The importance of not always being yourself:
Tenor James
Gilchrist
talks to Anne Ozorio (AO)
James Gilchrist. Picture © John Haxby
James Gilchrist’s direct, vivid approach to song
has made him one of the most refreshing tenors to
emerge in the last few years. He talked
recently to Anne Ozorio about his music.
Before becoming a professional singer, Gilchrist
was a doctor, but his love for music started at an
early age. “As a boy, I was surrounded by music. I
was a chorister in one of the chapel choirs in
Oxford and even in the local church enjoyed what I
heard there. Naturally, most of the material was
great standard English choral tradition. We are
lucky that we have such a rich heritage in this
country, Byrd, Tallis, Purcell. So my roots are
in Renaissance and 19th /20th
century English music. However, Edward
Higginbotham, who conducted the New College Choir
had a strong interest in French repertoire as
well, and introduced French and German music even
to the boys choir, which was relatively unusual at
that time. In those days, the Iberian and South
American early music we hear now wasn’t well
known. So I was drawn towards art song, and
chamber music with song, which inevitably means
the Austro-German mainstream. Music is a powerful
spiritual and artistic mode of communication and
art song in particular, which is based on poetry,
has huge emotional content. I feel, sometimes,
that I come alive when I can convey that in my
singing.” One might observe that music isn’t
really so different from medicine in terms of
positive benefits for listeners and performers. As
Gilchrist adds, “art is not an optional extra
tacked onto the “real” purpose of life seen
narrowly in terms of making money and big
business. Art is what we’re here for, it’s a way
of expressing what makes us human”.
Gilchrist specialises in English art song. His
most recent recording (See
details and review on Linn records)
is superlative. It includes the chamber version
of On Wenlock Edge, and two lesser-known
gems of the English repertoire, Gurney’s Ludlow
and Teme and Warlock’s The Curlew. It’s
superlative. Gilchrist’s pure, lucid singing is
all the more effective because his approach is so
direct and natural. What gives him this affinity
for English song ? “It is”, he says, “a kind of
“English disease” not to value what is home
grown. It’s as if we’re too self-effacing, too
reticent, and assume that major works of art can
only come from outside. But English art song is
very fine work indeed.” The new recording is also
unusual because it features music for tenor, piano
and strings. On Wenlock Edge is of course
one of the most important works in the whole
English canon, and Gilchrist captures its poignant
spirit with sensitivity. The Gurney cycle,
though, is rarer, and Gilchrist’s version is
exceptional, exquisitely intelligent and moving.
Several of these Housman poems were set by
Butterworth, so why the Gurney settings ?
“Gurney’s settings are wonderful, almost
disarmingly naïve at times, and very innocent in
the finest sense of the word”, says Gilchrist,
“yet there are moments of outstanding beauty which
spring off the page with a real freshness which is
very unusual. You can almost feel the air and the
wind and the moment that is passing. The poems
themselves have an almost childlike purity
although they deal with profound subjects, and the
settings suit that so well. The song Far in a
Western Brookland, is astonishing. It’s all
set in D flat major , so it’s very misty, ethereal
and yet earthy. You can sense the mist rising
from the grass in the early morning. It never
rises above piano. This low setting really
captures the intense longing to be elsewhere, far
away”
“Then, in contrast, is Gurney’s approach to The
Lads in their Hundreds. In some ways it’s a
more straightforward setting because it’s so
strong and muscular, yet it has just the right
sort of ambiguity. Is Housman really saying it’s
right to go to war ? Gurney’s setting is jauntier
than Butterworth’s, where the whole song hangs on
irony from the start. Yet the spirit was not lost
on Gurney who sets the poem as it springs off the
page as you read it, where the irony is more
hidden, almost as if the poet thinks it’s better
that the young men die rather than suffer the
ignominy of old age. They “carry bright back
to their coiner the mintage of man, the lads who
will die in their glory and never be old”.
These poems were written in the 1890’s but they
speak to other times. The First World War was a 19th
century war fought with 20th century
weapons. The unprecedented slaughter chimes in
with the image of young men dying young for a
strange sense of righteousness and it leads
towards Owen’s passionate “The Old Lie, Dulce
et decorum est, pro patria mori” Composers
must have instinctively understood this and found
in music a means of expressing despair.
Housman is set extensively, yet Owen poetry seems
to elude most composers. Yet Owen’s Anthem for
Doomed Youth is the basis of Britten’s War
Requiem, one of the greatest anti-war statements
in music. When the tenor sings “What
passing-bells for those who die as cattle?” there’s no doubt that Britten has taken on board
the long thread of protest. “What’s more”, says
Gilchrist, “it’s a brilliant stroke of genius to
place Owen’s Anthem alongside the latin
Mass for the dead.” It’s a powerful combination
linking wars across time and place, linking the
specific to the universal. “The imagery in Owen’s
poetry is so profound that it demand study and
thought that is beyond ordinary music, but then
Britten’s music isn’t ordinary. There’s that
almost cinematic writing for big choir, and then
all of a sudden you’re focussed on a more intimate
inner world and the text switches to the
vernacular, which speaks simply and directly. “It
seems that out of battle I escaped/ Down some
profound dull tunnel….” Everything just stops
and you remember this moment after the cataclysmic
fanfares that went before and enter the absolutre
kernel of what this piece is about – the
extraordinary meeting between vanquished and
victor which is on such a human scale. It demands
great vocal control, spinning long breaths and
phrases and a complete understanding of how the
music has reached this point. I love this work !”
The War Requiem
is a work Gilchrist frequently performs, but he’s
also associated with Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius,
performing both at this year’s Three Choirs
Festival in Gloucester (see review links below.)
“Gerontius”, he says, “is a work I’ve known since
I was very young and it means a lot to me. I
think it’s both the vivid living-in-the-instant
portrayal of demons, angels, fear, hope and so
much else, presented with such immediate clarity,
combined with the sense that the soul is
undertaking a timeless spiritual journey. This
two dimensional feel is what I find so powerful.
A Amongst all the fury and rage and terror, there
is a very thoughtful, hopeful and tender heart.
Whatever our professed faith, I think this piece
moves us all. To sing it is a huge undertaking. I
feel very much that I am travelling with the
protagonist, and feel utterly drained at the end.
It's not a work that I find possible to perform in
a superficial or disinterested manner, and so I
hope
it moves the audience and leaves them feeling that
they have taken with Gerontius a momentous
journey”.
Newman’s poem is complex, so Elgar’s imaginative
and sympathetic setting makes it a masterpiece.
Sometimes, great poems defy musical setting, while
lesser texts are immortalised in song. “The
finest poetry”, says Gilchrist, “has its own life
and melody so it can present greater challenges to
a composer. Yet Finzi took on Wordsworth’s
Intimations of Immortality. It’s fantastic
piece, a truly huge work that tries to emcompass
everything. The poem stands so well that it’s
understandable that Finzi was taken to task for
attempting too much, but a truly great work of art
is able to support many treatments. It’s a
testament to Wordsworth’s greatness that Finzi’s
setting works well as a piece of music in itself.
One has a sense of the poem’s great range, and of
Finzi having thought carefully about it”.
Gilchrist’s recording (See
review) is vocally one of the brightest and most
vivacious, for it captures the vivid sense of
wonder that animates Finzi’s setting.
So how does Gilchrist prepare his interpretations
? “I try to get to grips with the poems even
before I really study the music, in order to find
what was in the poetry that moved the composer to
set it in the first place. With Intimations of
Immortality, it took some time because it’s
such a vast work. It wasn’t a piece I wanted to do
when I was very young not only because of the
intensity of the poem, but also because it demands
physical stamina. It’s one of those pieces best
left after your 35th birthday. It’s a
mistake to approach works like this before you
have the maturity to do them properly. I’d known
Intimations for some time but hadn’t
thought of recording it until Naxos came up with
an offer, quite serendipitously at a time when I
had three concert performances scheduled. So it
was a good chance to really get to grips with the
piece and live with it for a period of several
months”.
Modern singers emphasise communication, and
Gilchrist’s pure, natural-sounding tonal range is
distinctive. It’s rather like Peter Schreier
singing Bach Evangelists. The “story” mattered to
him and he sang with vivid emotional involvement.
German tenors don’t sound like the archetype
“English tenor”. “You’ve hit a raw nerve there”,
exclaims Gilchrist, for among singers and
musicians, calling someone an “English tenor” is
almost an insult. It implies that someone has a
“nice-ish” voice and a worthy manner but is
somewhat detached. It’s sometimes been called,
jokingly, “singing in kid gloves”. But composers
chose texts for a purpose, in an attempt to
communicate. “It is easy to become all “singery”
about singing and concentrate on beauty of tone
and line. Of course such things are critical, but
the overriding importance for me is to communicate
the sense of what I’m singing, the emotion and
ideas. If one doesn’t do that in some way, one
has failed. I try to approach all music in that
way, be it Bach, or Handel or Guillaume Dufay.
Ultimately, music is a means of communication and
if you’re not communicating, you’re not really
“there”. Song recitals can be dull when the
quality of voice remains unchanged from beginning
to end because the singer’s discovered no
colours. The truly great singers have a huge
palette of vocal colour to choose from. It’s not
good to paint from a narrow palette. Our “art”
should be subservient to our communication”.
Unlike actors, singers are guided by a text and
score, so they can’t really lose themselves in a
role. Nonetheless, they do reveal themselves
psychologically as their interpretations reveal
their emotional responses. Live performances are
upfront and personal, unlike recordings where an
audience isn’t actually present. “It’s important
not to always be yourself”, says Gilchrist, “but
also not to leave yourself out. It’s a balance.
I’ve been to Lieder recitals where I’ve felt
terribly naked, exposed to the raw emotion
revealed when the singer is too close. So when I
perform I try and create a physical distance and
put some barriers between me and the audience in
order to remove some of the discomfort of having
someone emote right in front of you. It might be a
jug of water, some flowers or even a lamp, just
between me and the audience, but it creates a
neutral space. Thus I feel more comfortable as a
performer, and more able to inhabit the music. If
there’s no space between I feel slightly self
conscious and shy of “breaking down” in front of
people, even though it’s in the music. That
little space gives a performer a little distance
in which to undergo his transformation and it’s
less inhibiting both for the performer and the
audience”. Recordings are presumably even more
detached. On the other hand, though, Gilchrist
says “you listen differently when you’re in a
darkened room or while beetling along in a car,
and get different things in different
circumstances”.
Gilchrist has also been a great champion of new
composers. He often works with the harpist Alison
Nicholls and they’ve been able to get several
commissions for the usual combination of voice and
harp, most recently a piece by Nicola LeFanu.
He’s also performed new works by Howard Skempton,
Alec Roth, John Jeffreys and Jonathan Eato.
Another major project coming up is an opera by the
late Kenneth Leighton. Gilchrist loves opera
and would like to do more, but his many other
commitments keep him within the United Kingdom.
Anne Ozorio
Reviews from the Three Choirs Festival 2007
There are many James Gilchrist reviews in Seen & Heard dating
from 2003. The two most recent are from this
year's Three Choirs Festival. The War Requiem
review is
Here and a review of The Dream of Gerontius
Here.
Reviews of James Gilchrist recordings.
Finzi Songs Review on Linn :
Link
Finzi : Intimations of Immortality Reviews from Rob
Barnett
Jonathan Woolf and
Anne Ozorio
Stainer : The Crucifixion Reviews from
Michael Cookson and
John Quinn
John Jeffreys: The Far Country, 26 English Songs
Review
by
Colin Scott-Sutherland
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