Polyphony in Aberdeen
The French writer Victor Hugo was notoriously careful with his money. Having just published his novel Les Misérables he was anxious to find out how sales for the book were doing so he sent a telegram to his publisher which read simply, “?”. The publisher sent a reply by return which read “!”. Not because I am stingy but rather because no words of mine can possibly do justice to the performance I have just heard in St Andrew’s Cathedral by Stephen Layton and his world beating choir Polyphony, I am tempted to write simply “!!!!!” and leave it at that. However, I suppose I will have to make an effort at something more expansive although most of the required superlatives have become a little hackneyed with time. I have heard many choirs large and small sing in St. Andrews. I have sung in some of them myself and I know that the Cathedral has a notoriously cavernous acoustic. So often this is something that choirs have to fight against but Stephen Layton and Polyphony managed to use the Cathedral as the perfect sounding board for their magnificent singing making the very stones shout out with joy as they resounded to the choir’s astonishing fortes or providing a subtly confiding ambience in which to wrap their most delicate pianissimos. The blending of the voices was perfect, none stood out unless Stephen Layton intended that they should. This was a true orchestra of voices with wonderful basses just like the double basses in an orchestra. Layton’s direction too was minimal, just fine tuning his orchestra here and there, which was all they needed. He made the first three pieces in the programme segue smoothly together ending with Morten Lauridsen’s glorious motet O Magnum Mysterium. It may have been sung as well as this elsewhere but I am certain that it has never been sung better anywhere. John Tavener’s The Lamb was followed by The Tiger which has echoes of the first piece. I have often heard The Lamb before but never together with its companion piece - it is simply too difficult for most choirs who are often weak on male voices. Tonight Polyphony made it ring out easily giving the whole far more of an emotional kick than the sum of the two pieces on their own. Anton Bruckner’s Ave Maria and Locus Iste shone brilliantly, glowing like the musical equivalent of a fine Cathedral Rose Window, while Locus Iste provided the perfect lead into a new piece by Paul Mealor who also uses this text. The basses led off into Sanctuary Haunts a work whose three parts are superbly woven together and culminate in a glorious interweaving of the light and darkness of the earlier music. Mealor’s harmonies are especially telling and expressive of feeling, a kind of musical second cousin of Lauridsen but with many special individual touches like the beautiful offstage soprano solos which were done so stunningly in this performance. Poulenc’s Timor et Tremor opened the second half of the concert which had at its core some of the most astonishing and marvellous choral music I have ever heard. These were four pieces by the young Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds. I am tempted once again to fall back on those exclamation marks. These pieces employed stunningly effective writing for solo voices along with exciting and surprising harmonies. The two pieces which left me thoroughly entranced were A Drop in the Ocean which had wind sounds and dramatic explosions of spoken words along with the beautifully sung text and Legende de la Femme Enmurée which although the text was not in a language I understand nevertheless told its story to wonderful dramatic effect through the music alone. Polyphony concluded their dazzling concert with three pieces by the American composer Eric Whitacre whom I am more familiar with as a composer of music for wind band but his final setting Sleep with its ending gently fading into silence was another example of the kind of stunning performance we got from Polyphony. Then, leaving me in a particularly good mood, the choir repeated Bruckner’s Locus Iste which is one of my personal all time favourites.
Alan CooperSee concert details...