Press
Ham and High 01 Dec 2009
by David Winskill
****
The North London Chorus and Orchestra
Conductor Murray Hipkin
Soprano Janis Kelly,
Mezzo-soprano Madeleine Shaw,
Tenor Jaewoo Kim,
Bass baritone Roland Wood
Mendelssohn, Elijah
Passionate music to keep out the cold
Another cold, wet and windy night.
Another cracking concert from a cracking local chorus.
...The opening of the piece is a funeral dirge – all
woodwind and brass and the dark, sepulchral tones of Roland Wood’s wonderful
bass-baritone. Then, Jaws like, onto the string-based overture and the first
wonderful noise from the chorus – Help Lord. Following the recitative, the
sensational Janis Kelly(house soprano) and Madeleine Shaw (mezzo-soprano)
gave the duet Zion spreadeth her hand with beautiful and measured support
from NLC...Their diction and crispness of delivery is excellent and made it
easy to follow the action. They gave fine support to the excellent soloists
without ever swamping them.
As ever, the North London Orchestra turned in a fabulous
performance . Elijah is a longish piece and offers some memorable and
sensitive sections that allow the chorus to show just how well their
confidence and technique is developing under conductor Murray Hipkin.
Murray is clearly a very talented and, probably, more
importantly, passionate conductor and musician...he really worked the chorus
and they responded with a more intense and driven rendition.
But perhaps the star of the evening was the young treble Charlie Manton. A wonderful voice and a calm, confident presence.
Ham and High 27 June 2009
by David Winskill
****
The North London Chorus and Orchestra
Conductor Murray Hipkin
Soprano Sarah-Jane Brandon,
Mezzo-soprano Martha Jones,
Tenor Tyler Clarke
Bass baritone Samuel Evans
St James Church, Muswell Hill
Purcell,
O Sing Unto the Lord;
Handel,
Four Coronation Anthems
A concert programme like this is the musical equivalent
of one of those big boxes of chocolates that have had all the soft centres
removed – an opportunity for total self indulgence.
The tropical deluge that hit north London a couple of
hours before the start of the concert took its toll on the size of the
audience with about one third staying at home. Strangely, as the first piece
(Purcell’s O Sing unto the Lord) demonstrated, having fewer people in the
space actually improved the acoustic.
Handel’s Four Coronation Anthems were excellent – the
soloists working brilliantly with a supportive chorus. However, as Zadok the
Priest demonstrated, having a ratio of almost 3:1 female to male voices puts
a lot of pressure on any choir to deliver the full power required. As Zadok
petered out, somewhere a church bell sounded. Magical.
The first time I heard Hayden’s Nelson Mass, I was
sitting under the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral during one of the spring
masses about twenty years ago. True, lovely as it is, St James can’t quite
compete with Wren’s masterpiece, but Murray Hipkin’s chorus and orchestra
would not have been out of place in a cathedral.
Their interpretation of the Kyrie was a great, powerful
but, above all, confident start to this finest of Haydn’s masses. The
soloists handed in inspired performances – the Qui Tollis was spellbinding –
with top notch passages, especially the Credo and Et Incarnatus , delivered
by the Chorus. They could be soft and tender when required and swish
effortlessly to strong, robust and powerful.
Murray got the balance with the modest sized orchestra,
allowing them to shine, support, but never dominate. This was one of North
London’s best concerts to date.
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
...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...
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.
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...
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... this was an uplifting evening - and a worthy tribute to Alan Hazeldine, the NLC's founding conductor who died in November.
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.