel: Shéhérazade – ouverture de féerie
Sally Beamish: Hive (world premiere)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

Catrin Finch (harp)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Ariane Matiakh (conductor)

Copyright: BBC/Chris Christodoulou 

Two responses to the Persian legend of Scheherazade, the first clearly influenced by the second, sandwiched a new work (seemingly intended to be danced, though not here) for harp and orchestra in this, the first of my visits to this year’s BBC Proms. Ravel’s early overture Shéhérazade—not his song-cycle of the same name—was heard first in an excellent performance from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Ariane Matiakh. Steven Hudson’s warmly inviting oboe solo, free yet directed, swiftly joined by other fine woodwind soloists, imparted a fitting air of fantasy, of unfolding, Ravel’s motivic working—whatever prejudices one might hear concerning ‘national’ styles—crucial to the piece’s success and that of its performance too. Without ventriloquising the sound of a French orchestra, the BBC NOW assumed its spirit. If Matiakh could not quite conceal all the corners, a strong case was made. And if a certain sectional quality inherent to the piece endured, it was nicely sectional, as it were, suggesting both variety and a narrative path. This was a well-shaped reading, whose hothouse passages were relished, albeit integrated within a greater whole. Intervention from an audience member’s mobile telephone over several bars was less welcome, though just as apparent. 

Sally Beamish’s Hive, a BBC co-commission with the World Harp Congress, was at first a pandemic casualty, due for its premiere in the dread year of 2020. Its belated first performance was received enthusiastically, taking us through the four seasons of a beehive. ‘Winter: Inside the Hive’ opened promisingly: a non-hackneyed yet evocative impression of the season, here (to quote the composer) depicting ‘a close mass of bees, all shivering their flight muscles to keep their body temperature constant’. There was cold, yes, as there was shivering; but there was also a muscular strength, married to and in some cases expressed through orchestral colour. If the language were relatively ‘traditional’, it was definitely ‘traditional plus’, no mere resting on laurels (or honeycombs). Rhythmic drive increased as the movement progressed, interspersed with or, perhaps better, punctuated by passages of wonder. 

Spring brought well-nigh onomatopoeic birdsong, renewed energy, and dance, a bee’s ‘waggle dance’ included. Lightly scored—this is music for harp and orchestra, after all—there was nonetheless variety within that lightness, Catrin Finch’s harp playing surely definitive here (and elsewhere). One could readily visualise the drama throughout. Summer I found somewhat filmic, though it began in darker fashion. Again, the music’s representative character was evident as rival potential queens fought for their title and drones subsequently seized their moment. Autumn, for me at least, proved the most intriguing, both concluding and offering an uncertain future. With character and events of its own, its fade into the unknown had one stop, pause, think, and question whether this necessary cycle would continue forever. 

Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite Scheherazade had the second half to itself. I rather liked Matiakh’s unassuming performance, determined to give the work something of that ‘symphonic’ stature rather than simply wallowing, but the Royal Albert Hall’s notorious acoustic proved less than ideal, swallowing up much sound before ever it could reach us. A severe opening, immediately balanced by post-Mendelssohnian woodwind and then the Scheherazade violin solo itself (leader Lesley Hatfield sweet and sinuous throughout) seemed a little flattened by the wall of sound that followed in the first movement. Others proved more variegated—or perhaps it was my ears that adapted to the acoustic. At any rate, all four movements flowed well, the first boasting lovely duetting between violin and various woodwind soloists. They too shone in ‘The Tale of the Kalendar Prince’, winningly pictorial, even swashbuckling, but never only that, always musical. 

One could take ‘The Young Prince and Princess’ as an object lesson in orientalism, but this sympathetic performance brought one as close to ‘true’ sentiment as Rimsky comes here. It was spun gorgeously, yet languor was never excessive. Its metrical transformations, Liszt never far away, charmed. Like the fourth movement of Beamish’s Hive, the finale here sounded from the outset as a last chapter. Indeed, a keen sense of narrative was a hallmark of Matiakh’s performance throughout, revisiting and rehearing past material included. ‘Symphonic’? Yes, if you will, though perhaps ‘cyclical’ would be better. Ultimately, who cares? It was enjoyable and, at times, delectable.