Press
Ham and High
Ham and High 30 June 2006
by David Sonin
****
Choir triumphs in King's premiere
PROMS AT ST JUDE'S - CHORAL CONCERT
The North London Chorus with baroque
orchestra
Conductor Murray Hipkin
Soprano Sally Silver,
Mezzo-soprano Valerie Reid,
Tenor James Edwards
Bass Graeme Danby
"THE North London Chorus has undergone quite a transformation since ENO repetiteur Murray Hipkin I took up the role of conductor and its performances have become as polished as any choir on the patch.
Its guest appearance for the Proms' choral concert spot was especially welcome as it brought with it a world premiere - its own commission, Matthew King's The Season Of Singing.
Termed by the composer as a work for soprano (Sally Silver), mezzo (Valerie Reid), choir and classical orchestra (a modern instrument version exists), it is a setting in five parts of verse by Milton, e e cummings, William Byrd, Shakespeare, Blake, D H Lawrence and words from the Song of Songs.
It is a work of complexity that veers from the dissonant to the melodic, but never goes beyond an aural limit where sound becomes obscure and the texts are buried in a welter of effects.
King is also very adept at setting a line and he seems to recognise instinctively that, for the average non-professional choir, there are limits beyond which one should not cross. His restraint was amply rewarded by some really first-rate ensemble singing.
The choir and orchestra then turned to Mozart's requiem K626 where bass Graeme Danby and tenor Amos Christie joined the choir and the female soloists in a performance that featured incisive orchestral playing as well as a focused contribution from the choir.
The quartet of soloists blended particularly well although the overall effect veered towards the operatic. However, Hipkin obtained a good emotional thrust throughout the Sequenz, the chorus providing a keen and welcome dramatic edge to the Dies Irae and Rex Tremendae.
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.
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.