If there has been a time during the years in which I have
been associated with Singapore’s musical life when quite so many choirs of an outstanding
standard have performed independently of each other, I certainly cannot
remember it. But, as a visiting
Australian lady said to me today as we sat waiting for the latest visiting
choir to start its concert, “We just sort of stumbled across this one”; too
often we find out about these things long after they have taken place.
Despite this choir having made the journey all the way from England,
publicity was not so much limited as non-existent, and while the word-of-mouth
system (which was how I got to hear of this concert) clearly worked – there was
a goodly crowd assembled – I can’t but think how many more Singaporean choral
music lovers would have relished having had the chance to be here. They missed something pretty exceptional.
The St Catharine’s College Consort – 8 singers drawn from
the choir of St Catherine’s College Cambridge – were in Singapore to give a lunchtime
concert at St Andrew’s Cathedral. Their
programme was just 45 minutes, and began and ended with an organ solo, but it
was 45 minutes of sheer choral bliss.
Good organ playing is rare in Singapore. The Esplanade gave up on organ recitals years
ago (perhaps they were attracting the wrong sort of people), Victoria Concert
Hall stages them intermittently but usually covers up the organ as much possible
by pulling in other artists to steal the show, and so far as I am aware, not a
single one of those churches in Singapore which boasts fine organs ever opens its doors to regular recitals. They
are missing a trick. A lunchtime recital
not only attracts plenty of dedicated followers of the organ, but opens eyes
and ears of casual passers-by to an area of music often regarded as too
specialist to be of any real interest.
It’s a long time since I have heard such an invigorating and
stimulating performance of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G major (BWV541) – in Singapore
or anywhere else - as that which framed this concert. Owen Reid played it with wonderful vitality
and brought out that immensely sunny disposition which so attracted Albert
Schweitzer to the piece. He wrote poetically
about it being infused by a bright, cheerful light. The St Andrew’s organ, part pipe - part
electronic, sounded absolutely sizzling in this, and Reid’s brisk, highly
articulate playing meant that nobody’s heart could have failed to be lifted by his
effervescent playing.
As I left the cathedral after the concert, I overheard one
of the choir’s sopranos suggesting that the thing that had gone best for her was
Byrd’s Sing Joyfully. I’m not sure about that. It certainly went very well, and again, as
with the organ prelude, the vitality and energy of the choir was irresistible. But if asked to name the one piece which
stood out above the others in sheer performance quality, I’d have to opt for
John Bennet’s madrigal, All Creatures
Now. Here the exquisite balance director
(and second bass) Edward Wickham drew from his singers using the most subtle
and surreptitious direction, coupled with their immaculate diction and
tremendously crisp rhythmic vigour, made this a truly outstanding performance.
Perhaps most memorable of all was an ingenious arrangement of
The Beatles’ hit, Money can’t buy you
love which was mischievously brought into the programme as an anonymous Elizabethan
madrigal called “Diamond Ring”.
Elizabethan it was – Elizabeth II that is – and madrigal-like it most
certainly was, for this arrangement turned it into a gem of clever contrapuntal
activity and intimate part-writing which was superbly delivered by these eight
singers. It really did come across as a beautifully
written Elizabethan madrigal, sounding neither incongruous nor ridiculous in
the company of some genuine examples of the genre.
One soprano was sent to sit out the medieval Kyrie Deus Creator Omnium included in
the programme as an example of music contemporaneous with the founding of St Catherine’s. Predating Renaissance polyphony yet
post-dating medieval monody, this was an intriguing and tantalising glimpse
into a rarely heard musical world which would have been the kind of sound reverberating
around English chapels and cathedrals in the 15th century. I doubt such things have been heard in
Singapore more than a couple of times before.
Only very occasionally did the eight voices seem
insufficient to carry the musical message fully. In Wilbye’s Weep, Weep, Mine Eyes it was not the number of singers but a slight
tendency towards top-heaviness which denied the madrigal of its full impact,
and to a certain extent that was an issue with Wendell Whalum’s arrangement of
the spiritual The Lily of the Valley. We really needed more bass depth and inner
weight to give this its full impact. Not
so Gordon Langford’s opulent arrangement of The
Oak and the Ash. Here, Wickham had balanced
his singers so well that the rich, lush harmonies really did sound as if the choir
was twice as large.
Wickham’s short and neat introductions helped make this a
pleasingly informal event – as lunch time recitals should always be – but I
wondered at his assertion that Moeran’s setting of Shakespeare’s Sigh no more, Ladies was “jazzy”. E J Moeran had a distinctive musical voice
which blends a sense of nostalgia with a vaguely bitter-sweet English pastoral-ness
– and that, rather than any obvious jazziness, was exactly what was delivered in this exquisite performance.
Two part-songs by Stanford completed this lovely
programme. However, two small concerns
arose here. The occasional contrapuntal
lines of Beati Quorum Via were lost
by a very week tenor line and an overpowering soprano one, while the fact that
the two alto voices – one male one female – really did not begin to blend was
cruelly exposed. Sounding awfully like
Sullivan’s The Lost Chord but without
the aroma of the Victorian parlour, The
Long Day Closes had something of surfeit of sentimentality about it, which
was slightly undermined by the shallow bass.
But, as an exhibition of both fine choral singing and
exquisite music-making, this was possibly the best in the recent upsurge of
choral concerts here.
I’m intrigued by your throw away comment. Why might lunchtime organ recitals attract the wrong sort of people ?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea - but I cannot think why else the Esplanade stopped a series which was regularly attracting very large audiences.
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