This is a fine CD which
I have enormously enjoyed listening
to. Allow me a couple of quibbles first,
though. First that title; ‘Peace: a
choral album for our time’. The music
contained here ranges over three or
four centuries, yet apparently, unlike
other choral albums, this one is ‘for
our times’. Why? Seemingly because it
contains peaceful music, in a time of
conflict. This sounds fine, until you
realise that this attitude risks reducing
great music to some sort of palliative
for the nerves – something you can use
to calm yourself down after the stresses
of the ten o’clock news bulletin. If
music is to play a part (as Grant Llewellyn,
in the booklet, suggests it might) in
improving the plight of the world, it’s
going to be by resolving conflict within
ourselves rather than just applying
some spiritual TCP.
That said, there is
some very fine unaccompanied choral
singing to be heard here, ranging through
history from Victoria’s O magnum
mysterium of the 16th
century through to Tavener’s Song
for Athene of the 1980s, and taking
in some of the most challenging a
cappella repertoire along the way
in the shape of the Barber and Schoenberg
items.
Like the Accentus Chamber
Choir’s CD which I
reviewed , this issue arguably features
too much slow music. However, there
is the plenty of variety in the styles
here, and none of those ill-fated Mahler
transcriptions which dogged the Accentus
issue. The Handel and Haydn Society
Chorus is a superbly balanced and blended
ensemble, and I much admire the way
Grant Llewellyn shapes the music. His
tempo for the Barber Agnus Dei (the
composer’s own transcription of his
Adagio for Strings) is quicker
than usual, but this has great advantages;
a speed that is practicably slow for
strings will stretch human voices and,
especially, lungs well beyond what can
be fairly expected. So the reward is
a performance that flows and unfolds
quite naturally, yet is free of sentimentality
or forced emotion.
Schoenberg’s Friede
auf Erden (‘Peace on Earth’)
is a colossal challenge for any
chamber choir. It is a most moving piece,
but almost impossibly dense and complex
in its textures and harmonies. The choir
gives it everything, and the ecstatic
emotion comes across powerfully, as
does the sumptuous polyphony. There
is one moment that sounds suspiciously
like a re-take for pitch adjustment
purposes (around 7:30), but, though
a little clumsy, it is in no danger
of defacing a distinguished and highly
successful version of this masterpiece.
Incidentally, I simply love the
sound of this choir’s tenor section;
open-throated yet smooth – where do
you get choral tenors like that!
Those who are not familiar
with Randall Thompson’s Alleluia
are in for a treat – it’s one of the
most hauntingly beautiful short choral
works of the 20th century,
and performed to perfection here. The
same can be said for Górecki’s
Totus Tuus and Tavener’s Song
for Athene, though I do have
to say that I prefer this last sung
by all-male voices; that said, the HHSC
make a splendid job of it.
Sorry about the Elgar
Lux aeterna, it’s just horrible
and tasteless – the arrangement, that
is, NOT the singing, which is excellent.
This is a version of Nimrod,
which, unlike the Barber, was not made
by the composer himself. Though
it was no doubt a brilliant piece of
opportunism to turn it into a piece
of choral music suitable for funerals,
memorial services and the like, there
is just one problem – the words don’t
fit, not slightly, not even remotely!
That apart, this CD
contains some truly world-class choral
singing, and is full of memorable musical
experiences. Splendid recording, too,
in the sympathetic but not over-lively
acoustic of the Church of the Redeemer
at Chestnut Hill.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
for details
Handel and Haydn Society Chorus/Grant Llewellyn
