United Kingdom Various – The Gesualdo Six’s Morning Star: The Gesualdo Six (Alasdair Austin, Guy James [countertenors], Josh Cooter [tenor], Joseph Wicks [tenor], Michael Craddock [baritone], Owain Park [artistic director, bass]) Wigmore Hall, London, 20.12.2024. (MB)
The eve of the shortest day of 2024 was especially miserable in London: cold, wet, and dark. All the more need, then, for an aural glimpse of the ‘Morning Star’ that gave its name to this Wigmore Hall concert from The Gesualdo Six. Rather than concentrate on Advent, Christmas, or Epiphany, the programme took us from one through another to the third. Indeed, it perhaps tried to do too much in too many pieces, a succession of very different, generally short musical items in some cases more merging into one than showing affinity and connection, though there were certainly exceptions to that. A packed audience, though, clearly enjoyed its evening, nowhere more so than in an encore performance of Jingle Bells, arranged by Gordon Langford. ‘Style’ might seem an unduly pretentious attribute, but for me it pointed out what had sometimes been missing elsewhere, certain standout pieces offering welcome relief. Perhaps a church acoustic would have imparted a warmer blend, or perhaps I was simply not in the right mood, but there were times – and I realise this is a matter of taste more than anything else – when relief in the guise of female voices might have helped.
I had reservations, then, but this was also an opportunity to hear a good range of repertoire from chant to Palestrina to the present day, in the guise of artistic director Owain Park’s own O send out thy light, gratefully written for the group, in which instance they were clearly very much at home. Palestrina had appeared at the opening, in the guise of David Willcocks’s well-known arrangement of a Nunc dimittis as a Mattins responsory. Many will surely have recognised it in one guise or another, and it made for a fitting opening, followed by well if slightly anonymously sung Lassus (how I felt about a later example too) and more florid Praetorius, Nun komm der Heiland, which to my ears gave a more arresting impression. Plainchant and ‘Anon.’ often fared best, I think, deceptive simplicity permitting performances and their reception to home in on melody and words, the mediaeval carol Angelus ad virginem gathering voices in a warm conclusion to the first half.
Other highlights for me included the extraordinary wandering chromatic lines of Jacobus Händl’s Mirabile mysterium. They are anything but easy to sing, yet intonation never proved a problem. Nor did it in Poulenc’s O magnum mysterium, which emerged a little later as fitting complement in stillness and movement, although this was one of those cases when I felt the loss of women’s (or even children’s) voices. The expressive accomplishment of Byrd’s Rorate coeli was highly welcome, perhaps a first-half counterpart to the second-half highpoint of Clemens von Papa’s euphonious and, no coincidence, more extended Epiphany Magi veniunt. It was preceded by Joannes Eccard’s Maria wallt zum Heiligtum which likewise benefited from a degree more warmth.
None of the twenty-first-century pieces seemed concerned with straining at the edges of modernity, Sally Beamish’s In the stillness purposefully reticent, almost belying the skill with which verbal and musical cadences coincided. Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Judith Bingham ventured further harmonically, the former a rare if doubtless coincidental instance of seeming to take its leave from its predecessor (Händl), the latter another welcome case of painting on a slightly larger canvas, which if not exactly ‘Romantic’ was not exactly un-Romantic either. Arvo Pärt’s Morning Star, well-crafted and performed with sympathy, readily laid bare idea and processes. A somewhat dour Cornelius ‘Three Kings’, sung in English, suggested that the nineteenth century was in general better avoided; unless, that is, we count Jingle Bells.
Mark Berry
Palestrina (arr. Willcocks) – Matin Responsory
Lassus – Conditor alme siderum
Praetorius – Nun, komm der Heiden Heiland à 6
Sally Beamish – In the stillness
Jacobus Händl – Mirabile mysterium
Cheryl Frances-Hoad – The Promised Light of Life
Plainchant – Rorate coeli
Byrd – Rorate coeli
Poulenc – O magnum mysterium
Anon (arr. Praetorius) – Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
Anon – Angelus ed virginem
Plainchant – Ecce advenit
Cornelius – Weihnachtslieder, Op.8: No.3, ‘Die Könige’
Eccard – Maria wallt zum Heiligtum
Clemens von Papa – Magi veniunt
Arvo Pärt – Morning Star
Judith Bingham – In Mary’s love
Plainchant – Vidimus stellam
Lassus – Tribus miraculis
Owain Park – O send out thy light
Bob Chilcott – The Shepherd’s Carol