Golden Jubilee Concert Review

A Requiem To Die For

 A powerful and moving programme greeted a packed audience in the chapel of Ardingly College last Saturday when East Grinstead Choral Society performed Brahms’s German Requiem and Poulenc’s Gloria. To some the beautiful autumnal colours of the chapel may have spoken words of loss and sorrow, of a prophet soon to be killed on a cross.  To others as well as to Brahms, the music of a Requiem that referred not once to the name of Christ, gives an alternative perspective on death.  A work essentially humanist in conception allows the listener to concentrate on the music rather than the words. For Poulenc, a devout Catholic, the words of his Gloria, find a central place in the liturgy of his faith.  Repetitive Latin text is the bedrock of a composition that at times lapses into moments of wicked humour. 

Poulenc means to startle with the first four chords of his Gloria.  An unusually colourful texture in the bright key of G major cuts to the quick.  This is not the time for the audience to be sucking recently unwrapped hard-boiled sweets.  Fishermen’s Friends are also out of the question for the basses in the choir – bar fifteen and in! 

The brightness in the faces of the choir and in their singing signalled some great sounds from the outset.   The joyous humour of Laudamus te was delightfully conveyed most notably by some crisp antiphonal singing; the sopranos getting together with the tenors and the altos teaming up with the basses.  Throw something over the fence and sooner rather than later you’ll get it thrown back at you.  Poulenc’s changing meter created the surprises. Plucked strings and woodwind delivered the wit. Was it Broadway or the Can-Can ?  Perhaps both.  Listening to the instrumental section at the first change of tempo one wondered whether Poulenc had let slip an idea or two from Bernard Hermann’s opening panoramic views of Pheonix  in Psycho.  To something much more serious in the Domine Deus, a perfectly poised Lesley Jane Rogers added yet another dimension to this lovely work.  This was one of the real highlights of the evening with the balance between choir, soloist and orchestra just right.  The penultimate Dominus Deus, Agnus Dei, impressive for its contrasting and controlled dynamics offered warmth and an opportunity to realise the variety of Poulenc’s orchestration.  As the final Amen faded away in the last movement few could dispute the words of the composer: “My Gloria is a large choral symphony”.

Brahms’s Requiem, well over seventy minutes of music for most performances, looked set to run for a lot longer!  Dark lower strings above a pedal point introduced the slower than expected notes of the first chorus.  But it was not to be, because in his wisdom, Richard Jenkinson,  (conductor, chorus master and musician-in-control) had obviously thought long and hard about the tempos that were part and parcel of this superbly convincing performance.   The tenderness, articulated and so much part of the first movement (Blessed are they that mourn), erupted into joyous sounds with the help of some wonderfully judged tempo changes. Keenly focussed singers celebrated the music with their maestro, all eyes to the down-beat. Likewise the second movement; the conductor began a grim march at a deathly pace but it picked up in the places most expected.  Lovely four-part singing at poco più mosso contrasted so effectively with the B flat minor march.  

The baritone soloist, Trevor Alexander, delivered a stirring but unsentimental rendering of the first few verses of Psalm 39: “Lord, let me know mine end and the number of my days”.   To follow, the extraordinary fugue rising above a long-held pedal – no doubt symbolic of firm faith - did not disappoint.  The ever popular How Lovely Are Thy Dwelling Places, more difficult  to “pull off” with an orchestra than an organ, enjoyed some lovely moments.  Fixated on clarinet arpeggios and hugely impressed with some intelligent imitative singing from the choir this movement went down a treat. How often do you hear basses go hell for leather, unable to see a grimacing conductor attempt to bring them under control?  Well, in this performance the balance was very good given that the tenors were outnumbered two-to-one.  How often do you hear

If an element of tiredness was seen to creep into some of the singing in the fifth chorus – Ye now have sorrow – it strangely left less of an impression in the last two movements.  The singers and the orchestra gave their all.  Powerful, exacting singing driven by raw energy gave the fugue increasing dynamic and rhythmic momentum.  The orchestra excelled in every department.

To Richard Jenkinson and his band of singers, “fantastic”.  The sounds from the orchestra, particularly the strings, were wonderful. This was a night of music to hold in the memory and wish for more.

Andrew Baars