Gems and jewels : The Sixteen at Advent

This is a review of a concert given by The Sixteen under Harry Christophers

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20 December

This is a review of a concert, with a programme entitled The Virgin Mother and Child, given by The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers, at Saffron Hall on Sunday 20 December at 7.30 p.m.

Those at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHall) who had heard The Sixteen (@TheSixteen) during one of their Choral Pilgrimages* might not have been expecting two things from the programme (even if they had, in passing and without much thought, noted that amongst what it was to include was John Tavener’s The Lamb) : the pieces were, by and large, not lengthy (the ones that took longest to perform were still probably little more than around ten minutes), and they ranged from plainsong to the work of living British composers (such as Howard Skempton and Alec Roth).

Although, for balance, some of the singers did move around at times, usually the six sopranos were in a row directly in front of Harry Christophers, with the other singers on long rostra behind them, with two shorter, angled ones at the sides.


Part I :

1. Plainsong ~ Puer natus est nobis
2. Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585) ~ Gloria from Missa Puer natus est nobis (1554 ??)
3. John Tavener (1944–2013) ~ The Lamb (1982)
4. Boris Ord (1897–1961) ~ Adam lay ybounden (1957)
5. Traditional ~ ‘Rejoice and be merry’
6. James MacMillan (1959–) ~ O Radiant Dawn (2007)
7. Gabriel Jackson (1962–) ~ The Christ-child (2009)
8. William Byrd (? 1539/1540 or ? 1543–1623) ~ Ave Maria (1605)
9. Plainsong ~ Nesciens mater
10. Walter Lambe (1450–1504) ~ Nesciens mater (latter decades of fifteenth century)


As a prelude to, and informative of, the Gloria from the mass by Tallis that was to come second (because this is what he has built into it), we heard the plainsong introit (1) Puer natus est nobis (‘Unto us a child is born’), with proper solemnity, but also ‘flow’. Initially sung with male voices, at ‘Cantate Domino’ the six sopranos (ranged in the front) came in, but we reverted to men for ‘Gloria Patri et Filio’. Then, however, all together and taking it from the top, with the sound of the setting’s reverberations, and the hesitantly circular effect of its repeated notes.

Run together with it, the (2) Tallis Gloria’s opening line was just a single vocalist, but soon we were fully aware, once again with The Sixteen, of some superbly beautiful individual voices (most obviously at the top), beautifully blended by the choice and care of conductor Harry Christophers (and with configurations of the performers changing to suit the needs of the repertoire). If one will, though, Tallis can easily seduce us from the words that he is setting with the sounds that are created within and between the parts. He is not alone in this regard (in a period of English choral-writing where one can sometimes feel lost – despite having and trying to follow the text), but, here and with this rendition, one did not need to encounter, as if out of nowhere, a cadence and a resolving chord to know where one was.

Moreover, Tallis does not run through the text in one, but makes quite a clear break after the line Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris : a fresh section, with entries that we could quite clearly hear coming in, and one where, on the next six lines (concerning The Lamb of God (please see below)), he was going to spend relatively more time. Christophers could be seen, calling voices out of the texture and into greater prominence, but he is unassuming as a conductor, and our attention was on the singers and their voices, although appreciating, in general terms, how he brought out warmth with the words Quonium tu solus Sanctus, and a building of energy with the concluding three lines. Surely, anyone unfamiliar with his choir was already as rapt as those who came to marvel again at how, in all respects, together they sound.

Perfectly blended voices @TheSixteen @SaffronHallSW A lovely evening.

— Karen Goddard (@kareng7630) December 21, 2015

It was not explicit, so it may have been easy to overlook, but there was a link from Agnus Dei to (3) The Lamb. Most immediately evocative of re-watching The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (2013) (which uses a performance by The Choir of the Temple Church), Tavener’s The Lamb is of as great delicacy and subtlety as Blake’s poem**.

Christophers had The Sixteen bring us the first four lines very gently. For the remaining six lines of the first verse, from ‘Gave thee clothing of delight’, there was an inward quality in the ensemble, and it gradually slowed, finally holding back distinctly with the closing line ‘Dost thou know who made thee ?’, provocative of contemplation. In the second verse, we moved through the text smoothly, until a principal point of focus was the pauses between words in ‘He became a little child’ – then, via an increasing ritardando (as with verse one), coming to another held-back last line. Encapsulated here, our response to the other-worldliness of Tavener’s preceding, and slightly Eastern, sound-world, which strikes home through the comparative simplicity of the closing cadence.


On seeing the same programme at St David's Hall, Cardiff, another reviewer (Nigel Jarrett, for Wales Arts Review (@WalesArtsReview)) comments :

Certainly John Tavener’s simple setting of William Blake’s The Lamb and the wondrous stasis of his O, do not move were placed in the programme to show how a miniature could sustain a mood or transform joy into ecstasy, a condition liable in music to outstay its welcome. The way they were sung here, with a lightness and intensity that belied their reputation for being diatonic potboilers meant to beguile the crowd, said much for the choir’s even-handed approach to its material.


If we felt that time moved slowly, with Tavener and Tallis, (4) Adam lay ybounden, Boris Ord’s only published composition, takes barely a minute (and, despite a longer text, ‘Rejoice and be merry’ is typically only half as long again) – hence the conceit, in the title of this posting, regarding the length of our gaze on a polished jewel (as against on a gem-stone). (They may be the exceptions amongst the published programme, but, of course, they are just as much part of what we sing or listen to before or during Christmas, so both can be found in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College (of which the former has, since Ord's time, remained a staple.)

This terribly familiar setting, because of its appearance in those broadcasts from King’s, of a fifteenth-century Carol [and can it be, as it seems (from Wikipedia®), that only British composers have tackled it ?] puts forward, with admirable concision (as of Chaucer’s shorter verse ?), the argument that The Virgin Mary being heavené queen causes the action, of taking the fruit in The Garden of Eden, to be blessed : it is through in a flash, and makes its point. In a piece that has very definite ‘waves’ of meaning, the group was to be less 'rounded' in a reverential way than, in the English choral tradition, is typical in a performance from King’s, and more in accord with the text’s human perspective.

Likewise with the story-telling of (5) ‘Rejoice and be merry’, into which - and with like momentum - we were led. Again, one can see and hear the choir of King’s College with it, balanced and measured : with The Sixteen’s mixed forces, and an affect fitting to the lyrics, they could bring us the first verse with just female (and very pure) voices, and contrast it with the men (and a particular tenor brought forward by Christophers) in the second. Then, pleasingly all together, and to close with very apt celebratory richness in the final verse : Who brought us salvation – his praises we’ll sing !


In this group of three, though, the real contrast was with James MacMillan (@jamesmacm) in (6) O Radiant Dawn, with a few lines of text (probably one-half of the number of words of ‘Rejoice and be merry’). However, as would expect from his work, and from the fact that the text is one of the Advent antiphons (together known as ‘O’ antiphons, from the opening sound of each), and that it is taken from his Strathclyde Motets, there is plenty of impact and reflection (and so exceeding the length of the other two pieces in total).

We had the first important emphasis on the word ‘Come’ (an appeal, in the middle of the second line, to the Sun of Justice) – a word that is repeated twice, and with increasing harmony, which enthusiastically came across to us. Envisaging those on whom this Radiant Dawn needs to shine, we dropped to the word ‘death’ at the end of the third line. In the second group of lines, Christophers let us hear the accents in the quotation from Isaiah, but dropping off, only to rise – in this piece bathed in light – on the final word ‘shone’.

When MacMillan sets the opening three lines again, it was now with more prominence that – on arriving at ‘Justice’ (the preceding word to ‘Come’, where he had dwelt before) – we had repeated the phrase Sun of Justice. Then, starting softly, The Sixteen came up to a blaze on the word ‘Come’, and a stress on ‘shine’. In a five-times rendered ‘Amen’ (with the stress firmly on the first syllable), we ended in a gravely reverential way, with a handful of singers.


Also writing for King’s, and calling it (7) The Christ-child, Gabriel Jackson set G. K. Chesterton’s poem (an author sadly neglected, but for his Father Brown stories – for example, his excellent novel The Man Who Was Thursday). Familiar to us from other Carols, e.g. ‘The Holly and the Ivy’, but reaching back at least to the period of Middle English, this is an unchanging frame-work into which, each time, varying words are put.

As has already been noted regarding other works, we heard phrases stand out like jewelled miniatures, such as were the world (right after the embodied ‘O weary, weary’) in the first stanza, and all aright as its closing words (just with female voices). From there, a wordless hum – which we will know from choral music in the liturgical tradition – became part of the transition from stanza to stanza. Back with the more overt implications of Chesterton’s poetry, there felt to be touch of cabaret, in accord with a description of ‘the Kings’*** as O stern and cunning, but dropping back to purity at, and in the light of, the ending of the stanza : But here the true hearts are (followed by a further hum).

In the third stanza, the point of intense drama was hearing – of the Christ-child’s hair – that it was like a fire, and, with the succeeding near-repetition in O weary, weary is the world, we heard less weariness in the line, and that latterly it was infused by female voices, and then concluded the stanza. A softer hum led to the piece's quieter resolution, our relishing the intense feeling, both of Julie Cooper’s high-soprano solo, and of the warm harmonies.


From a setting of nearly five minutes to Byrd’s of (8) Ave Maria, one of one-half its length (and not a complicated setting, even in the composer’s own terms****). One feels that William Byrd was specifically inspired liturgically, as he might well have been by its prohibited Marian content, status and significance. In it, Christophers brought a full and seemly sound from The Sixteen, and the final Alleluia tenderly lasted as a goodly proportion of the whole.


Unlike with Puer natus est nobis, the plainsong antiphon (9) Nesciens mater was rendered to us just by male voices, and then straight into (10) Walter Lambe’s composition for these words. It immediately sounded rooted in the plainsong approach, with prominent lower lines under the rest of the texture - maybe partly accounting for how it takes more than twice as long to perform than the Ave Maria ? (The text of both is five lines of almost similar length, except that the last line of the latter is just the word Alleluia.)

There was a slowing in sine dolore Salvatorum saeculorum (the second line), and then, with some energy, a more elaborate, decorated style emerged, with vowels being sustained for several bars at a time, and typified by the treatment of the word ‘angelorum’, which, in the lower voices, gave rise to the repeated sound ho. (In the hands of the wrong ensemble, it can sound like bogus laughter, hardly appropriate to a serious religious setting.)


Very clearly, in The Sixteen (@TheSixteen), this was the right ensemble, and the applause that the audience had had [to remember] to keep to between the groups of pieces, and to allow the next group to be performed without undue delay, showed it.



Part II :

11. Tallis ~ Videte miraculum
12. Howard Skempton (1947–) ~ Adam lay ybounden (1999)
13. Richard Pygott (1485–1522) ~ Quid petis, O fili ? (later than 1530)
14. Traditional ~ ‘A child is born in Bethlehem’
15. Tavener ~ O, do not move (1990)
16. Alec Roth (1948–) ~ Song of the Shepherds (2013)
17. Peter Philips (1560–1628) ~ O beatum et sacrosanctum diem (1612)
18. Robert Parsons (1535–1572) ~ Ave Maria (late 1560s)



As with the setting by Tallis that effectively opened the first half, (11) Videte miraculum was another of significant length (more than four times as long as Adam lay ybounden and ‘Rejoice and be merry’ together) – avowedly not a measure of worth, but the longer pieces necessarily work in a different way from the striking immediacy that those of ninety (or sixty) seconds need to achieve.

In the opening line, Tallis delays respectfully, first of all, on the word ‘miraculum’. Christophers had given another of the sopranos (i.e. not one of the ones credited as soloists) a prominent role, but, regrettably, her tone may have been a little harsh, or too forthright, to be right for this piece.In the four lines from the words ‘Haec speciosum’, we have the plainsong chant, and then jump back to revisit the preceding two lines (beginning ‘et matrem’). The effect is to make Mary’s virginity, coupled with her giving her joy at having conceived, the focus, before giving us plainsong again for the closing words (of, in context, faithful rejoicing) :

Gloria Patri et Filio
et Spiritui Sancto


In Howard Skempton’s version of (12) Adam lay ybounden, we had something just as brief as Boris Ord’s, but much more restrained : apart from an echoic, Sotto voce quality to it, it only stepped out with a somewhat urgent character to the repeated Deo Gratias ! (which maybe felt provocative of anxiety not praise ?).

For (13) Quid petis, O fili ?, by Richard Pygott, The Sixteen had been significantly rearranged, replacing the row of sopranos across the front with a quartet of mixed voices (soprano, alto, etc.). The Carol began with its recurring short Chorus, from whose opening words it takes its title, and to which the text of the verse (sung by the quartet) leads up each time : at moments, one had been aware of the tone-colours of these chosen singers in the whole, but (necessarily) with the first verse they came to be appreciated more fully, and to delight, with the alto voice being especially lovely.

The succeeding Chorus opened with tenor voices, before the others joined in, and then opened to a full sound. Mention of Mary in the second verse was coupled with a more expansive feeling, with the other voices treating of the words, and in a way that reminded a little of Monteverdi. This time, the Chorus seemed more reserved, and to be singing with dignity, the dignity of ‘her manners’***** on which the narrator is ‘musing’ in the last verse (sung without soprano voice, in which we might otherwise identify with Mary ?). The final line of the Chorus, beginning ‘O pater, o fili’, was expansive, but we nevertheless came to a thoughtful, quiet close.


In twelve lines - with the invariant closing line, about the sweetness of love, Amor, quam dulcis est amor ! [in which ‘dulcis’ kept coming to the fore] - (14) ‘A child is born in Bethlehem’ is another Traditional number that we might hear, in passing, at King’s in Nine Lessons and Carols : it is barely more than a minute long, so it was grouped with the two items that followed. Not that she did not succeed in it, but there was a quite exposed and difficult solo for Emilia Morton (soprano), with long notes, and not easy to lay against the rest of the texture.

Tavener’s second piece, (15) O, do not move, is from the same decade as The Lamb, and it was also characterized by softness of delivery, e.g. of the way in which, three times, we heard O, do not move. If we might borrow Arvo Pärt’s use of the word, there was a tintinnabulation on the opening word, also sung three times, of what serves as a response, Listen to the gentle beginning, where, when we were given the remainder of the text, it was tenderly, with oriental, descending intervals, and, more prominently than at the start, a hummed drone. Partly, as precious stones might, achieving its effect by the company in which it is placed, Tavener’s composition challengingly shone.

Alec Roth’s (16) Song of the Shepherds had been commissioned, by Little St Mary’s Church, in Cambridge, as a setting of words by Richard Crashaw (priest there from 1638 to 1643), and first performed, not at Christmas, but in April 2013. With eight verses of poetry, it was a flowingly and gently accented narrative-style composition, employing word-pictures to mark significant events, e.g. when we came to Gloomy night embraced the place (the second verse), or We saw thee in thy balmy nest (the fourth) : in that verse, Roth uses a little riff on the words We saw thee (which occur three times), but his general approach is legato, and, if there are subsidiary lines, they are easily followed. A piece of tones / moods, reducing (as the choice of possible resting-places is gradually eliminating) in forces at the end.


The Christmas motet (17) O beatum et sacrosanctum diem by Peter Philips, again noticeably shorter, was again part of the aspect of the programme that treated of The Nativity as such (as in the work (16) by Roth immediately before, or the two (13, 14) that preceded Tavener’s O, do not move). In the first, establishing verse, Philips is only lavish with notes to emphasize the phrase pro nobis, whereas, in the second, we heard several phrases embellished (such as in sono), after a repeat, with lively voices, of the opening line of praise Gaudeat itaque universus orbis. In the last verse, syllables were very clearly spaced, allowing for the effect of bell-sounds in descending figures, and we closed with a highly celebratory, extended Noë, noë.


As heard by Byrd (in the first half (8)), Robert Parsons had set the (18) Ave Maria, and we heard it likewise reverentially, and initially slowly, although there was a sense of it building, with the blessing Dominus tecum of the second line. However, there was an equal impression of falling back afterwards to be attentive and devotional, with Mary’s blessedness and that of Jesus (in her womb). A gentle ‘Amen’ concluded, with rise, fall, and cadence.

a very fine evening listening to @TheSixteen at @SaffronHallSW nice mix of old and new composers

— Pete Duxon (@thequacksoflife) December 20, 2015

There was no enthusiasm to allow the concert to end there, and much for it to continue, so The Sixteen were persuaded to return, with two encores. (When they came back on stage, they took up new positions, in four groups : two at the back (a four stage left, next to a five), and two angled on the sides, with a five next to a four, and vice versa.)

First, the setting, by Michael Praetorius (?) (1571–1621), of the fourteenth-century text ‘Quem pastores laudavere’, sung with due reverence, and, as with other of the pieces that had been performed, relying for its effect relatively linearly, with the sound of one verse building on (or otherwise differing from) what preceded it. As Christmas was just days ahead, The Sixteen finished for the evening with another contrast, in ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’. Nothing flashy, but, with their combined vocal calibre, not unremarkable that they had given us a concluding Christmas piece that we could have joined in with – if we had dared !

As it was, we thanked them for the quality and intensity of their singing with yet more applause : an evening of music with all the professionalism and interpretative spirit that one would expect.



End-notes

* The Choral Pilgrimages have perhaps tended to take longer settings for their focus, made by two or three composers who were either peers, or where the influence of an established one could be seen on someone younger ?

** For those who do not know the piece (or did not hear the concert), there is a recording of The Sixteen performing it here.

*** Presumably meaning the Kings Herod (respectively, The Great, and Antipas) ?

**** Perhaps mistaking one’s Tudor composers, from a concert in which Stile Antico (@stileantico) had given works written in the reign of every Tudor monarch (at Beverley Early Music Festival, but not seemingly recorded as such), Byrd had been recalled as one whose density of layering had made the text (even with the programme) hardest to follow. If it was not he (and he had, rather, proved the rule by being the exception), Harry Christophers nonetheless indulged a question in the interval about the difficulty of bringing out the vocal-lines in performing Byrd’s work – as he necessarily would (as one realized, in putting the question !), he hoped that he managed.

As to Byrd and complication, though, he mentioned that The Choral Pilgrimage 2016 was going to feature an eight-part setting – it is as yet unidentified amongst many works by Byrd, listed on The Sixteen’s web-site : failing on 8 April, at the chapel at St John’s College, Cambridge (@stjohnscam), the nearest dates as yet announced appear to be Milton Keynes (28 September), or Kings Place (@KingsPlace) (3 November).

***** Likely to be close to its French origins in manière, and, at a guess, to mean something more like ‘bearing’, even than ‘behaviour’ ? Unlike with the other two verses, in a text (set in 1530) we might struggle to construe the full meaning of these first four lines, for example the opening pair Musing on her manners / so nigh marr’d was my main.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)