30th June 2007 - Viva Vivaldi
The majority of Vivaldi’s sacred music is anything but sombre, as was admirably demonstrated at Saturday’s concert by the Chesterfield Bach Choir. The church of All Saints in Wingerworth, in its pastel modern wing, provided a pleasant setting for this lively music, appropriately dubbed Viva Vivaldi by conductor and musical director Robert Girdler.The choir were joined by the Hunloke Sinfonia for performances of three works: Magnificat, Credo and, probably best known, Gloria. With around twenty voices, half a dozen strings, a couple of wind players and a harpsichord these were authentic forces for this music, the kind of numbers Vivaldi himself might have drawn on at the time of its composition in the first half of the 18th century.
The concert opened with the Magnificat, immediately featuring solo contributions from soprano Jane Yapp, contralto Harriet Fisher and tenor Glyn Herron. Vivaldi’s practice of alternating energetic and more contemplative movements set a pattern and strings and voices established a pleasing complementary balance that they were to maintain all evening. The choir found a hushed stillness for the sonorities of the second movement that was swiftly followed by vivacious trills from the violins in the cheerful third. Showing impressive versatility two choir members took up recorders to add another layer to the accompaniment in the fifth movement.
The pace of the Credo’s opening was if anything even more exhilarating, with vibrantly-sprung string lines reminiscent of parts of the composer’s Four Seasons set against more measured melodies in the voices. Once again both composer and choir handled the shifts from exuberance to stillness and back well.
Launched by splendidly vivacious trumpet work the more extensive Gloria filled the second half of the programme and featured notable solo contributions from Jane Yapp and Harriet Fisher. Jane was joined by fellow soprano Delyth Girdler for the beautiful interlacing lines of the famous Laudamus Te before sharing with the oboe player a delightful rendition of Domine Deus. More moving still was the duet that followed between guest alto Harriet Fisher and the Sinfonia’s cellist. The deep tones of the cello were an excellent match for the alto’s lovely rich voice and their sensitive presentation of the music of the Miserere section was the highlight of the evening. A reprise from the trumpet, encouraging the choir to a last burst of joyfulness in the final movement, brought things to a suitably bright close, and sent an appreciative audience off humming its melodies into the night.
The choir’s Christmas concert, with seasonal music by Bach and his contemporaries, will be at the Parish Church of St Peter in Calow on 24th November.
Alan Shutt 02.07.2007
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20th November 2006 - Rescued by Rheinberger
Robert Girdler’s audacious programming for the concert by the Bach Choir in Brimington on Saturday sought to revive some little known church music of the Romantic period.
I struggled to find Mendelssohn’s English Canticles in catalogues of his works, a difficulty explained when the choir’s director described how he had assembled these ‘English Church Pieces’, with a variety of opus numbers, from across the body of the composer’s music.
The collected sections filled most of the concert’s first half, but while pleasant enough they lacked memorable melodies. My abiding impression was of a composer ‘keeping his hand in’ while not being fully engaged with his material, which was by turns fussy and bland. The pieces were conscientiously performed by this well-rehearsed choir of 18 voices, ably accompanied by organist Andrew Cummings, but could not escape that feeling of fragmentariness.
It was left to Robert Girdler’s even bolder selection, a mass of 1878 by the Lichtenstein-born organist and composer Joseph Rheinberger, to save the concert. The choir plucked this little jewel by an unjustly neglected contemporary of Brahms from obscurity to shine in the unlikely setting of St Michael’s Parish Church.
From the beautiful still melody of the opening bars of the first movement Kyrie the quality of the Munich-based composer’s mass was clear. It illustrated perfectly his stated belief that "Music without singability and beauty of sound has no legitimacy...Music is basically an outpouring of joy, and even in pain knows no pessimism." The Mass in E has a directness and simplicity, composed with assured polish, with easy transitions from delicate to powerful which were particularly noticeable in the central Credo. What struck me most was the calm unashamed sanctity of Rheinberger’s Bavarian Catholicism which grounded this unmistakeably romantic music, despite the absence of filigree and embellishment, in the choral tradition of J S Bach and his contemporaries.
In the evening’s finale the choir revelled in the unabashed exuberance of that earlier age, singing Handel’s rousing Zadok the Priest with gusto. Now here was a piece that everyone knew.
The choir can be heard in more well known repertoire in the New Year when they will sing Bach’s Mass in G and Handel’s Stabat Mater at St Bartholomew’s in Old Whittington on 17th March 2007.
Alan Shutt 20.11.2006
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17th June 2006 - Psalms & Strings at Wingerworth
They may be called the Bach Choir but in their latest concert there was no Bach to be found. Like many other musicians this year the Chesterfield Bach Choir chose on Saturday to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart. Their ‘Psalms and Strings’ concert with the Hunloke Sinfonia at Wingerworth Parish Church included a couple of seldom heard but very enjoyable little sonatas as well as the more famous Vesperae solennes of 1780. While no doubt lacking the grandeur of Salzburg Cathedral, the venue for which the vespers were originally composed, the spare simplicity of the church’s modern extension provided a pleasant setting for Mozart’s melodies, from teasing to glorious, and one in which this relatively small choir managed to sound larger than the number of its voices. The programme, though, also gave an opportunity to sample a number of lesser known pieces by some of Mozart’s near contemporise.
The evening began with the stately opening bars of Telemann’s music for Psalm 117, Laudate Jehovam, with soprano voices soon soaring above the solemn bass ground. Conductor Robert Girdler then took the choir through a pacey rendition of one of Vivaldi’s Beautus Vir settings, a piece which allowed guest soloist Clare Wallace to revel in the music’s joyous celebratory qualities. Either side of the Vivaldi the 6 strings of the Hunloke Sinfonia took a sprightly hold of the essentially playful melodies of two short orchestral pieces by Mozart. Written originally for two strings, bass and organ these ‘Church sonatas’ have a jollity and verve perhaps not always associated with music for sacred surroundings and the spry, springing performance of the players drew generous and deserved applause. The first half of the programme concluded with a setting of Psalm 122 by Joseph Haydn’s younger brother Michael, equally well-known in his lifetime though less so now. His Laetatus sum proved to be another bright and lively piece, given a vigorous and convincing performance by the choir, with a pleasing interplay between soprano voices and strings.
The second half of the concert was devoted to a performance of all six parts of Mozart’s Vespers. The centrepiece and most famous part, Laudate dominum, was given a lovely performance by soprano Jane Yapp, deputising at short notice for the indisposed Delyth Girdler, and was the clear highpoint of the evening. But the Vespers include other beautiful melodies, too often eclipsed by the shining grandeur of the Laudate. The choir coped well with the brisk tempo their conductor set for the exuberant rhythms of the opening Dixit dominus and then provided a secure ground for the quartet of guest soloists in the second movement. Both Clare Wallace and Kate McLean, alto, offered some delightful trills to Mozart’s treatment of Beatus vir in the third movement and then every performer seemed to enjoy the way the young composer played with the melodies he found for Psalm 112, having fun amongst the amens. The heavenly adagio of the Laudate followed, before the conclusion of a rousing Magnificat with Mozart delighting in the interplay of melodic lines. It would be easy to get lost in this complex music, but the choir didn’t.
If you enjoy the opportunity to hear live accounts of music unjustly little performed please make the effort to get to St Michael’s in Brimington on November the 18th when this enterprising choir will be offering choral masterworks by Mendelssohn (English Canticles) and Rheinberger (Mass in C).
Alan Shutt 20.06.06