Anyone who thinks they don’t like choral music should have been dragged along to this excellent concert.
At times thrilling, often moving and always engaging, it was a feast of varied delights.
It was all performed with great conviction by a choir on top form.
The choir perhaps took a minute to get fully into their stride in the opening piece, A Hymn for St Cecilia by Howells.
We then moved on to four motets by Durufle. Not many choirs are as confident as Levens in unaccompanied singing, particularly in music as harmonically complex as this.
There was some lovely quiet singing and beautifully controlled dynamics without any harshness making the most of the fine acoustic of St George’s church.
Aurea Luce by Cecilia McDowall was well blended and the challenging entries, harmonies and counterpoint were navigated with ease.
We travelled almost 150 years back in time for the Cantique de Jean Racine written by a 19-year-old Faure.
I was unsure whether this was a good fit in this programme but it was sung so beautifully it didn’t matter. The first half of the concert concluded with Arvo Part’s The Beatitudes.
There was confident attack of some tricky entries and some difficult dissonant harmonies were well tuned although after half an hour of singing the pitch maybe dropped a bit in some unaccompanied sections.
The piece built to a splendid climax demonstrating what has been described as the Levens Choir wall of sound.
The second half of the concert was devoted to Durufle’s Requiem. The organ part was beautifully played by Ian Pattinson, using the full potential of the fine instrument with beautifully judged registrations.
The choir was seemingly caught off guard a little after the short introduction but the music then flowed well, with nice legato phrasing of the plainsong
melodies.
There was real excitement in the layers of sound in the Kyrie, perfect unison singing then some full-blooded intensity in the Domine.
We were also treated to Rebecca Chandler’s rich mezzo tone in the Pie Jesu.
She was equally at home throughout her range and her pianissimo singing at the end was breathtaking.
The last few movements were all beautifully sung, finishing with a quiet fervour, a long held last note and quite a long silence before it felt right to applaud.
It was fitting that the concert was dedicated to the memory of Margaret Jones, a stalwart of the choir since its inception in 1975.
Do I have any criticisms? Maybe some consonants were lost in that acoustic, and the men, particularly the tenors, were sometimes a little underpowered with one or two voices being a little dominant to try and make up for that. A few more men needed please!
But bravo Levens Choir, and conductor Gawain Glenton whose clear and unfussy direction kept everything on track and plainly inspired the choir to give of their
best. More like this please!
