Summer Singing
Hartismere High School, Eye
For five days some 40 people, some young, some not-so-young, came together at Hartismere High School to take part in Summer Singing, a summer school for singers of mixed ages and ability.
Earlier this year the organiser, Eye Bach Choir, secured two grants that helped pay the expenses. One grant came from the BBC Performing Arts Fund, the other from the Suffolk Foundation’s Grassroots Grants. This money, together with the modest fee paid by the participants, made it possible to enjoy the professional tuition of Leslie Olive, Elspeth Davidson and Alan Helsdon who taught the group choral music, vocal technique and folk songs. All the while everyone benefited from the fantastic skills of accompanist Jonathan Rutherford.
Fantastic skills
Leslie Olive, Artistic Director of Summer Singing and conductor of Eye Bach Choir, said: ‘to bring together a group of singers of mixed age and ability is a real challenge for a conductor. But at Summer Singing we managed to engage and teach each participant. People worked very hard on improving their skills and by the end of the week we managed to put on a performance that shone!’
The week saw the group taking part in a wide variety of activities, including learning two opera pieces, songs by John Rutter, unaccompanied folksongs and a great arrangement of the spiritual Down by the Riverside, which was sung from memory during the performance at Paddock House in Eye in front of a very appreciative audience.
Elspeth Davidson, who is an internationally recognised voice coach and a specialist in teaching singers good breathing techniques, gave the group valuable lessons in how to improve posture, breathing and voice production. These techniques made a huge difference in how the choir sounded.
Elspeth Davidson teaches voice production
Alan Helsdon, a member of the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust, taught the group some folk songs and for most participants this was the first time they had sung this type of music. Quite different from the traditional choral repertoire!
Felicity Golding sings "Stormy Weather"
Nine young people, aged between 11 and 16, joined Summer Singing, bringing with them their youth and enthusiasm which added to the fantastic atmosphere throughout the week. One afternoon the group was treated to a ‘classroom concert’ with, amongst others, Emily Pratt (16) performing an aria from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and 11-year old Sophie Snowling singing The Hills are Alive, from the musical The Sound of Music. Both girls sang to an astonishing standard, well beyond their years. Eye has definitely got talent!
Mozart's Marriage of Figaro
Walton's “Belshazzar's Feast” & Vaughan Williams' “Sea Symphony”
Snape Maltings Concert Hall
Eye Bach Choir
directed by Leslie Olive
with
Stowmarket Chorale
The English Arts Chorale
The Mid-Suffolk Symphony Orchestra
Mark Oldfield, baritone
and
Julie Roberts, soprano
Saturday 10 July 2010
William Walton's “Belshazzar's Feast” is an extraordinary work, compelling yet seriously flawed, famous yet too rich for many an audience even eighty years after its composition. Its Old Testament text is uncompromising but paradoxical: we enjoy a lengthy discourse on the political and social habits of the main character (well, the only character, really), King Belshazzar, but when his death is announced we are denied the gory details. Who slew him? How? What for? He is dismissed with one great shout of “Slain!”, and for the last fifteen minutes we rejoice in his death without knowing what he had done to deserve it, apart from an unsuitable choice of deity and offending someone by drinking from the wrong wine glass. Poor chap, killed for not believing the correct religion and disrespecting someone else's: sounds quite contemporary, doesn't it?
The performance was a bit of a mish-mash, too. On the one hand there was some lamentable ragged singing from the choirs, especially early on, and at “How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?” the unaccompanied singing lost pitch quite markedly. The dramatic prophesy “Thou art weighed in the balance ...” was thrown away by the gentlemen of the choir; they muffed it, and a magic moment was wasted. Perhaps the conductor was so busy with the orchestra (understandably) that the choir sometimes looked to him for a lead and were disappointed – the “false gods” were seriously adrift, for instance.
On the other hand there was much that was energetic and tight – the great feast in Babylon was a riot, and the orchestra had a ball while praising the various gods of gold, silver, iron, wood etc. Of course there was some untidy orchestral playing but what could you expect? This is an untidy work. It would tax the ensemble of the finest orchestra.
Sadly, the real criticism has to be reserved for the choice of soloist. Mark Oldfield was not suited to the rôle; his voice has so little body in it that sometimes all one can hear is vibrato, and that same vibrato often makes it hard to tell exactly what note he is singing. He is a successful and highly-regarded performer so clearly there must be a niche for him somewhere, but Old Testament Babylon wasn't it. We recall that we found him disappointing the last time he sang with Eye Bach Choir, as well.
Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony is also unique in this one respect: it is a musical work that makes a damn sight more sense than its text. The original poem by Walt Whitman is a sprawling, mawkish mess of pseudo philosophy and nautical inaccuracy (no real sailor would moor a ship with hawsers, and no way would he cut them if he had). But Vaughan Williams makes of it a powerful and moving event, far more accessible than Belshazzar to performers and audience alike.
It was difficult to fault this performance. It would be churlish to say too much about the unfortunate domino by the choir at the second “Behold the sea”, or to emphasise the poor tuning in lower brass and clarinets at times, because on the whole this was an assured, accurate and deeply moving account of a great and beautiful work.
The large, very fine orchestra played superbly, particular joys being the excellent horn section and Marna Carlson's strong viola solos. The choirs sang with confidence and real enjoyment. The quirky ending to the scherzo movement was done with real presence, and the semichorus at “Wherefore unsatisfied soul?” was quite magical.
The only fly in the ointment was the weakness of Mark Oldfield which was particularly evident in the “rude brief recitative” despite the rollicking efforts of the orchestra. Things improved once he was joined by the soprano soloist Julie Roberts. Unlike Oldfield she had no difficulty rising above the busy orchestration, and sounded superb when she did. The long final movement just got better and better, bringing a tear to the eye, and one reached the end with the conviction that one had been privileged to enjoy a stunning performance and a magnificent occasion.
The star of the show was undoubtedly Julie Roberts. But then again, perhaps it was the choir. Or the orchestra. Or the conductor, or the composer. Anyway, it was all jolly good. If only these three choirs could be persuaded to tackle the Symphony of Psalms next year, this reviewer's cup would be full.
Loved the programme notes, by the way.
A.E.Hayward
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Snape Maltings at night
The orchestra has ceased to play,
the audience has gone away.
Onstage small crosses on the wood
mark where the solo singers stood.
Now comes the rush to home or pub,
to glass of wine and late-night grub
and fond post-mortems in the bar,
how fine the choir or orchestra.
Cup of tea or beans on toast,and which the bit you liked the most,
and was the tenor slightly flat
or did you just imagine that?
The ushers gone, the foyer hushed,
the seats are folded, floor is brushed,
and piles of unsold programmes lean
beside the ticket cash machine.
The car doors slam, performers telleach other that it went off well;
“We certainly must come again ...”
... soft silence settles on the fen.
Inside the air is warm and thick,
contained by wood and russet brick,
a well of velvet, dark and dim,
where ghostly oratorios swim
And all the music ever heard,
each silver note, each lambent word,
still rings though not a soul is near;
still hums, electric, in your ear.
Preparing for our 2010 Snape extravaganza ...
... onstage at Snape Maltings ...
... and relaxing afterwards with a celebration of our conductor's 60th birthday ...
St.Matthew Passion - J.S.Bach
Eye Parish Church 20th March 2010
The Eye Bach Choir
directed by Leslie Olive
with
The Eye Bach Choir Orchestra, leader Geoffrey Barker
The Boys of Colchester Grammar School
Rosamund Walton, soprano
Elaine Henson, contralto
Jeremy Budd, tenor
Andrew Tinkler and Mark Oldfield, basses
Jonathan Rutherford and John Cooper, organ
The full text of A.E.Hayward's review of this important concert ...
The Matthew Passion is a grave and massive work requiring no less than three choirs, two orchestras and five or six soloists. Getting these forces into the front of Eye Church must have required a rather large shoe-horn, but from every practical point of view this concert was a success that pleased its capacity audience.
Directing such forces was no mean feat either, and Leslie Olive was the man for the occasion even though he made life difficult for himself by insisting on both conducting and playing the continuo harpsichord part. This may be historically authentic but there were times when the singers and players would have been better off with their conductor's whole attention; the bulk of them are amateurs, remember, whereas Bach worked with professionals. A case in point was the chorus members singing the part of the Two Priests, who ran into trouble at "It is the price of blood" because they missed clear direction from the harpsichord.
The Matthew Passion is a narrative work, at times descriptive, at times reflective and at times very dramatic indeed. Trying to maintain that narrative by moving quickly from one movement to the next can sometimes have a negative effect, rendering the music less dramatic, not more. Drama is more than story-telling; silence is dramatic too. Sometimes you need to stop and think about what just happened. Possibly for the same reason some tempi were a little fast, leaving us with a performance that certainly had pace but often lacked both space and grace. One reason it has become customary for the audience to join in some of the chorales is to break this very long work into manageable chunks, but because the audience were asked to remain seated there was little sense of occasion and the singing was half-hearted despite the trouble taken to provide them with musical scores.
This reviewer once watched a famous choral conductor rehearsing one of Britain's best-known children's choirs. She spent a full twenty minutes making them sing quieter and quieter until in the end they hardly dared open their mouths. Has the same thing happened to Eye Bach Choir? Restraint's a wonderful thing, but at times during this performance they were so restrained they practically vanished. Of course choirs shouldn't be made to sing loudly, but they should be allowed to do so quite frequently. We had to wait until the 33rd movement before we heard a proper forte, and didn't get anything like a choral fortissimo until movement 42! In particular the very dramatic choruses where the choirs are required to play the part of the baying crowd or the anguished congregation needed far more "bite".
On the other hand the ripieno chorus of boys from Colchester Grammar School were excellent, despite being tucked away in the wings. Their singing was disciplined and well-prepared, their sound strong and fresh. Indeed, over-restraint apart, all the choral work was accurate and confident with a pleasant tone and impeccable balance.
One other point at which restraint was definitely not called for was that wonderful recitative "And behold, the veil of the temple was rent" - alas, where was the thundering Great Organ? At this most exciting moment we had to be content with the genteel tinkling of the harpsichord. Definitely an opportunity missed!
The star of the show was without question tenor Jeremy Budd who not only sung the part of Evangelist but also the tenor arias. Budd is a light, fluent tenor of rare quality. He gave the all-important narrative recitatives a limpid clarity with superb control of the high notes. The extraordinary drama of "And he went out and wept bitterly" could hardly have been bettered but it was a shame that the great pathos of his aria "Oh grief, that bows the Saviour's troubled heart" was swamped by heavy orchestral playing.
He was ably supported by Andrew Tinkler who sang the part of Christus with suitable gravitas and great resonance. He too was less than perfectly served by under-rehearsed orchestral playing in "I will smite".
Soprano Rosamund Walton's "Break in grief" was beautifully sung if a trifle matter-of-fact. Her voice is light and true and her sense of style unerring but occasionally the pace and rapport with the orchestra faltered and one sensed she might have been happier with a more relaxed tempo. Despite a small rhythmic slip she was at her best with a secure and tastefully phrased accompaniment from the two oboi d'amore and bassoon in "Jesus, Saviour, I am thine".
Contralto Elaine Henson also had difficulty being heard above the strings - as every whistling schoolboy knows, the lower the sound the less it penetrates - but sang with a fine control of intonation. Her duet with Rosamund Walton, "Behold my Saviour now is taken" showed a quite magical blend of tone and ensemble so that one might have been listening to twins. In the same piece the choir bared their welcome teeth for the first time with their interjections of "Loose him! Leave him! Bind Him not!"
Sadly, bass-baritone Mark Oldfield's singing was at best an approximation, the very well-known declamation "I do not know the man!" quite obscured by tremolo. The bottom of the range required by Bach was beyond him.
When Bach composed this work the composition of the orchestra was much less settled than it would become even when he died at the middle of the century, and constant presence of a continuo keyboard (either harpsichord or organ) and bass instrument (cello or bassoon) was obligatory. Yet Bach occasionally broke free from convention - to accompany the deeply affecting soprano aria "For love my Saviour now is dying" with one flute, two oboi d'amore and no bass instruments at all was a stroke of genius. On the other hand Bach writes for no less than four flutes, which seems eccentric given the difficulty flautists have in achieving a unified intonation. Some later 18th century composers scored for two oboes, two bassoons and only one flute for precisely this reason.
The orchestras were very adequate to the occasion though the strings were sometimes less accurate than the wind, and the conductor was not always able to keep the free-flowing continuo cello and bass in the right place - even in the right bar in the recitativo stromentato "At evening hour of calm and peace".
The orchestras were at their best in the big set pieces, especially the opening and closing movements, but in a way these were also the most disappointing. People think of Bach as a composer old-fashioned in his lifetime, but he could be an iconoclast when it suited him, and the opening movement is a massive and daring piece of music in which Bach allows powerful musical strands to plough through conventional notions of counterpoint and harmony with amazingly discordant results. It needs to make a portentous statement, announcing that we are to hear "the greatest story ever told". Sadly the two main choirs were far too restrained, their dramatic exclamations of "Look!" "Look where?" far too polite, and the end of the movement arrived with no sense of culmination at all.
The final movement "In tears of grief" is one of the greatest achievements in all music and would certainly accompany this reviewer to his desert island, but it needed far more space, more weight, a kind of ponderous gravity. It was too fast and too quiet. This was not the profound, tragic conclusion the rest of the performance deserved.
A.E.Hayward
William Fergusson, our accompanist
We are sad to lose our extremely talented piano accompanist, William Fergusson, who is leaving us to concentrate on his career as a soloist and composer. We thank him for his splendid work with Eye Bach Choir and wish him well for the future.
We are delighted to welcome pianist Jonathan Rutherford in his place.
Music for a Summer Evening
in Eye Parish Church, 6th June 2009
This is Alf Hayward's review of our summer concert ...
The Eye Bach Choir's programme planners may have taken their eyes off the ball once or twice recently, but on Saturday 6th June in Eye Parish Church they got it exactly right with their "Music for a Summer Evening", selecting works that were not too heavy, nicely varied but not commonly heard. It was also a courageous programme and not at all easy to sing - tackling both Hebrew and Czech languages in one concert must have been the last straw: luckily the camel's back proved equal to the challenge!
Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" are notoriously difficult to sing and not always easy to listen to, but they certainly repay the effort. This was the most modern work, written in 1965, and plunged the choir immediately into an animated 7/8 section which they sung with evident relish.
The second movement begins with a declamation by the supposed author of the Psalms, King David. The composer directs, therefore, that this part is never sung by a woman, and counter-tenor Tim Garrard gave a well-rounded and beautiful account of the solo. When the choir entered again their rapid "why do the nations rage?" section was complex but well-prepared. It needed even more emphasis on the diction, not for the sense of it but to clarify the rhythms.
There were very few obvious errors. In the third movement when the tenors and basses finally entered after the long organ solo, it took them some time to get into their stride, and one sometimes wished the sopranos realised just how small a semitone is, but in general the singing was strong, rounded, well-balanced and accurate, and there were very few occasions when one could tell that this is a choir of some maturity. Particularly impressive towards the end were the parts that dovetailed seamlessly together, the melody passing imperceptibly from one to another.
The accompaniment by Ian Le Grice (organ), Rhian Hanson (harp) and Mark McDonald (percussion) was always efficient with impeccable ensemble, and contributed to a performance that was confident yet somehow very intimate.
The Choir's accompanist William Fergusson is an unusually good pianist, hence the surprising inclusion of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" arranged for piano solo by Michail Pletner. One's first thought was "Why?" - it seems strange to arrange a work so familiar to all music-lovers, and one so beautifully orchestrated that any alteration is immediately incongruous. On the other hand it was nice to hear less popular movements like the Tarantella and Intermezzo which lent themselves to the piano rather well. Other movements were less successful, particularly the March and the Trepak, because the rapid passagework was so rapid that detail and accuracy suffered.
Still, however pointless, this was a display of astonishing virtuosity and it is to the choir's credit that they saw, and seized, the opportunity to celebrate their long association with such a remarkable musician.
Ian Le Grice, Tim Garrard, Jay Britton, William Fergusson, Leslie Olive
The second half began with Janacek's "Otce náš" ("Our Father"). This very beautiful work was written at the beginning of the last century and betrays the composer's fascination with the folk music of his native Czechoslovakia. It is scored for harp and organ - in continental music it is common to combine the organ with one or two other instruments, a habit not often copied by British composers, thank goodness. Harpist Rhian Hanson was a tower of strength, always strong and always in exactly the right place. Organist Ian Le Grice struggled with a slightly unsuitable electric instrument. Luckily his struggles were mainly successful, though the instrument was deficient in bass.
Soprano soloist Jay Britton suited the work perfectly. It is nice to hear a soprano soloist who is not afraid to give it a bit of "welly", and her confidence seemed to rub off on the choir whose performance was also gutsy and strong. The tenors were few but magnificent, cutting through the texture and creating real excitement, while the altos produced a fat, middle-European sound. Conductor Leslie Olive had, as usual, paid attention to articulation and dynamics - in fact the performance revealed detail not apparent on some commercial recordings of this work.
For this reviewer "Otce náš" was the best thing in the concert, but still it was a relief to get back to the English language again, and the choir clearly enjoyed giving us some truly excellent diction in a beautifully pointed, highly rhythmical performance of Constant Lambert's "Rio Grande". Written in 1927 to a text by Sachaverell Sitwell, this work is very much a product of its time with a wacky blend of jazz, sultry Brazilian idioms, and an oh-so-terribly-English choral sound. It's also a curious combination of cantata and piano concerto, and required considerable virtuosity of the two pianists. William Fergusson and Ian Le Grice didn't disappoint, playing with such good ensemble that it was hard to tell when one stopped and the other began. Soprano Jay Britton's contribution was small but perfectly formed. A singer who can make such a significant point with just her last two notes is a rare talent.
It was sad to see that this concert had not drawn the Eye Bach Choir's usual capacity audience. It is hard to respect audience members who will only turn out to hear music they already know. 20th Century music is demanding, of course, and not just of the audience: performers face a steep learning curve as well. The complex rhythms are confusing, the loose tonality and deliberate dissonance require tremendous concentration and an excellent sense of pitch, and it's always hard at first to sing music that may not conform to your own preferred taste. But the Eye Bach Choir have few weaknesses: given adequate rehearsal, good accompaniment and a well chosen programme they can, and do, give almost flawless performances. They certainly did on this occasion, and it is to be hoped that they will learn from this success. If they don't bite a few more bullets and sing more 20th Century music in future, they'll be missing a very significant trick because this is obviously something that suits them very well.
A.E.Hayward
Karl Jenkins' Requiem & The Armed Man
at Snape Maltings, 4th April 2009
This is Alf Hayward's review of our concert at Snape Maltings, in which we were joined by Stowmarket Chorale, the choir of Colchester Royal Grammar School and The Suffolk Symphony Orchestra ...
A very famous musician once described Snape Maltings as having the finest acoustic of any concert hall in Europe. This, combined with its beautiful and atmospheric setting by the River Alde, makes any concert important. When that concert includes the choral work currently the most often performed in Europe, with four outstanding local groups of amateur musicians, it becomes a major event indeed.
Any anti-war work is bound to draw comparison with Benjamin Britten's immortal "War Requiem", and to perform Jenkins' "The Armed Man" in Britten's own concert hall was a brave act. Karl Jenkins sprung to fame in 1995 when his stunning and unusual choral work "Adiemus" captivated choirs and audiences all over the world. With its eclectic mix of quasi-ethnic styles and made-up words it continues to do so, but it has to be said that Jenkins has recently struggled to regain that fresh voice.
It also has to be said that the "Requiem" and "The Armed Man" are not great works of music. Jenkins comes closest to his original inspiration in the Sanctus of "The Armed Man" which echoes the ethnic style so effective in "Adiemus". Elsewhere he is frankly derivative, even to a Pie Jesu where the boy treble and adult soprano solos are a pale imitation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's very beautiful rendition, and the lament for the victims of Hiroshima, though beautifully sung by Charlotte Newstead, was done far more effectively by Michael Berkeley in his 1982 work "Or shall we die?"
Stowmarket Chorale and Eye Bach Choir are two experienced and very able choirs, and presented a well-prepared and thoroughly detailed performance. Balance was excellent, and tone at all times warm and mellifluous. There was plenty of beautiful singing from sopranos and altos, and only in one place in "The Armed Man" did the words become inaudible because the soprano part was so high. There was occasional strained singing in the soprano and tenor parts when singers needed to use a little more support, but the tenor line improved markedly in the second half when joined by the boys of Colchester Royal Grammar School. The boys are not a cathedral choir but sing in an uncomplicated, natural manner. While a little more technique would have allowed them to support the pitch more accurately, they blended well with the older singers and made a significant contribution to the performance.
Jenkins demands a lot of staccato declamation, always difficult to execute, and the combined choirs dealt with this effectively throughout. Entries were usually secure, although some of the more eclectic harmonies worried the tenors and basses, and there was an unfortunate lapse from sopranos and altos in Lux Aeterna when their version of the horn's descending passages was seriously (and very obviously) flat. In the unaccompanied opening of Confutatis there was not enough solid, accurate bass line, though the choir maintained its pitch perfectly until the orchestra arrived many bars later, which must have been hard to do. In Save Me from Bloody Men the unison recitative for tenors and basses, spread widely across the stage, was uncomfortable, but the movement In Paradisum allowed the ladies to cope manfully (ladyfully?) with the task of floating like an aetherial choir.
Soprano soloist Charlotte Newstead was calm and authoritative and gave us the most beautiful singing in Now the Guns Have Stopped, all the more effective because for once the composer was content to let a beautiful voice speak for itself with simple accompaniment and no clever tricks! On the other hand her haunting account of the aftermath of Hiroshima, Angry Flames, was marred by the composer's banal scene-painting; was it really necessary to depict the word "erupt" with a sudden loud crash from the orchestra?
In Pie Jesu she complemented and balanced the singing of the boy soloist with astonishing breath control. Tom Chippendale was clearly nervous but gave a convincing account of his solo, with lovely tone and effortless diction.
The second movement of "The Armed Man" was the unusual Call to Prayer, re-creating the sound of the muezzin. Mojlum Khan's restrained rendition was highly effective, the totally different notion of tonality giving it a strange beauty.
The concert was conducted in his usual calm manner by Leslie Olive. A highly competent conductor, his unfussy, precise direction must be a joy to orchestral musicians although given the enormous stage and forces one wondered if his conducting might have been a little too restrained.
The Suffolk Symphony Orchestra led by Geoffrey Barker played a reliable and professional part. The strings were hard to fault, although the appallingly difficult solo in "The Armed Man" will haunt the principal 'cellist for months to come. The great width of the stage was a challenge, and in the haunting Japanese-style movements of the "Requiem" Leslie Olive struggled to keep the percussion section in time, though Richard Hubbard's flamboyant timpani playing was a joy to watch and must have helped the ensemble.
The "Requiem" was marked by some lovely horn playing, and "The Armed Man" by the large and splendid brass section, though they were stretched by the complex fanfares in one movement. One should mention Geoff Webb's very sensitive playing on the tuba, an instrument that rarely earns its player enough credit.
The music certainly does have some lovely noises in it, but too often these are disrupted by simplistic tricks to illustrate the text - sudden loud discords, crashing drums and gongs - and many movements are too long for their sparse musical material. Jenkins draws inspiration from an inventive mix of texts, interspersing the Roman Catholic liturgy with Japanese haiku, the call of the muezzin, the Psalms, the Mabharata and poems by Kipling, Dryden, Tennyson etc. The effect is sometimes astonishing, sometimes beautiful, sometimes stirring; but while both choir and orchestra must enjoy the end of Charge! from "The Armed Man" with its aleatoric voices, colossal crescendo then recorded sounds underneath a distant Last Post, really this is pedestrian stuff - special effects are no replacement for musical ideas.
The performers also appeared to enjoy the final movement of the concert, Better is Peace, despite the reappearance of the theme tune "L'homme armé" in an obvious and rather naff major key. The rollicking setting of Tennyson's "Ring out the thousand wars of old" is long, joyful and effective, but the simple and downbeat ending is incongruous, a last unaccompanied chorale that might have been written by J.S.Bach, or Mendelssohn. Or Walt Disney.
It's easy to criticise the choice of repertoire, but this should not detract from what was a great and very successful occasion. This was a major concert in a major concert hall, it featured some wonderful singing and playing, it included some talented young people, and it was hugely enjoyed by a capacity audience. Let us hope it won't be long before it happens again.
A.E.Hayward
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