Press

Ham and High

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Ham and High  26 March 2009

by David Winskill

 

****

 

The North London Chorus and Orchestra
Conductor Murray Hipkin
Soprano Elaine McKrill,
Mezzo-soprano Sarah Pring,
Tenor Michael Bracegirdle
Bass John Molloy

 

 "St James seems to have undergone a refurbishment since I last visited. The pews are gone and there are brand new, cushioned chairs.

 

There is also a vivid red carpet on the old stone flags. Perhaps this had something to do with the apparent changes to the quality of sound made by the North London Chorus and Orchestra.

 

The appetiser for the main course was Ludwig Van's Coriolan Overture - a sad, romantic piece with violent timpani and complex wind and strings.

 

The "specialist players" of the orchestra were all using copies or actual historical instruments. This worked well and gave an insight into how Beethoven would have heard his own work.

 

Apply this orchestra to a smallish (70 voices) choir that has female to male voices in the ration of about 3:1 and the outcome was, for me, a little more problematical.

 

The Missa Solemnis is one of Beethoven's sacred works. The evening's soloists gave superb performances, working closely with the choir to produce many memorable moments. Right from the Kyrie, it was clear how much preparation had gone into this concert - the Christe eleison was superb.

 

As the work progressed it seemed that the choir was having to work hard to compete with the orchestra to be heard. The soloists, professionally trained, were able to assert their voices but the choir was at times rather drowned.

 

But the quieter parts - such as the Benedictus qui venit in the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei - allowed the chorus to show what a wonderful job they could do, soaring and flying with the soloists in some wonderfully sacred moments.

For ears reared on hi-fi discs and CDs the noise made by the orchestra sometimes seemed dissonant and over earthy. However, it was a really worthwhile experiment and will be remembered by many as a valuable insight into the musical world of the early nineteenth century.

 

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Ham and High  4 December 2008

by Michael White

 

****

 

Totally transfixed by exhilarating requiem

 

St Michael's Church

Highgate

 

The North London Chorus with North London String Quartet
Conductor Murray Hipkin
Soprano Janis Kelly,
Tenor Tyler Clark
Baritone Roland Wood

 

"It's a little known fact, but when Brahms's German Requiem was first performed in Britain it was in a version for four-hand piano accompaniment (replacing the orchestra) created by the composer himself.

 

This scaled down but, in the light of history, legitimate version was the one used by the North London Chorus for their Highgate concert.

 

Pianos are no substitute for orchestras - so quantities of colour and variety of texture in the score were lost.

 

But the human ear is a surprisingly forgiving thing and it didn't take long to adjust - even though there were times when the piano duet sounded like drawing room Faure.

 

The chorus singing was by and large very good - far better than the NLC's last concert where they wandered vaguely through Britten's Cantata Misericordium (a problem piece that deserved better) and Karl Jenkins's Armed Man Mass (a piece of doggerel that didn't).

 

Perhaps they'd had more rehearsal. Perhaps the language of the Brahms was more familiar.

 

But here, the ensemble was stronger, the attack firmer and the sound clearer.

 

They also had more stamina - especially in the big fugal sections where Murray Hipkin, the NLC conductor, kept the momentum going through the music that churns like industrial machinery over a pounding bass pedal, and delivered something of exhilarating power.

 

I sat up in the balcony at St Michael's, totally engaged and not minding in the least the absence of an orchestra.

 

I didn't thrill to the NLC's chosen soloists, although they were better in the Schubert G Major Mass that preceded the Brahms...

 

But otherwise this was an uplifting evening - and a worthy tribute to Alan Hazeldine, the NLC's founding conductor who died in November.

 

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Ham and High  30 June 2006 

by David Sonin
 

****

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Ham and High 1 July 2005

by David Sonin

 

****
 

DENISE LEIGH, soprano

North London Chorus

The Musical and Amicable Society

Conductor Murray Hipkin, St Jude's, Hampstead Garden Suburb

 

COMBINE the talents of professional and gifted non-professional singers, a specialist baroque orchestra and imaginative programming with a large dose of public curiosity and you have all the ingredients for a night of rare entertainment.

Curiosity and interest were a big factor with the north-west London debut of soprano Denise Leigh, the blind mother of three who was joint winner of TV's Operatunity.

 

The first half, however, was devoted to Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri, a cycle of cantatas. It is a very ambitious work for any choral society to perform and the North London Chorus put in a very credible performance.

 

A big plus was the period touch by The Musical and Amicable Society. These nine musicians then showed their understanding of the repertoire in an orchestral interlude of three ground bass compositions by Purcell, Marini and Matteis.

 

The second major work was Vivaldi's Gloria in D RV589, the more popular of the composer's two settings of the text, with the Introduzione al Gloria RV642 sung as a solo by Denise Leigh.

 

On TV it was quite impossible to judge the quality of her clear voice and well-schooled diction to which one must add her considerable experience in singing music from the baroque era.

 

And Leigh was admirably paired with the choir's outstanding soprano Shantini Cooray and alto Fran Lane.

 

 

 

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Ham and High 22 April 2005

by David Sonin

 

****

NORTH LONDON CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA

Andrew Rees, tenor, and Paul Keohone, bass-baritone Murray Hipkin, conductor

artsdepot, North Finchley

PRINCE-Archbishop Colloredo, who wanted no operatic nonsense with settings of the mass, would clearly have also kicked the young Puccini down the stairs for his marvellous Messa di Gloria and the orchestral Preludio Sinfonico as being overwrought and theatrical.
 

Thankfully, Puccini did not live in Salzburg in Mozart's time and we can, therefore, appreciate this work as so much more than an apprentice piece - but as very much a foretaste of the great operatic composer's work to come.

 

It was ambitious as well as laudable for Hipkin to programme the work and precede it with Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and in so doing provide a rare treat for a capacity house at the debut of the NLC at artsdepot. For the opera lover, there is in the Agnus Dei, a very recognisable theme Puccini later used in Manon Lescaut.

 

However, this was not spot the tune, but a chance to relish - in the long Gloria, for example - some superb musical bravado in a style that one might usually associate with Rossini. As for his soloists. Hipkin chose a superb tenor in Andrew Rtes. who made out of the brief Gratias agimus a full-blown operatic aria. Not out of place or keeping however. And in the Agnus Dei in which Rees was joined bass-baritone Paul Keohone, the pair provided a memorable finish to a religious work in which spirit burns with a light and bright luminosity. Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms is austere by comparison and, perhaps, more powerful in its expression of religious purpose.

 

Again, all credit to the NLC and the orchestra for a performance that heard the choir on top form. Had the artsdepot done its technical stuff, the performance, on acoustic grounds, might well have deserved an extra half star.