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[CD Review: SIGCD182, What Sweeter Music] John Quinn, for MusicWeb International, October 2009
Nigel Short and his choir of professional singers, Tenebrae, made their debut on disc with a CD of music for Advent and Christmas, released in 2002, entitled The Dream of Herod (SIGCD046). They return to seasonal music with this CD, most of which is brand new, though a few tracks were recorded a while ago.
The programme is divided, broadly, into three categories. Quite a number of items are modern arrangements of old favourites. Nigel Short himself contributes very pleasing arrangements of Quem Pastores? and Away in a Manger. Both of these are not only effective but seem also to evidence affection for the original carols. Though some may feel the performance of Away in a Manger is rather on the slow side there’s no denying the chaste purity of the setting and the unnamed solo soprano who sings verse one does so exquisitely. Jonathan Rathbone’s arrangement of Silent Night is also very welcome, encasing the familiar tune in slow-moving close harmonies. While enjoying these and other new arrangements of old standards, however, it’s good to find that, just like his descants for popular congregational carols, the arrangements by Sir David Willcocks of Quelle est cette odeur agreeable? and Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day more than stand the test of time.
Mention of Sir David in a Christmas context inevitably leads one to the name of John Rutter. In fact I believe that Sir David was instrumental in starting Rutter off on his immensely successful career by championing Nativity Carol, one of his very earliest Christmas pieces, which he wrote while still a Cambridge undergraduate. Here it is once more, beautifully sung by Tenebrae. Incidentally, though one very often hears it accompanied by orchestra I prefer it with a gentle organ accompaniment – as here – since that reinforces the intimacy of this lovely little carol. Nigel Short has chosen two more Rutter carols, both of which I think are among Rutter’s finest. He and his expert choir give exquisite, controlled performances of What Sweeter Music? and There is a Flower, though I have to say that the former is taken a bit slowly for my taste – I seem to recall that Rutter himself, in his own recording, was just a touch swifter, to the music’s advantage. There is a Flower opens and closes with a solo voice. Previously, in my experience, this has been a treble or soprano but here the solo is allotted to a baritone. Though the singer does well I don’t think the choice quite works; when sung by a male voice the melody – and the words – rather loses the pure innocence that a high voice can bring.
The Rutter items fall into the second category of offerings in this programme: original compositions. We also find Tavener’s The Lamb and Howells’s A Spotless Rose. Both are beautifully done but, though I greatly admire both settings, I do feel that their near-ubiquity in programmes such as this is in danger of devaluing them and making them seem routine. I acknowledge that both are popular items – deservedly so – and that popularity sells discs but it would be nice if choirs remembered that Howells in particular wrote several other fine Christmas settings. By comparison, Adrian Peacock’s Veni, veni is scarcely well known but I hope its exposure here will encourage other choirs to investigate it for it is a good piece that grows in excitement from almost nothing until it reaches an abrupt end.
But if I had to single out one piece deserving of wide currency then I’d unhesitatingly nominate Jonathan Rathbone’s The Oxen. In the booklet Nigel Short describes this as a “ravishing setting” and he’s spot on in that judgement. Rathbone takes Thomas Hardy’s poem and clothes it in wonderful, luminous close harmonies that move gently and slowly. This hushed setting for unaccompanied voices struck me as a superb response to the poem and when I played the disc for the first time I replayed this item immediately on hearing it. I just regret that it’s followed immediately on the disc by the necessarily boisterous Gaudete, which rather breaks the spell that Rathbone has cast.
The third category of music in the programme accommodates the lighter, secular pieces. Jingle Bells is presented in a clever, jazzy arrangement and Nigel Short’s version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas is also effective. Best of the three items in this category, I think, is Andrew Carter’s The Twelve Days of Christmas. This is ingenious and entertaining, though I’ll reserve judgement on the farmyard noises that the singers contribute, presumably at Carter’s behest.
Tenebrae perform these three secular items with evident relish and, indeed, the technical accomplishment that’s in evidence throughout this recital is of the highest order. They bring an effortless excellence to all their singing and deliver the entire programme with supreme professionalism and a good deal of commitment. I can see this disc giving a lot of pleasure this Christmas; I shall certainly be listening to it with great enjoyment during the Festive Season.
Jingle Bells Arr. Ben PARRY [2:35]
Silent Night Franz GRÜBER arr. Jonathan RATHBONE [4:07]
What Sweeter Music? John RUTTER [4:46]
A Spotless Rose Herbert HOWELLS [3:41]
Quem Pastores? Trad. arr. Nigel SHORT [1:43]
Veni, veni Adrian PEACOCK [2:38]
here is a Flower John RUTTER [4:03]
Alleluia Peter WISHART [1:53] *
The Lamb John TAVENER [3:53] **
I Wonder as I Wander Arr. Andrew CARTER [3:23]
Quelle est cette odeur agreeable? French Trad. arr David WILLCOCKS [4:35]
We Wish You a Merry Christmas Arr. Nigel SHORT [2:05]
The Oxen Jonathan RATHHBONE [2:55]
Gaudete Arr. Karl JENKINS [1:48] **
Away in a Manger Trad. arr. Nigel SHORT [4:09] *
Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day Trad. arr David WILLCOCKS [1:57]
Nativity Carol John RUTTER [4:40]
The Twelve Days of Christmas Arr. Andrew CARTER [3:36]
Tenebrae/Nigel Short
James Sherlock (organ)
rec. St. Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, London 22-26 June 2009; *27-28 August 2001; **St. Michael’s Church, Highgate, 12-13 May 2004
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD182 [58:30]
Catalogue number – SIGCD182
RECORD LABEL: Signum Classics
FORMAT: CD
RELEASE DATE: 19-Oct-2009
Available from: Amazon
Concert Review: Basilica St. Louis, 24th October 2009. John Huxold, Special to the Post-Dispatch, 10/25/2009
The magic of music has been the topic of speculation and debate for centuries. In a variety of contexts, it has the power to excite, to shock, to soothe, to inspire.
Like all clichés, the observation that music bypasses the head and goes directly to the heart has some basis in fact as evidenced by its extensive use in advertising, movies and religion.
Friday night at the Cathedral Basilica some of that special magic was created by an English chamber choir. Tenebrae, as the group is called, takes its name from the Holy Week rite of the Catholic church that includes a ceremony of candles.
So, in the space in front of the chancel, 10 candle stands each holding 25 candles provided most of the light for the concert. The choir came in down the main aisle singing the plainsong hymn “Tantum Ergo” and the enchantment began. You could almost believe you were back in a more ancient, more mystical time.
Everything on the program maintained the ethereal atmosphere, and not just with the subject matter, which was uniformly religious. The compositions were all written in the last 75 years in a harmonic style that features gentle dissonances struggling to a climax but then resolving into a soaring, extended consonance.
With “Four Motets on Gregorian Themes” by Maurice Durufle, the title says it all. In the case of the “Mass in G” by Francis Poulenc the name of the composer says most of it, his extroverted and whimsical instrumental style converted to a more serious lightness of being.
Tenebrae doesn’t sing only from the front, but sometimes places its 18 voices in small groups at the sides and middle of the cathedral space, a true surround sound experience. The two sections of Joby Talbot’s “Path of Miracles” depicting a 12th-century pilgrimage benefitted most from this arrangement with its chord clusters raining down from everywhere.
“Funeral Ikos” and “Hymn to the Mother of God” by John Tavener with its unison singing and monosyllabic text tamed the cavernous cathedral acoustic. And “Song for St. Alban” by Tenebrae’s director, Nigel Short, got its world première; the piece goes in unique and abrupt harmonic directions that provide pleasant surprises at every turn.
Tenebrae has flawless intonation, exquisitely sculpted phrases and perfectly trimmed attacks and releases. The voices have just a touch of vibrato, adding a richness to the vocal texture without intruding on the seamless blend. A program note states that the goal of the choir is to create “an atmosphere of spiritual and musical reflection.” Certainly that mission was accomplished.
Throughout the evening the audience was wrapped in a blanket of total silence, eager to applaud but reluctant to break the mood. No such hesitation at the end, when an extended standing ovation, thankful for the magic, is still rising toward heaven.
[Review: Tenebrae & Scottish Ensemble, 26th August 2009, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh] The Scotsman, 27th August 2009.
James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross, although written 15 years ago, has an intense spiritual dimension that gives it a timeless, eternal quality. This haunting evocation of the last seven sentences spoken by Christ on the cross was suffused with a visceral rawness in a sensational performance by the Scottish Ensemble and singers from Tenebrae.
Beginning with competing vocal and instrumental narratives in Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, gradually as the work progresses these elements are stripped down, until the final Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit leaves just the violins to gasp the last breaths. Director Nigel Short blended all the elements together superbly, including perfectly judged silences, in this definitive performance of one of MacMillan’s most powerful and moving works.
[Concert Review] The Telegraph
Osborne Premiere, City of London Festival, review
Nigel Osborne’s Seven Words, Seven Icons, Seven Cities provided intimacy and beautifully crafted understatement.
By Ivan Hewett
Everything came in sevens at the choir-and-strings concert at St Andrew’s Church in Holborn: Seven Last Words from the Cross from James Macmillan, and a new piece from British composer Nigel Osborne entitled Seven Words, Seven Icons, Seven Cities. This was a celebration of seven cities lying on or near the 60th parallel (it should have been 49th, surely, but never mind).
Each movement offered a very fragmentary text (sung by Tenebrae) in obscure languages, plus projected images of misty landscapes, plus a suggested “icon” to meditate on. We had Nuclear Reactors, Passing Aircraft, Northern Lights, Ancient Myth, unpronounceable names referring to who knows what.
There was enough material for a 90-minute oratorio. What we got was a delicately suggestive 23-minute set of miniatures. Wispy textures in the strings (the excellent Scottish Ensemble) suggestive of northern mist gave way to choral stanzas of an archaic modal hue. The contrast between the clanking symbolic apparatus and the slenderness of the music was bizarre, but I enjoyed the music’s intimacy and beautifully crafted understatement.
Intimacy and understatement can be virtues of MacMillan’s music. But in Seven Last Words from the Cross his symbolic intentions are written in letters seven feet high. We heard splintered, “brutal” string chords, “keening” figures, long choral movements that started dolefully and rose heavenwards, or vice versa. In contrast, there was one marvellous passage in the sixth movement when the harmony edged upwards by semitonal degrees, in a way that echoed Wagner’s power without mimicking his language. For a moment, a real musical idea emerged.
In this company, Shostakovich’s 8th Quartet seemed more than ever a true masterpiece. Like everything else in the concert, it was performed with tremendous intensity and care for detail. All praise especially to cellist Alison Lawrance for the quiet gravity of her solos.
[Concert Review] The Times
Scottish Ensemble/Tenebrae at St Andrew’s, London EC4
Neil Fisher
When the City of London Festival wanted a composer to mark all their chosen seven cities on the latitude of 60 degrees north (one of this year’s more whimsical themes, not least when you start to think about the gulf between Kirkwall, Orkney Islands and St Petersburg, Russia), there was one obvious choice. Nigel Osborne, whose last big commission for the festival explored the legacy of the Bosnian war, is a passionate European (and polyglot) whose work and studies have taken him across the continent.
Thankfully, his brief but effective Seven words, seven icons, seven cities doesn’t try to paint individual postcards so much as string these chilly destinations together in one cool chapter. Fragments from national texts, from Gaelic to Estonian, Finnish to Russian, are mixed up with their English translations and sung with a rapt plangency by the voices of Tenebrae. As with many of Osborne’s other works, the tension — more obviously expressed in the quivering accompaniment from the string players of the Scottish Ensemble — is tradition versus modernity. The “icons” in question are mostly those of contemporary technology — radio frequencies for Oslo, a ship’s engine for Kirkwall — which feed into the spikier textures of the music, as well as the sombre, striking videos produced by Cathie Boyd and Angelica Kroeger to partner the piece.
Seven words was also commissioned as a companion for the evening’s main event, James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross. It’s a brave, unflinching piece, which won its composer the 1995 Mercury Music Prize, and it was given a brave, unflinching performance. Whether it really manages to turn religious contemplation into musical transcendence may depend on a listener’s spiritual commitment, however. Here, it seemed overlong and rather underinflected, its seven, agonised sections not so much building to a climax as simply piling on the agony, and the rather saccharine video art designed for this performance (by Boyd and James Houston) didn’t fill the gap.
Good for the Scottish Ensemble, then, that they were also able to flex their considerable muscle in Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony — an arrangement of the composer’s moving String Quartet No 8 — which was delivered with tragic, taut finality.
[Concert Review – The Pits, Bridewell Hall, London] Michael Church, The Independent – 07 July 2008 (4*)
Why would a singing group call themselves The Pits – because they know they’re rubbish? In fact, the name derives from their debut for some Formula One luminaries, but as members of the chamber choir Tenebrae, they have an impeccable pedigree. And when they took the stage, it was for the laudable purpose of celebrating the sort of domestic music-making that was the norm in Victorian and Edwardian times.
I had never known the origin of that teasing line, sung by women to young men loafing in London rather than getting gassed in the First World War trenches: “We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go.” Nice to discover its full setting in a ditty called “Your King and Country Want You”. Nice also to hear a proper rendition of “Come into the Garden, Maud” – Schubert with a Neapolitan gloss. Elgar, Stanford and Sullivan all turned up trumps, sung with relish and a smile: this music was designed to give pleasure to those who performed it, but that pleasure was guaranteed to rub off on all around. This talented a cappella group could have kept us happily listening all night.