.....BUT SHALL I REMEMBER THE 4TH OF NOVEMBER?
BREMF 2011 Event 20
The Sixteen: THE CHORAL PILGRIMAGE - Hail Mother of The Redeemer -Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)
St Bartholemew's Church, Brighton
The Venue: St Bart's provides the most stunning location for music - certainly in Brighton. It remains the tallest Parish Church in England, despite having been finished off in a hurry by it's mid-Victorian builders as they ran short of cash. It's interior would be entirely bare dark engineering brickworks - fitting in with that of the nearby imposing 23-arch railway viaduct which dates from the same period. It is however fitted out with the most amazing marble canopy over a tapestried gold encrusted altar area [please forgive my woeful lack of knowledge of the correct ecclesiastical terminology!] Being of the Anglo-Catholic [smells and bells] tradition, there are a number of side altars - more simply adorned with paintings [some rather poor, all in a sorry state of repair] and an interesting series of built-in carvings depicting The Stations of The Cross. The seating is by mainly ageing uncomfortably-wobbly wooden chairs which would surely prevent the congregation falling asleep during a boring sermon, although there are a set of more modern plastic and tubular metal chairs which are wheeled out to accommodate the posher part of the audience on occasions such as this. The floor is mainly of plain terra cotta and black tiles which tessilate in a rather ordinary way - but hey, it's for walking over not looking at! The overall effect of the edifice is one of impressive power as the height of the roof disappears into Darkness, the cold austere walls crowd in from the sides and one's attention is drawn inevitably towards the splendid magnificence of the alter, where tonite, The Sixteen will ply their trade - hopefully providing a never-to-be-forgotten experience.
The Music: Tomas Luis de Victoria has the reputation as probably Spain's most accomplished composer of the later Early Music period. My knowledge of his work is limited so I came prepared -no, expecting to be impressed. Polyphony is almost an avant-garde formof music where all known boundaries of musical lore are pushed to extremes by its almost magical power to defy commonsense by making different people sing different words and different tunes at the same time and create an effect that defies explanation by being even more impressive than those individual songs. It's Gestalt Music.
The Sixteen: On this occasion, unfortunately, Sir Harrry Christophers - the usual director[conductor] of the Group was indisposed with flu. So his deputy Eamonn Dougan stepped up from the ranks to take on the Director's role for the evening. And a splendid job he did too!
The Sixteen [eighteen , actually] are an incredibly well-known and respected internationally renowned band and probably don't need too much direction onstage once the green flag has been waved but I'm sure he was able to indicate minor adjustments to be made as the ambient nature of the venue dictated.
The dress code was maybe somewhat strange in the confines of this setting. The men were wearing standard evening dress - consisting of black tail-suits and white bow-ties - which were uniformly all the same except that notable variations in stature and girth of some of the wearers created a noticeable difference in how these vestments hang and therefore appeared to the observer. The women have a slightly more relaxed dresscode - it seems they are required to don a black jacket or shawl but may wear an evening dress of choice underneath - so we have a variety of quite muted colours - one lady even sporting a glittery grey frock - I wonder whether there might be suitable (!) cause for investigation under sexual equality legistlation here.
The Performance: The performance was predictably exquisite. The Sixteen delivered on the promise of their reputation and the many recordings one has heard by them. The only hitch came just as the band were readying themselves for their second piece of polyphony - there was a series of bangs from outside - given the date, I suppose we might well have anticipated that fireworks would have been going off now and then but it was somewhat surprising that their noise could penetrate such a stout and solid building as St Bart's quite so effectively. A bit later on there was quite a tirade which nearly developed into Blitzkeig but we soon learned to shut it out by concentrating on the music.
One was left wondering if this was anything like the sort of sound [minus the fear, of course] one lived with during the Bombing in cities [indeed here in Brighton on some occasions -one in particular when the viaduct was hit by a large 'bouncing' armament] in WWll.
The Verdict: I'm sure most of the 600+ members of the audience went home really satisfied with a great night out having heard some superb music delivered by a world-ranking band of singers. And I must admit having been somewhat enraptured and entranced at the time with the whole event myself. However, as a responsible 'critic,' I feel the obligation to look beyond this simple judgement.
I'm sure for someone for whom this was a rare sort of event, the show will remain in their memory for a long time to come.
However my suspicion is that for some regular concert-goers of discernment, there might have been a slight disappointment attached to this performance, which might leave questions to be asked as to how it might have been improved.
Firstly, allthough the music was unquestionably beautiful, it did seem rather short on the kind of particularly dramatic moments that one hears in works such as Allegri's Miserere or some of Palestrina's compositions, where the music can soar and would be particularly suited to such a venue as this. Victoria's offering only reached these heights on one or two occasions and then in very short bursts.
On the whole I think the effect was uniformly pretty flat - there were very few,if any, moments when the WOW! factor occurred and there was any reaction forthcoming from the audience. There was no emotional variation given out byThe Sixteen at any time and in general, they were completely unanimated. There was no sense of humour attached to the random occurrence of the fireworks - not a word from the Director - it happened and was immediately swept under the carpet (or would have been had there been one.)
To be frank, the audience's applause at The End of the performance was generous rather than perfunctory but it was certainly NOT rapturous.
It left me wondering if spending the ticket money on a recording of Victoria's music might have been more rewarding than sitting uncomfortably for an hour and a half watching a dozen or so guys in penguin suits and ladies fairly dowdily attired singing some fairly ordinary sounding church music, albeit a work of complex polyphony pretty well delivered by a very accomplished group of singers.
At least with a CD or vinyl disc, one can shut one's eyes and be transported wherever the beautiful music takes you. Perhaps if The Sixteen had been dressed in monks habits, cowels and hoods then the live experience would have helped take us to such a place.
As it was, I think the event will go down in history as one that was enjoyable at the time but it could well be that one will hardly be able to recall it in any significant detail.
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