An uplifting programme of sacred and secular 20th-century English and French music formed the centrepiece of this year’s Cheltenham Music Festival. Held in Gloucester Cathedral, the repertoire featured four composers whose distinctive musical personalities were variously shaped by references to folk song, plainsong, religious meditation and Gallic insouciance. Taking part under the helm of Adrian Partington were the combined forces of the South Cotswold Big Sing Group, the Choristers of Gloucester Cathedral and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Proceedings opened with Vaughan Williams’s Five Variants on ‘Dives and Lazarus’, a work written for string orchestra and harp in 1937 and revealing the composer’s poignant response to an ancient melody he discovered in a collection of tunes entitled “English Country Songs”. Partington unveiled a heartfelt warmth of expression from the Liverpool players, their ravishing string tone bringing a demonstrable affection for the work’s modal harmonies and layered sonorities. The ten-part string textures of the final variant, with its beguiling cello and harp passages, crowned a memorable performance.
It was to Vaughan Williams that Gustav Holst dedicated his cantata The Hymn of Jesus, a work that so excited its dedicatee that, after its first public performance in March 1920, he “wanted to get up and embrace everyone and then get drunk”. The work was immediately recognised as strikingly original, not least for Holst’s idea to write for two choirs, a semi-chorus of treble voices and a large orchestra. Considered remarkably daring in 1920, this work continues to arrest the ear with its unlikely blend of centuries-old plainsong, bitonality and an exultant central panel in 5/4 time. No less startling is the composer’s choice of text drawn from the Apocryphal Acts of John, its Christian message of suffering and redemption intended a response to the horrors of the Great War.
In this meticulously prepared performance in the composer's 150th anniversary year, the Cathedral choristers were suitably ethereal in their repeated “Amens” and the combined forces of five main choral groups (from Bristol, Gloucester, Stroud, Thornbury and Wycliffe) were resplendent in their opening declamations and reassuringly secure when required to be dramatic, dancelike or mystical. The work’s antiphonal exchanges and asymmetric rhythms were sung with complete assurance and its closing bars haunting in their quiet mystery. Throughout, the orchestra were alert and sensitive collaborators, with numerous persuasive solo contributions.
Messiaen’s unaccompanied O sacrum convivium! is a work of quiet restraint that never fails to make an impact with its long-breathed phrases and ear-catching harmonic progressions. More often sung by considerably smaller choral forces than heard here, it was a bold choice to include this challenging motet. Despite occasional difficulties with pitching and ensemble, the large contingent of some 130 voices still managed to convey the work’s ecstatic devotion.
That quality took a more jubilant turn in Poulenc’s Gloria, commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation of America in 1957. It’s a work of unbuttoned exuberance and while its musical invention may be decidedly thin at times, its clipped phrase patterns brought accumulating momentum with Poulenc’s combination of the sweet and the tart fully realised. There was nothing cloying in the forthright tempi, nor any doubt about the work’s rhythmic vitality, Partington shaping an account that spotlit the composer’s vision of angels sticking out their tongues and Benedictine monks playing football. The orchestra showcased the work’s primary colours and an ardent Samantha Clarke, replacing an indisposed Gweneth Ann Rand, neatly negotiated Poulenc’s sinuous solo writing, her radiant soprano adding much to the work’s fervour.
Altogether, these performances were a credit to the participating choirs, and if words were not consistently transparent there was plenty of commitment behind them.
****
Adrian Partington
© Still Moving Media for Cheltenham Festivals
It was to Vaughan Williams that Gustav Holst dedicated his cantata The Hymn of Jesus, a work that so excited its dedicatee that, after its first public performance in March 1920, he “wanted to get up and embrace everyone and then get drunk”. The work was immediately recognised as strikingly original, not least for Holst’s idea to write for two choirs, a semi-chorus of treble voices and a large orchestra. Considered remarkably daring in 1920, this work continues to arrest the ear with its unlikely blend of centuries-old plainsong, bitonality and an exultant central panel in 5/4 time. No less startling is the composer’s choice of text drawn from the Apocryphal Acts of John, its Christian message of suffering and redemption intended a response to the horrors of the Great War.
In this meticulously prepared performance in the composer's 150th anniversary year, the Cathedral choristers were suitably ethereal in their repeated “Amens” and the combined forces of five main choral groups (from Bristol, Gloucester, Stroud, Thornbury and Wycliffe) were resplendent in their opening declamations and reassuringly secure when required to be dramatic, dancelike or mystical. The work’s antiphonal exchanges and asymmetric rhythms were sung with complete assurance and its closing bars haunting in their quiet mystery. Throughout, the orchestra were alert and sensitive collaborators, with numerous persuasive solo contributions.
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, South Cotswold Big Sing Group and Choristers of Gloucester Cathedral
Messiaen’s unaccompanied O sacrum convivium! is a work of quiet restraint that never fails to make an impact with its long-breathed phrases and ear-catching harmonic progressions. More often sung by considerably smaller choral forces than heard here, it was a bold choice to include this challenging motet. Despite occasional difficulties with pitching and ensemble, the large contingent of some 130 voices still managed to convey the work’s ecstatic devotion.
That quality took a more jubilant turn in Poulenc’s Gloria, commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation of America in 1957. It’s a work of unbuttoned exuberance and while its musical invention may be decidedly thin at times, its clipped phrase patterns brought accumulating momentum with Poulenc’s combination of the sweet and the tart fully realised. There was nothing cloying in the forthright tempi, nor any doubt about the work’s rhythmic vitality, Partington shaping an account that spotlit the composer’s vision of angels sticking out their tongues and Benedictine monks playing football. The orchestra showcased the work’s primary colours and an ardent Samantha Clarke, replacing an indisposed Gweneth Ann Rand, neatly negotiated Poulenc’s sinuous solo writing, her radiant soprano adding much to the work’s fervour.
Altogether, these performances were a credit to the participating choirs, and if words were not consistently transparent there was plenty of commitment behind them.
****
