United Kingdom Varied – The Gesualdo Six’s Morning Star: The Gesualdo Six (Alasdair Austin, Man James [countertenors], Josh Cooter [tenor], Joseph Wicks [tenor], Michael Craddock [baritone], Owain Park [artistic director, bass]) Wigmore Corridor, London, 20.12.2024. (MB)
The eve of the shortest day of 2024 was particularly depressing in London: chilly, moist, and darkish. All of the extra want, then, for an aural glimpse of the ‘Morning Star’ that gave its identify to this Wigmore Corridor live performance from The Gesualdo Six. Somewhat than think about Creation, Christmas, or Epiphany, the programme took us from one by means of one other to the third. Certainly, it maybe tried to do an excessive amount of in too many items, a succession of very completely different, typically brief musical gadgets in some circumstances extra merging into one than displaying affinity and connection, although there have been actually exceptions to that. A packed viewers, although, clearly loved its night, nowhere extra so than in an encore efficiency of Jingle Bells, organized by Gordon Langford. ‘Type’ may appear an unduly pretentious attribute, however for me it identified what had typically been lacking elsewhere, sure standout items providing welcome aid. Maybe a church acoustic would have imparted a hotter mix, or maybe I used to be merely not in the fitting temper, however there have been occasions – and I realise it is a matter of style greater than the rest – when aid within the guise of feminine voices may need helped.
I had reservations, then, however this was additionally a chance to listen to a very good vary of repertoire from chant to Palestrina to the current day, within the guise of inventive director Owain Park’s personal O ship out thy gentle, gratefully written for the group, wherein occasion they have been clearly very a lot at residence. Palestrina had appeared on the opening, within the guise of David Willcocks’s well-known association of a Nunc dimittis as a Mattins responsory. Many will certainly have recognised it in a single guise or one other, and it made for a becoming opening, adopted by effectively if barely anonymously sung Lassus (how I felt a couple of later instance too) and extra florid Praetorius, Nun komm der Heiland, which to my ears gave a extra arresting impression. Plainchant and ‘Anon.’ typically fared finest, I believe, misleading simplicity allowing performances and their reception to residence in on melody and phrases, the mediaeval carol Angelus advert virginem gathering voices in a heat conclusion to the primary half.
Different highlights for me included the extraordinary wandering chromatic strains of Jacobus Händl’s Mirabile mysterium. They’re something however straightforward to sing, but intonation by no means proved an issue. Nor did it in Poulenc’s O magnum mysterium, which emerged a little bit later as becoming complement in stillness and motion, though this was a type of circumstances once I felt the lack of girls’s (and even kids’s) voices. The expressive accomplishment of Byrd’s Rorate coeli was extremely welcome, maybe a first-half counterpart to the second-half highpoint of Clemens von Papa’s euphonious and, no coincidence, extra prolonged Epiphany Magi veniunt. It was preceded by Joannes Eccard’s Maria wallt zum Heiligtum which likewise benefited from a level extra heat.
Not one of the twenty-first-century items appeared involved with straining on the edges of modernity, Sally Beamish’s Within the stillness purposefully reticent, virtually belying the talent with which verbal and musical cadences coincided. Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Judith Bingham ventured additional harmonically, the previous a uncommon if likely coincidental occasion of seeming to take its depart from its predecessor (Händl), the latter one other welcome case of portray on a barely bigger canvas, which if not precisely ‘Romantic’ was not precisely un-Romantic both. Arvo Pärt’s Morning Star, well-crafted and carried out with sympathy, readily laid naked thought and processes. A considerably dour Cornelius ‘Three Kings’, sung in English, prompt that the nineteenth century was generally higher prevented; until, that’s, we depend Jingle Bells.
Mark Berry
Palestrina (arr. Willcocks) – Matin Responsory
Lassus – Conditor alme siderum
Praetorius – Nun, komm der Heiden Heiland à 6
Sally Beamish – Within the stillness
Jacobus Händl – Mirabile mysterium
Cheryl Frances-Hoad – The Promised Gentle of Life
Plainchant – Rorate coeli
Byrd – Rorate coeli
Poulenc – O magnum mysterium
Anon (arr. Praetorius) – Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
Anon – Angelus ed virginem
Plainchant – Ecce advenit
Cornelius – Weihnachtslieder, Op.8: No.3, ‘Die Könige’
Eccard – Maria wallt zum Heiligtum
Clemens von Papa – Magi veniunt
Arvo Pärt – Morning Star
Judith Bingham – In Mary’s love
Plainchant – Vidimus stellam
Lassus – Tribus miraculis
Owain Park – O ship out thy gentle
Bob Chilcott – The Shepherd’s Carol
