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Ivor Setterfield (left) conducts the New London Singers in All Hallows Church on Saturday |
Camden classical music | Review of In The Beginning at Hallows Church
REVIEW: IN THE BEGINNING
All Hallows Church
ALL Hallows Church, in Savernake Road, Gospel Oak, was the venue for an outstanding vocal treat last Saturday, a concert in aid of the Marie Curie Hospice, in Belsize Park.
Those of us who preferred the cool of this enormous church to the heat outside were amply rewarded.
The New London Singers is a group of about 40 talented amateur singers, committed to performing a wide variety of challenging music.
On this occasion they chose to regale their audience with 20th and 21st-century American choral pieces.
Aaron Copland’s In the Beginning (1947) is a setting of the first chapter of Genesis and featured mezzo-soprano Emma Selway, who introduces God’s intentions for each of the days of Creation.
At the end of each day the choir repeats the phrase “and the evening and the morning were the nth day”.
After several repetitions, the pause before the word “day” seemed a little unnecessary, but the performance was otherwise impeccable, building up to an exciting climax as God breathes life into man’s living soul.
Whether Copland appreciated the irony of using a female voice for God we cannot say, but the effect was electric.
Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei is not as well-known as his Adagio for Strings, and the singers obviously enjoyed it as much as the audience, as they did the next piece, Morten Lauridsen’s Nocturnes – setting three poems by three different authors in three different languages.
Their flawless diction meant that the listeners did not have to follow their programmes.
The second half featured the secular work of two youngish American composers, William Hawley (born 1950) and Eric Whitacre (born 1970), complemented by Herbert Howells’ moving Motet, “Take Him Earth for Cherishing”.
The conductor, Ivor Setterfield, may be familiar from his role in the Channel 5 documentary The Singing Estate, in 2006, when he persuaded a group of non-singers from a north Oxford council estate to learn the first chorus of Carmina Burana and sing it at the Royal Albert Hall.
He is also known to many New Journal readers as the musical director of Bart’s Choir.
The New London Singers have won prizes in both national and international competitions, and perform regularly at London’s leading venues. We were particularly fortunate to hear them on Saturday in All Hallows, which is one of their recording venues.
Their most recent CD is a special recording of both the Duruflé and Fauré requiems to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Maurice Duruflé, and next week they will be recording a programme of Vivaldi, including the Gloria.
Look out for this CD, because there will be no access to the church while they are recording.
Sarah Dawes
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