Each year the Festival Choir and members of the Chamber Orchestra offer their reflections on this lovely season – “so hallow’d and so gracious is the time”. These words of Shakespeare from Hamlet’s castle of Elsinore are a fitting introduction to Christmastide. The choir sings works that are old and works that are new, things revered and ethereal, things robust and joyful. All their programmes fit these words.
However this concert had an element that required much effort and that was quite new. The first was that the whole of the singing in the first half was sung entirely in German by choir and soloists alike.
Anyone acquainted with choral singing will know that it is no easy thing to read the music, watch the conductor and remember his directions regarding dynamics and interpretation . To do this and sing it all in German indicates a
spirit of adventure and joyous determination in all concerned to seize the challenge and show the stuff they are made of. In the event it was a unique and resounding success. The pronunciation of the choir and the soloists, especially Steve Thorpe and Mary Halloran was convincing and had a surety of touch that was admirable. Coached by Miss Sabine Robinson (a member of the choir) there was no trace of exaggeration or self-consciousness. Instead the German flowed evenly while the more explosive character in it was handled well by Steve Thorpe in Herod’s “Go and Search”. Mary Halloran sang her solo with such gentle ease that one could forget all but its lovely quality. The whole thing gave intense satisfaction and pleasure to the listener.
The format of the programme was a sequence of readings from the New Testament on the birth of Christ alternating recitatives, arias and choruses by Heinrich Schutz and other contemporaries of the seventeenth century. The whole programme was conceived and thought through by Donald Judge, the conductor, who decided to replace the recitatives with their equivalent in the English of the King James Bible. This was a happy decision. The quietly spoken words of the King James version anchored the narrative in a most acceptable way for the audience.
The choir was robust in its attack, whether true solid singing of simple melody or something more subtle. The instruments accompanying some pieces were delightful: recorders, flute, bassoon, violin and viola, and indeed the percussion, when needed, provided an unusual and most attractive and delicate combination of sounds. One remembers the fine full-blooded entrance of the choir in “Von Himmel Hoch”; the charming instruments in the “Interludium 3 and the triumphant strength and confidence of the “ Nun Danket alle Gott that closed this first half of the concert.
The second half presented traditional carols for all to sing and choir pieces such as “The Shepherd’s Farewell” from the Berlioz oratorio “L’Enfance du Christ”. This well-loved passage was sung with simple moving eloquence by the whole choir and who will forget the interesting arrangement of “Away in a Manger” by Donald Judge, or the “ De Bon Matin” of Bizet or the delightful arrangement for recorders of Daquin’s Noel IV by Donald Judge again?
A concert like this sets right the priorities of the listener. The performers all gave of their very best, with the simple ease that conceals the hard work. They are fortunate in their conductor who brings this out of choir and orchestra.
JH