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United Kingdom A Ceremony of Carols: Esther Beyer (harp), Alex Macqueen (narrator), Girls’ Choir and Chapel Choir of Pembroke College / Anna Lapwood (conductor). Kings Place, London, 9.12.2022 (CC)
Patricia Van Ness – The Nine Orders of the Archangels: Archangelus, Gabriel, Pareædicator
Adrian Peacock – Venite, Gaudete!
Errolyn Wallen – Peace on Earth
James MacMillan – O Radiant Dawn
Elizabeth Poston – Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
Trad. / John Rutter – Personent Hodie
Ben Ponniah – Seeing the Star
Melissa Dunphy – O Oriens
Benjamin Britten – A Ceremony of Carols
John Rutter / Owain Park – The absolute best time of 12 months
This was in some ways the right Christmas live performance: spectacularly nicely programmed, with an apt sequence of readings completely delivered by actor Alex Macqueen, culminating in Britten’s lovely Ceremony of Carols and carried out in a single seamless arc (with out interval). Much of this programme could also be acquainted to those that bought Signum Records’ A Pembroke Christmas, reviewed by my colleague John Quinn on MusicInternet International (assessment right here). An addition at Kings Place although was spoken tracts from work by Joyce Carr Stedelbauer, Rowan Williams, Malcolm Guite, T. S. Eliot, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Margaret Deland. The actor Alex Macqueen delivered the texts completely, maybe most memorably in T. S. Eliot’s Journey of the Magi (though in equity that might be private bias – it’s considered one of my favorite poems).
While the Signum recording boasts the extra reverberant acoustic of Pembroke College, the main target of Kings Place gave extra chew to the stressed strains of Adrian Peacock’s Venite, Gaudete!, which finds two strata, the just about breathless, preliminary ‘Venite’ and the slow-moving decrease strains, superbly formed right here, interchanging locations in the course of the course of the work. Its easy premise is mightily efficient, not least for the rhythmic precision required. It was preceded by Patricia Van Ness’s Archangelus, Gabriel Preædicator, a single line influenced by the plainchant of Hildegard of Bingen.
After a studying of Rowan Williams’s Advent Calendar, Errolyn Wallen’s Peace on Earth forged a quasi-mystical spell, with the choirs joined by the harp. As conductor Anna Lapwood factors out in her notes, it’s a extremely intimate piece, and as such operates as the right complement to James Macmillan’s O Radiant Dawn, While it’s, as Lapwood, says, decidedly text-led, it sits on the knife-edge between modernity and timelessness that solely a real grasp can obtain. This was hypnotically lovely, the slight silences pregnant with that means. The phrases ‘And the shadow of death’ appeared to tackle explicit that means previous to the repetitions of ‘Amen’. Macmillan’s piece is definitely up there with Britten’s as a piece of genius,
Nice to have a mixture of the acquainted and unfamiliar, too: Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree is the piece that opens Pembroke’s carol service yearly, which most likely accounts for the sense of familiarity and affection on this efficiency, its inner heat complemented by the jubilation of John Rutter’s association of Personent Hodie. Eliot’s The Journey of the Magi sat completely between this and Ben Ponniah’s pretty Seeing the Star, a chunk that pits complexity in opposition to single strains to masterly impact.
The second setting of O Oriens (the primary was the MacMillan) is by Melissa Dunphy, whose setting makes use of plainchant as a foundation for a name to the sunshine. Lapwood’s efficiency was completely paced, with simply sufficient motion to recommend a religious background right here.
The predominant occasion was Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, Op.28. Space meant the inward processing was from the edges of the live performance corridor, however this was a superbly collectively ‘Hodie Christus natus est’. Harpist Esther Beyer, at present within the ultimate 12 months of her Masters diploma at London’s Royal Academy of Music, was a glowing presence in ‘Wolcum Yole!’; her solo ‘Interlude’ was riveting; there was a magic to her chords in ‘There is no rose’, too. Solos from the choir have been superbly taken, and the joy of ‘This Little Babe’ was palpable, whereas the penultimate ‘Deo gracias’ had actual gravitas.
A terrific, life-enhancing efficiency; as a primary farewell, we have been accorded Owain Park’s association of John Rutter’s The absolute best time of 12 months, as warming as brandy butter on a sizzling mince pie. One encore – what else however Have your self a merry little Christmas … excellent.
Colin Clarke
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