The 2025 Three Choirs Festival premieres Richard Blackford’s The Black Lake 

United Kingdom 2025 Three Choirs Festival [2] – Pärt, Elgar, Britten, Blackford: Elizabeth Watts (soprano), Betsan Llwyd (narrator), Steffan Rhodri (narrator), Three Choirs Festival Chorus, BBC National Orchestra of Wales / David Hill (conductor). Hereford Cathedral, 27.7.2025. (JQ)

Arvo Pärt – Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten
Elgar – Introduction and Allegro, Op.47
Britten – Les Illuminations, Op.18 
Richard Blackford –The Black Lake (Festival commission, premiere).

For this Festival concert there was a guest conductor, David Hill, and a guest orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (BBC NOW); both making welcome returns to the Three Choirs.

I hope I am not reading too much into the programme but it seemed to me that the first half of this concert had been cunningly constructed. On a practical level, all three works were scored for string orchestra (with the addition of a tubular bell in Arvo Pärt’s piece). At a more important artistic level, there was a strong link with Benjamin Britten. One of his most important song cycles was performed alongside Pärt’s homage to Britten. There was another link, perhaps, in that Britten conducted a select number of Elgar’s works with rare distinction. His recording of The Dream of Gerontius is an insightful reading while his 1968 recording of the Introduction and Allegro with the English Chamber Orchestra is one of the finest I know (review here). There was, I think, another link: a crucial element in Elgar’s masterpiece for string orchestra is the celebrated ‘Welsh’ tune; that, I think, set us up nicely for the Richard Blackford piece which formed the second half of the concert.

We began with Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (1977) by Pärt who will celebrate his ninetieth birthday in September. It is a daring choice with which to begin a concert because the music starts so quietly; three soft chimes on the tubular bell, after which the strings steal in. Fortunately, the audience had quickly settled and Pärt’s opening was experienced in the necessary silence. Pärt uses great economy of means in this piece; essentially, the various elements in the orchestra have different melodic fragments to play which they repeat time and again. Yet the design is clever; the repetitions are subtly varied so that the individual strands continually overlap and diverge while the performance of the music grows in intensity. That ratcheting up of the tension was conspicuously achieved by Hill and the musicians in a performance of growing ardour. This was undoubtedly a fine account of Pärt’s piece, though I must admit I was left with a nagging doubt at the end. On one level, the Cantus is a deeply sincere tribute from one composer to another – and that was made clear in this committed performance. That said, Pärt’s musical economy means that, other than a palpable increase in tension, the music doesn’t develop in the conventional sense, and I rather miss that.

From the spare textures of Pärt we moved to the full, romantic invention of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro (1905). So far as I could see, the same number of string players were involved but Elgar’s music demands – and here received – a much greater richness of texture. After the big, confident opening, one thing that struck me as the performance unfolded was the very wide dynamic range achieved by the members of the BBC NOW. Throughout the performance I felt that the cathedral acoustic imparted an additional warmth to the orchestral sound. As Richard Bratby reminded us in his programme note, the inspiration for one of the work’s principal melodic ideas originated in an experience which Elgar had several years before he composed this work when, while on a holiday in Cardiganshire, he heard a Welsh choir singing in the distance. From this germ of an idea sprang the lovely melody which is first heard on solo viola not long after the start: it was most poetically voiced by the BBC NOW’s principal viola. Once the main Allegro of the piece was reached, David Hill obtained playing of great energy and later on in the piece, when the fugue began, I was impressed by the initial lightness of touch which meant that the fugue was heard very clearly. Thereafter, the music was built to an exciting conclusion. This is a glorious piece and it received a very fine performance.

Though Les Illuminations is strongly connected with the tenor voice, notably that of Peter Pears, Britten wrote it for soprano or tenor and the first performance was given, in 1940, by the Swiss soprano Sylvie Wyss, to whom the work is dedicated. The soloist now was Elizabeth Watts and I think I can safely say that never again will she start a performance in the way that she began tonight. As she took her bow, I was somewhat surprised to see that she was carrying a hand-held microphone. The purpose was soon revealed: with a beaming smile, she announced, ‘the Lionesses have just won the Euros’.

With that, it was down to business and a performance of Britten’s settings of eight poems by the French symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). I suppose I should come clean and admit that my admiration for Britten’s works is very selective and Les Illuminations is not one of my favourites among his pieces. However, this quite exceptional performance by Watts was one which I was delighted to experience. My seat was at quite some distance from the platform but thanks to the excellent CCTV pictures I was able to see the soloist very clearly during her performance. Watts sang the work from memory and consistently demonstrated great communication skills and a deep engagement with the words and music. There was no artifice in her performance, yet her gesticulations – never overdone – and her wide range of facial expressions vividly put across the sense of what she was singing. But these attributes alone would not have been sufficient had the quality of her singing not been on a similarly high level. So, for example, in ‘Phrase’ she demonstrated a very fine control of the vocal line and offered sensuous singing. A little later, I loved the way she delivered the soft, intimate repetition of the Fanfare material (‘J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage’). Her singing of ‘Being Beauteous’ was wonderful; expressive, controlled intensity early on gave way to more animated delivery as the song progressed. She made the last song, ‘Départ’ into a rapt, beautiful conclusion to the cycle. Les Illuminations is a work which I respect rather than love but on this occasion, I experienced a wonderful exhibition of communication through music. Throughout the performance David Hill and the BBC NOW strings backed her to the hilt. I was unsurprised that Elizabeth Watts received an ovation from the audience; it was well deserved.

After the interval we heard the first performance of The Black Lake by Richard Blackford (b.1954). This is a co-commission by the Three Choirs Festival, the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts.

A major work by Blackford was performed at the previous Hereford Three Choirs, in 2022. That was his Pietà (2019), a piece that combined the Stabat Mater with poetry by Anna Akhmatova. I didn’t attend that concert, nor have I heard the commercial recording of the work but through some online research I discovered that my late and much-missed Seen and Heard colleague, Claire Seymour covered the Hereford performance for Opera Today. Claire wrote a typically perceptive review in which she summed up work and performance thus: ‘Blackford’s resolutely tonal language might not be to everyone’s taste, and there is perhaps little that is “innovative” or “individual” about his writing.  But, his handling of large choral forces and his shaping of musical drama, bringing together the religious, the personal and the universal, is impressively accomplished.’ That comment is, I think, relevant to the piece I now heard.

I don’t think that it was any accident that Watts was engaged to sing the soprano solo role in this performance, nor that the conductor was Hill; both have been strongly identified with Blackford’s music in the past. Hill conducted a recording of Voices of Exile as long ago as 2005 and he has since made recordings of some other works by this composer, including, in 2022, a second recording of A Mirror of Perfection, which featured Watts as one of the soloists (Lyrita SRCD406). More recently, I admired Watts’s recording of the 2023 work, Songs of Nadia Anjuman (review here).

The new work draws on the Welsh language novel Un Nos Ola Leuad (One Moonlit Night) by Caradog Prichard (1904-1980). In the novel, which dates from 1961, Prichard relates the experiences of a young boy growing up in the Welsh village of Bethesda in the period between about 1915 and 1920. The story revolves round the relationship between a boy and his mother, who is always referred to as Mam. It is a story full of darkness and tragedy – at least as far as the episodes extracted by Blackford are concerned. I have not read the book but a friend who has read it (in English translation) tells me that the grimness of much of the story is to some extent alleviated by the fact that Prichard tells the story through the prism of a 10-year-old boy who doesn’t fully understand the implications of much of what he is seeing; consequently, some dark humour pervades the narrative. The text selected by Blackford is mainly in English, though a number of the sung episodes are in Welsh.

Central to The Black Lake are two spoken roles. One is a male speaker, who takes the part of the boy; the other is a female speaker who represents Mam and a number of other characters. Blackford calls his work a Narrative Cantata because these two spoken roles are so prominent and they hold the entire work together. The chorus and the solo soprano fulfil a very important function. Wales is known as the Land of Song and here the singers illustrate the important role that singing played – and continues to play – in Welsh choirs, chapel services and the community at large. The singers punctuate the spoken narrative with reminders of, for example, Welsh hymnody. At one point the tenors and basses of the Festival Chorus were required to represent a Welsh male voice choir as singers from a South Wales mining village, driven to poverty by a pit strike, come to beg for assistance; I was convinced by their performance.

The narrative presents a succession of events in the boy’s life across nine scenes. One problem I found was that these events follow upon each other in very quick succession – though I am told it’s like this in the book. There was rather too much to take in at a single hearing, even though I had read the libretto in advance. The first two scenes essentially establish the background of the boy’s home life with Mam. Thereafter, though, the events follow one after another at pace and we witness events such as the shaming in Chapel of a girl who has given birth to a child out of wedlock; Mam’s illness; the appearance, already referenced, of the Choir from the South; the departure of the boy’s friend Huw and his father to live and work in a coal mining village; and Mam’s confinement in an asylum. In the final scene, after accompanying Mam to the asylum, the boy goes to the Black Lake where he calls despairingly on her and on various other figures from his past.

All of this is narrated by the two speakers. Betsan Llwyd and Steffan Rhodri told the story movingly and convincingly. The tragic nature of the story becomes ever more apparent as the cantata unfolded yet Llwyd and Rhodri also spiced the narrative with wit and, on occasion, broad humour. Their vivid characterisation really drew the audience into the story. The singing added a moving dimension to the work. Watts, who almost always sang with the choir, was at times searingly intense, at other times very touching in the way she delivered her music. The Festival Chorus made a committed and strong contribution; their music – and, indeed, Watts’s music also – was always emotionally appealing.

The orchestra was expanded from the strings-only ensemble of the first half. Blackford added (I think) single woodwind and brass, percussion (one player) and timpani. The orchestra was active throughout, adding colour and illustrative support to the narrators and also playing some significant bridge passages between scenes. Blackford’s scoring seems to me to be apt and inventive. Hill bound everything together, leading a performance that properly brought out the emotion, wit and drama in the cantata.

It is always a challenge to evaluate a new work on a single hearing. However, I have to say that I came away from this first performance feeling somewhat disappointed. The music is accessible and illustrates the story well. Part of the trouble, I think, is that there is too much narration. I was interested in a comment that the composer made in his programme note. He said that The Black Lake is ‘a hybrid, texturally different to cantatas that combine actors with singers, such as Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher or Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex’. I respectfully suggest that the reason that those two pieces work better than The Black Lake is that a better balance is struck between the spoken word and the singing; that is especially true, I think, of Honegger’s intensely moving work. Despite the cumulative intensity of the story that unfolds in The Black Lake I came away unmoved. That judgement, however, is no reflection whatsoever on the performers who gave a first performance of the work which must have thrilled the composer.

My initial reaction, then, is cool and in the interests of balance, I should record that my response, albeit shared by my guest, seems to have been a minority view. Blackford was accorded a very warm reception by the audience. Even more significant, perhaps, were some conversations I had afterwards with members of the Festival Chorus, who have been living with the score in rehearsal since Easter. Their enthusiasm for the work was evident. Revealingly one told me that some friends of his, who have read Prichard’s book came to the concert specifically to hear Blackford’s take on the story. They are not regular concertgoers but their immediate reaction was that Blackford had fully captured the spirit of Un Nos Ola Leuad.

I may have a different reaction to The Black Lake when I have the opportunity to listen to it at greater leisure. This performance was recorded although I am not sure if a BBC Radio 3 broadcast is planned, however I understand that Lyrita intend to issue the performance on CD in Spring 2026. During 2026 the Bournemouth Symphony Choreus, as co-commissioners, will give a second performance of the work.

John Quinn