RECORDING OF THE MONTH
In the Beginning
Gabriel JACKSON (b. 1962)
In the Beginning was the Word (2008) [13:22]
Nicolas GOMBERT (c. 1495-c1560)
Lugebat David Absalon [8:08]
Thomas WEELKES (1576-1623)
When David Heard [3:27]
Eric WHITACRE (b.1970)
When David Heard [14:12]
Giovanni Luigi da PALESTRINA (c. 1525-1594)
Nunc Dimittis [3:53]
Gustav HOLST (1874-1934)
Nunc Dimittis [3:25]
Pawel LUKASZEWSKI (b. 1968)
Nunc Dimittis [4:52]
Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)
In the Beginning* [17:51]
*Beth Mackay (mezzo)
Choir of Merton College, Oxford/Peter Philips; Benjamin Nicholas
Natasha Tyrwhitt-Drake (organ)
rec. 25-26 April 2011, Merton College Chapel, Oxford DDD
Original texts and English translations included
DELPHIAN DCD34072 [69:14]
Last year, when I interviewed
Peter Philips and Steve Smith for MusicWeb International’s Seen and
Heard the conversation touched briefly on the new choral foundation at Merton
College, founded by Peter Philips. He expressed the hope then that this new
choir would make recordings, which might entail some contemporary music. This
new Delphian disc represents the new choir’s first recording venture
and the fascinatingly-themed programme includes some very fine music of our
own time.
The choir consists of thirty singers: eleven sopranos, five each of altos
and tenors, and nine basses. Out of these thirty, eighteen are choral scholars
and the remainder are volunteer singers. The choir was established only in
late 2008. Let’s not beat about the bush: on the evidence of this disc
Peter Philips and Benjamin Nicholas, the college’s two Directors of
Music, have trained a choir that can already take its place among the best
that Oxbridge has to offer. The singing is splendidly disciplined - yet never
regimented - with excellent tuning, balance and diction. As one gets from
the best student choirs, there’s a freshness to the tone and no sense
of heaviness. On the other hand, even though these are young voices one never
feels any lack of weight in the sound - perhaps the fact that nearly one third
of the singers are basses helps here. Throughout the entire programme one
has the feeling of flexibility and, crucially, of complete commitment to the
music. In summary, I enjoyed and admired the singing in equal measure.
The programme is chosen with discrimination and intelligence. How appropriate
to build a debut disc around the theme ‘In the Beginning’. Copland’s
marvellous a cappella setting of the first twenty-seven verses
of the Book of Genesis is a logical choice for inclusion - even if, for very
good reasons, it doesn’t begin the programme. The performance is splendid
with Beth Mackay as fine a soloist as I can recall hearing in the work. Her
vocal timbre is just right. She sings with fine clarity of tone and of diction
and there’s a delightful warmth to her singing as well. She projects
the music vividly, not least at the passage beginning at ‘Let there
be lights in the firmament of the heaven’ (from 5:16) where she leads
the choir in dancing, lively rhythms, all crisply enunciated. The climaxes
in this piece are thrilling, even exultant, and I enjoyed this performance
enormously.
At the other end of the programme - truly at The Beginning - is a new work
by Gabriel Jackson. The more I hear of Jackson’s choral music the more
impressed I am. This new piece is a setting of words from the opening of St
John’s Gospel. I’ve always found them tremendously potent but,
so far as I know, they have been set to music comparatively rarely. Jackson’s
setting is magnificent. It begins quietly, the music mysteriously sombre and
awestruck. I love the way that the composer emphasises certain key words harmonically,
not least the use of a simple triad to which he sets the word ‘God’.
The choral writing - and the imaginative organ part - provides a powerful
aural suggestion of gradual movement from darkness to light.
There’s a very effective - and well sung - passage for solo soprano
and tenor, gently accompanied by organ (4:00-6:03) before a section of much
more complex music for the choir. Here the harmonies for the singers suggest
to me flashes of blinding white light with blazes from the organ too. This
leads to an extended climactic phrase on the words ‘which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world’. There follows (from 8:24) a return
to the awestruck, subdued mood in which the work began and the very end is
raptly beautiful, attaining a feeling of ecstatic wonder. This is an important,
eloquent work and the performance it receives is, so far as I can judge, worthy
of it in every respect.
I wish that I could be as enthusiastic about the piece by Eric Whitacre. This
is a setting of the same words as those that we find in the celebrated anthem
by Thomas Weelkes that precedes it on this disc. It starts promisingly enough
with the unaccompanied choir singing slow, grave homophonic material. Whitacre
then adds layers of choral texture and builds up the tension most impressively.
Unfortunately, or so it seems to me, after a short tenor solo the piece then
loses its way. In the extended section between 2:47 and 9:08 a series of musical
fragments are repeated several times and the music just seems to me to become
mired in an excessively elongated passage of musical effects. I expect I’m
missing something but I sense no development. Perhaps matters aren’t
helped because Whitacre is setting a concise text so he’s reduced to
repeating words over and over - would that his music was as concise as the
words! At 9:08 an impassioned climax is reached, after which the music of
the opening is revisited. I’m afraid that the piece is far too long
for its material and it’s notable that Weelkes’ setting of the
identical text is some nine minutes shorter and, for my money, significantly
more effective as a result even though I readily acknowledge that Weelkes
was writing in a completely different era and idiom. Whitacre makes strenuous
demands on his singers and the Merton choir seems to cope with everything
valiantly.
The Weelkes piece receives a strong, dramatic performance. I’ve heard
it performed in more reflective fashion but I like this performance very much.
The Gombert anthem, in eight parts, is a piece I didn’t know but it’s
very fine and Gombert’s rich choral textures are here delivered with
exemplary clarity.
It was a good idea to have not just three pieces around the David and Absalom
theme but also three very different settings of the Nunc Dimittis.
All three are done very well. The clean lines of Palestrina’s music
present a good contrast to the complexities of Eric Whitacre’s contemporary
writing. The Palestrina is given a committed, affirmative reading and the
choir also brings great confidence to Holst’s fine response to the Canticle,
not least in the exuberant doxology. A little while ago I was deeply impressed
by the Nunc Dimittis of Pawel Lukaszewski in a recording by the Choir
of Trinity College, Cambridge (review).
I’m delighted to find this hauntingly beautiful piece included here.
The setting sounds deceptively simple but I’m sure it’s not. I
love, in particular, the really effective harmonic shift at the words ‘lumen
ad revelationem gentium’ [2:47]. The piece is expertly done here and
the Merton choir need not fear comparison with the outstanding account by
Stephen Layton’s Cambridge choir.
This is a superb disc. The singing is out of the top drawer and engineer Paul
Baxter has recorded the choir wonderfully, using the lovely, resonant acoustic
of Merton College Chapel to telling effect. I would say that this disc is
a most auspicious debut for the Merton College Choir but perhaps it’s
more fitting to crib from the title of the disc and describe it as a most
auspicious beginning. In any event, I hope that we shall soon have more recordings
from this excellent new choir. Bravo!
John Quinn
A most auspicious debut on CD for the Merton College Choir.