Paul Mealor was born in St. Asaph in North Wales in 1975. He is
currently Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Aberdeen.
He studied composition with some very eminent figures, and his
catalogue of works, most of which are published by the University
of York Music Press, is extensive. The booklet which accompanies
this disc carries an essay by Carter Joel Burrell, signed “New
York, 2009”. Mr. Burrell is clearly an admirer, as is the
unnamed critic from the New York Times, quoted on the
composer’s
website and elsewhere, who writes “… a real and
original talent … music of deep spiritual searching that
always asks questions, offers answers and fills the listener with
hope …”
The presentation of this CD could be better. Mr. Burrell’s
essay is squeezed onto a single page, the text printed right to
the edge. Its unstinting laudatory tone does no service to an
emerging composer, especially when useful factual information
such as when the pieces were composed, is omitted. Texts are included,
but those of the two works sung in Latin are given only in English.
Individual timings of each work are not given. The recording is
fine.
Paul Mealor was appointed Principal Conductor of the Con Anima
Chamber Choir in 2008, so although no conductor is named here
we can safely assume it is he. As a conductor of amateur choirs
myself, I can confidently state that most of my colleagues, and
not a few young composers, will be rather jealous that he has
this particular choir at his disposal. They make a truly beautiful
sound with only the occasional trace of harshness in the women’s
voices. Balance and blend are very good and there are some excellent
men. There are difficult moments in some of the music on this
disc - soprano lines can be punishingly high, for example - and
tuning is not always faultless. Attack can lack unanimity too,
especially when a phrase begins with a difficult chord. It’s
perhaps unfair to cite individual soloists, but I do salute the
soprano Jillian Bain Christie, credited with the solo part in
Let Fall the Windows of Mine Eyes. There is a certain fragility
about some of the other soloists drawn from the ranks.
I usually like to make a new composer’s acquaintance by
listening to the works in chronological order of composition.
Having no dates to help me in this case I decided instead to listen
to the shorter works first, leaving the
Stabat Mater until
last. Mealor evidently has a liking for linked structures, with
the separate pieces that make up most of these works linked by
what he calls an “aural thread”, usually wordless,
held notes. His harmonic and melodic language is almost exclusively
tonal. Deep, sonorous bass parts occur frequently enough to risk
becoming a mannerism. Listening to these works a picture gradually
emerged of a composer close in spirit to others such as Javier
Busto and Vytautas Miškinis. These figures are very active
in the world of amateur choral singing: many of them are conductors
themselves and they frequently judge choral competitions. Their
compositions are tailor-made for amateur singers, often gorgeous
in sound, always grateful to sing and, crucially, quite evidently
contemporary in style without alienating those who sing them.
Another composer whose name came to mind was Morten Lauridsen;
interestingly, the choir’s website carries a photograph
of him with the group. Paul Mealor’s music is less chromatic
than that of any of these composers; less chromatic than that
of Howells or even Vaughan Williams. In its strong attachment
to tonality one might think of Pärt or Górecki - two
composers cited on the back of the cover - though only at one
point was I strongly reminded of one of these. I did eventually
come up with the name of another composer to whose music that
of Paul Mealor could be compared, and that in the work where I
should have least expected it.
To turn to the works themselves, the short unaccompanied motet
Beata es, Virgo Maria is a quietly reflective piece which
immediately establishes its composer as one with a keen ear for
choral texture. It’s a lovely piece, richly scored, but
after three or four hearings I don’t think it has much left
to tell.
I was less immediately taken by
Lux Benigna, a setting
of a poem by Gordon Graham which explores the relationship between
light and the divine. Each of the three verses of this work for
upper voices and piano receives more or less the same musical
treatment, and a cadence in the “wrong” key seems
to be the only nod in the direction of chromaticism. Moments here
and there reminded me of Holst’s
Choral Hymns from the
Rig Veda, but the comparison is cruel: Holst’s piece
immediately creates its own world in a way that Mealor’s
piece cannot be said to do.
Let Fall the Windows of Mine Eyes is an unaccompanied setting
of three short texts from Shakespeare exploring the theme of loss.
They create a powerful mood of sadness, but the composer has set
himself a huge challenge in trying to find music to complement
such imagery as that contained in the work’s title, for
example. By the time I arrived at this piece I realised I was
struggling to get a grip on the composer’s musical identity.
Strict adherence to tonality is only part of the problem: the
music of John Tavener or Arvo Pärt is easily recognisable
within an equally tonal framework. Perhaps one shouldn’t
worry too much about this. What’s more important is that
the composer has matched the mood of the words here, and that
mood does linger in the mind long after the final notes.
Settings for soprano and piano of three poems by Emily Dickinson
make up
Between Eternity and Time. The poems, if they can
be said to be about anything, are about love, but Dickinson’s
work is so oblique and inward that the notes required to sing
them are very elusive. Copland succeeded brilliantly, but who
else? The third song, strikingly melodic, demonstrates nonetheless
a kind of rapture that I find at odds with the nature of the verse.
At the end of this song Mealor has the singer repeat the first
line followed by the line from the second song which gives the
work its title. He uses a similar device in the Shakespeare settings,
a clever and original way of providing unity within the work.
I think the composer will be very happy with the performance from
Irene Drummond and Drew Tulloch.
Another strikingly original idea is to set the three texts
Ave
verum corpus,
Ave maris stella and
Ave Maria
for unaccompanied choir, and to link them - the “aural thread”
again - to make a single, unbroken span entitled
Ave. Sadly
though, I found it difficult to engage with this piece. Javier
Busto’s
Ave Maria is only a third as long as Mealor’s,
but how much more there is in it! I was virtually begging the
composer to change key during this six-minute setting!
The text of the
Stabat Mater, the lamentation of the mother
of God at the foot of the Cross, is a harrowing one. Paul Mealor’s
setting caused Carter Joel Burrell to weep “tears of joy
from beginning to end.” In his booklet essay he refers to
the “heart-wrenching opening chords” as well as to
the “wonderfully intense conclusion”. These opening
chords are extremely, strikingly beautiful, but so many suspensions
and piled-up thirds tend to communicate serene contemplation rather
than the anguish of Christ’s mother. The sopranos are challenged
once or twice in this opening passage, which is unaccompanied,
the piano entering, in unison with the choir, for the first notes
of the second section: near-unlimited terror for the conductor!
This was the moment, too, which strongly reminded me of a passage
in Górecki’s
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
Constant semiquaver movement in the accompaniment is an important
feature of the third section, and the fourth sees a return of
the opening music. Bearing in mind the nature of the text, I found
this setting over-sweet, even sentimental. There is a richness
of harmony and texture which is alien to the words, and the final
reprise of what I struggle not to call the big tune follows a
piano build-up worthy of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Rich, beautiful and instantly memorable, I’m not surprised
to read the almost ecstatic praise heaped upon Paul Mealor’s
music by some commentators. I am sure it will appeal to many who
read this. But it’s not for me, I’m afraid.
William Hedley
Irene Drummond (soprano); Drew Tullock (piano) 
