07 November 2024

Music review: Until I see Thee as Thou art (Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh)

CHURCH TIMES, 1 November 2024

Garry Humphreys joins a commemoration of Wolsey in Aldeburgh

THE 550th-anniversary celebration of the birth of Thomas Wolsey began in Ipswich — in Wolsey’s home county of Suffolk — in March 2023 and was planned to last a total of 550 days, comprising many events: exhibitions, tours, walks, as well as activities involving local schools.

As this project draws to a close, there was an opportunity to hear in concert local composer Ben Parry’s specially commissioned Wolsey Mass, in a performance by two choirs from establishments with Wolsey associations: the Church of St Mary le Tower (the civic church of Ipswich, soon to be Ipswich Minster, where Wolsey is said to have attended school in the north transept) and the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace (Wolsey’s creation, from more humble beginnings as an “ordinary country house”), under their respective directors of music, Christopher Borrett and Carl Jackson.

The concert — bearing the overall title “Until I see Thee as Thou art” — was held in the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, the principal venue of the Aldeburgh Festival, with its Britten-Pears connections, until the building of the Snape Maltings. It is a venue as unlike an ecclesiastical building as one could imagine, satisfactory for Vivaldi’s popular Gloria, which ended the programme, but perhaps more challenging for the earlier works in the first half, such as Byrd’s Ave verum corpus and Tallis’s Salvator Mundi.

In the event, the performers were unfazed by the venue, and both choirs were more than a match for each other. The first part was directed by Carl Jackson — whose conducting emphasises line as well as rhythm — Parry’s Mass being divided by the Byrd and Tallis works mentioned above.

I would have preferred to hear it as a concert piece, without interruption, but it certainly made a big impact, sonically very much in the tradition of Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G minor or Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir. Parry’s experience as a singer as well as a choir director and composer was very much in evidence. He understands voices.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to see a copy of the score, but, as the excellent programme notes pointed out, the idea of pairing parts — trebles with tenors, altos with basses — and the staggering and layering of entries building up to powerful climaxes are characteristic features of this attractive piece. Here, as elsewhere, the Jubilee Hall’s acoustic lent a vivid clarity to this and to all the pieces. Before the interval, there was a stupendous performance of Dering’s Factum est silentium.

After the interval, Christopher Borrett conducted Vivaldi’s Gloria, so well known that I imagined that there would be little to say about it; but it turned out to be one of the best performances I have ever heard, Borrett recognising that a drier acoustic permits brisker tempi. The exciting beginning — joined by an orchestra comprising string quintet, and one each of oboe, bassoon, and trumpet, and organ (Carl Jackson) — established the mood for the rest of the piece.

The solos were taken by members of the choir: superb singing by unnamed boy trebles of the duet “Laudamus te” and the solo “Domine Deus, Rex coelestis” and “Domine Deus, Agnus Dei” and “Qui sedes” by the Hampton Court countertenor Hamish McLaren — a voice to watch!


07 September 2024

'From holy day to holiday'

 

I commend to you the excellent article – ‘From holy day to holiday’ – by Fergus Butler Gallie in the Church Times, 30 August 2024, in which he refers to a video of the Southwark Diocesan conference held at Butlin’s, Bognor Regis in 1961. Here’s the video:

https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/36378/

There are also some outtakes (not referred to by Fergus), not to be missed:

https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/36391/ (the first ten minutes).

, , , and here’s the full article:

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/30-august/features/features/from-holy-day-to-holiday-what-do-churchpeople-do-when-they-get-away

Enjoy!

26 August 2024

New master of the King's Music

 

This article in The Guardian on the appointment of Errollyn Wallen as Master of the King’s Music is a hopeful sign for the future of music education in schools:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/aug/25/widen-access-to-classical-music-with-free-lessons-says-errollyn-wallen


30 July 2024

Defend the arts . . . before it's too late

 

I’m not a great fan of Norman Lebrecht, but he has written an excellent article in the latest issue of The Critic:

https://thecritic.co.uk/defend-the-arts-before-its-too-late/

Incidentally, have we heard anything from the new culture minister, Lisa Nandy?

25 July 2024

'It's a disgrace' - Melvyn Bragg on the state of the arts in Britain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th-OVpcr_jE

‘The arts are being systematically undermined and devalued and incompetently treated. That's where we are. That's the sort of country we are at the moment. And it's a disgrace.’

Responding to a newly-published Campaign for the Arts report, Melvyn Bragg calls on the UK to address the languishing state of the arts as a matter of urgency.

Read the State of the Arts report by the Campaign for the Arts and the University of Warwick here: https://www.campaignforthearts.org/reports/the-state-of-the-arts/


06 July 2024

Future prospects for the Arts in the UK?

Apologies for another long pause between posts on this site, partly owing to having been in Intensive Care in Ipswich Hospital for eleven days followed by necessary convalescence, which is proceeding as hoped for, with no expected long-term consequences.

As for the General Election: It is a shame that the election of the excellent Carla Denyer for the Greens in Bristol Central has knocked out Thangam Debbonaire, who would have been Culture Secretary in the new Government. A cellist, educated at Chets and the RCM, she would have been just the person to encourage recovery in this sector, though the PM apparently plays the flute, recorder, violin and piano, was a junior exhibitioner at Guildhall and has declared that playing in an orchestra gave him 'life skills'. Improbably, even deputy PM Angela Rayner is said to be an opera enthusiast! So perhaps there is some cause for mild optimism, though their minds will no doubt be on more 'important' matters, at least initially. The actual new Culture Secretary is Lisa Nandy, whose biography reveals no special interest or involvement in the Arts in general or music in particular, so we will have to wait and see what happens.