Tenebrae (NNF 19)

It’s a given that every member of the Tenebrae choir has an outstanding voice, but what really sets them apart is the discipline with which that talent is exploited. Until you’ve had their stated core value of precision demonstrated to you, it’s hard to imagine how effectively this can manifest onstage. Stunning soloists, extraordinary harmonies, and flawless execution were evident throughout a performance that featured the works of some of the most respected English composers of the 20thcentury. I was all set for a magical evening, and there were certainly magical moments, but I’m still scratching my head as to exactly why it didn’t quite work out that way.
 
The evening got off to a fabulous start, with Gustav Holst’s ‘The Evening-Watch’. Featuring the solo voices of a tenor and alto, it contrasted with the full-bodied intensity of the whole choir, this was thrilling stuff. An admittedly austere work, early restraint only served to highlight the powerful passion of its closing moments, as resonant bass voices pushed me back into my seat. It was followed by Finzi’s‘Three Short Elegies’, a more reflective work, but one that still left us on course for an exhilarating experience. As the sopranos sang as one, producing uncannily harmonies, I reflected on the rare and powerful experience of hearing the human voice  unfettered by recorded media or amplification, and how it can produce an immersive, otherworldly experience like no other.
 
Ivor Gurney’s recently discovered ‘Since I believe in God the Father Almighty’was delivered with stirring intensity, with Tenebrae adding shade and texture to its probing harmonies. Gurney’s composition was immediately followed by Judith Bingham’s tribute to him, a recent commission from Tenebrae. ‘A Walk with Ivor Gurney’brought together his poetry with snippets of Latin inscriptions found on Roman tombs, and featured a central, and demanding, performance from solo mezzo soprano Martha McLorinan, who grabbed the task with assurance and musicianship. Intriguingly, the tenors and basses left the performance area, but not so as to leave matters entirely in the hands of the sopranos and altos, but rather to contribute from afar – distant, ethereal voices complemented the striking female voices at the forefront in a way that brought an imaginative new texture to the collective choral voice that offered up one of the evening’s great highlights.
 
Less successful, unfortunately, was the final piece before the interval, not least because I’d been particularly looking forward to Owen Parkes’s Footsteps. Featuring the Norwich Cathedral choir, this should have been a showstopper, but while it was fun to see so many youthful faces – some eager, some excited, some frankly disinterested – the piece failed to exploit the tonal possibilities of such diverse voices. Perhaps if I had brought my reading glasses and had been able to read the copious guidance notes, I would have been better appreciated the subtleties of Parkes’s Cycle of the Seasons, but on an emotional and instinctive level, I felt the piece meandered somewhat, bringing the first half of the concert limping home.
 
For a composer probably best known for the stirring Jerusalem, Parry’s Songs of Farewellcame as a subdued and melancholy surprise. What distinguishes the piece is not so much technical mastery –ably demonstrated by Tenebrae’s execution – as the overwhelming sadness at the coming of war between Britain and Germany. As far from the bombast ofJerusalemas you can imagine, this was heart breaking stuff. Here, Tenebrae’s abiding mantra of precision was to the fore, with tremendous attention to detail, but never at the expense of the emotional core of the work. Eloquent, expressive and completely faithful to the composer’s intentions, I should have been moved more than I was, but by now the extraordinary discomfort of the seating was beginning to take its toll. I’m reluctant to review the chairs in the Cathedral in any great depth, but I’ve never been so uncomfortable at a performance, and it is surely legitimate to reflect on how this compromised the evening.
 
It was a pity that Tenebrae didn’t adapt their programme better to these challenging environs. Parry’s work was challenging in such circumstances, but would have been so much better received, had it been within the context of an uplifting programme. Instead, the maudlin downward trajectory continued, with the evening closing on Herbert Howell’s ‘Requiem’. Although expertly performed, this desperately sad meditation on youthful death, allied to the physical discomfort of those damn chairs proved to be just too much for me, not least as the concert was now running close to half an hour over its published time. I didn’t expect the evening to end on a rousing chorus of ‘Knees up Mother Brown’, but something a little more elevating would have given shape and balance to a program that by the end of the evening drained me and (judging by the lukewarm applause) much of the audience. I got the distinct impression the choir sensed this too, shuffling off without any of the exuberance one comes to expect from a job well done. Tellingly, the only man beaming from ear to ear was director Nigel Short, the one person in the Cathedral that had had his back to us, and therefore was mercifully oblivious to the nodding heads, shifting bottoms and empty seats dotted around the nave, all indicating that the evening, somewhere along the line, had gone wrong. It left me wondering at the significance of, for the first time I can remember, a concert that concluded without an encore.