Kantos Chamber Choir – Behold the Sea – Live Review

Friday 14 June

The Stoller Hall, Manchester

*****

A bold and innovative programme of maritime music

The nearest beach to Manchester is in Southport, about 35 miles away as the crow flies, or about 45 miles by car. Yet in this landlocked city where the sea has no impact on its citizens’ daily lives, it still has a powerful resonance in the imagination, perhaps through literature such as Melville’s Moby-Dick or Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; or through music such as Debussy’s La Mer or Elgar’s Sea Pictures. But the sea is at its most resonant in Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, in which it represents the psychological turmoil of its central character, and his isolation from society. In the second half of last Friday’s concert by Kantos Chamber Choir at the Stoller Hall in Manchester, the Sea Interludes from Britten’s opera, in an organ transcription by Anna Lapwood, were interleaved with settings by the Armenian-British composer Kristina Arakelyan of poems by Christina Rosetti. And the first half ended with the intensely emotional piece, Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae, a harrowing description of a shipwreck.

But the concert began with a more traditional view of the sea, a series of arrangements of mostly well-known sea songs. To create a maritime mood, the singers stood at either side of the audience during the opening improvisation of sea sounds, Soundscape, then took to the stage with improvised melodies, an organ drone and a solo soprano singing a folk melody. The audience was immersed by the sea, washing away the bustling city around Victoria Station just outside. And at first the view of the sea was optimistic, starting with Simon Jackson’s arrangement of the traditional Swedish folksong Trilo, the lilting melody glowing with joy as wives anticipate the return of their fishermen husbands from the sea. And there was more jubilation in Daryl Runswick’s arrangement of Dance to thy Daddy, an exhilaratingly fast version in which three smaller choirs enjoyed the syncopation and amusing key changes under the benign and relaxed leadership of Ellie Slorach. The choir’s ensemble in Desmond Earley’s arrangement of the Skye Boat Song was beautiful, with a lovely light-voiced solo from tenor Joseph Taylor and a gorgeous clear-voiced solo from soprano Sarah Keirle. A short instrumental interlude followed, an organ arrangement by Robert Gower of Peter Maxwell Davies’ popular miniature Farewell to Stromness, played by George Herbert. The lucid textures of the piece were well-suited to the simple clarity of the organ, and the sound of the bagpipe was evoked towards the end. The choir had fun again in Runswick’s arrangement of Bobby Shaftoe, featuring beatbox percussion from the choir members, included a hi-hat (!) and disco beats. There was a brief moment of slow sadness as the choir contemplated a broken heart, before they rallied again. The final song in the sequence was Jesse Beulke’s arrangement of Water is Wide, with exhilarating, scrunchy close harmonies, and the voices bloomed in a charming passage around the word ‘my love’, with superbly controlled dynamics.

After the jollity of the opening songs, the darker side of the sea was revealed by the final piece in the first half, the astonishingly powerful Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae by the Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in the sinking of the ferry MS Estonia on 28 September 1994. Introducing the work, Ellie Slorach described it as a ‘monumental piece’ in three sections, the first being the ‘human part’ with solo soprano Eleonore Cockerham, the second part with news of the disaster delivered in Latin by solo bass Henry Saywell, and the third part a Latin setting of Psalm 107, ‘they that go down to the sea in ships.’ The piece began with the choir’s evocative whispering of the words ‘Lux aeterna luceat eis’ from the Requiem Mass, Cockerham’s clear-voiced, pure rendition of the imaginary folk song ‘La annaliaana’ going straight to the heart emotionally.

The role of the news reader, sung by the strong-voiced Saywell, declamatory in plainsong style like a precentor in a religious setting, contrasted with the ethereal folk song. The brutal facts of the tragedy, ‘over eight hundred people lost life’, took on a new weight by being sung in Latin, like the Requiem Mass, although Mäntyjärvi stressed in his programme note that, ‘the work is not really intended for liturgical use.’ Psalm 107, declaimed by the chorus, began in the middle of the drama of a storm at sea, the basses reaching the depths, repeating the phrase ‘Qui descendunt…'(those who go down..’), as dense harmonies swirled around them. But the psalm provided some hope and calm due to God’s intervention, with a chromatic, falling passage leading to a peaceful, consonant ‘Amen’. The piece ended with the return of the folk song for soprano, seen in a new light after the chaos of the storm and the shipwreck. The return of the folksong and the whispered ‘Lux aeterna’ provided a satisfying narrative arc. An extraordinary piece, stunningly performed, leaving the audience silent for a short while before applauding.

Beaming at the audience, Ellie Slorach introduced the second half by saying that they hadn’t brought a full orchestra with them, but instead George Herbert was going to play an organ transcription of Britten’s Sea Interludes which captured the ‘colour of the orchestra’, including at one point a bell! This challenged the audience to compare the two versions, and to be fair Lapwood’s version, beautifully realised by Herbert, was largely successful. The first movement, Dawn captured the essence of Britten, piercing high notes at the start, close to the original sound, the keyboard parts reflecting the filigree ornamentation of the original. The spikiness of the opening section and the rhythmic motifs of Sunday Morning were well-drawn, as were the bells calling worshippers to church, as in the opera. Moonlight was an excellent transcription, illustrating the stately majesty of the original, dark textures lurking below like some slow-moving creature, while a piccolo soared above. The final movement, Storm, launched precipitately like an unhinged organ voluntary, was the most effective piece, dropping into the depths of darkness with deep-voiced chords.

The four companion pieces for choir were commissioned by the BBC Singers and written by Kristina Arakelyan as commentaries after each of the Britten movements, sometimes reflecting Britten’s style and even the key centres on which each piece was based. The words were from poems by Christina Rosetti, mirroring the narrative of each of the Interludes. Bird Raptures [Dawn] began with hummed chords as, ‘the sunrise wakes the lark to sing.’ A slowly drifting tune with Britten-like textures was followed by a warm bass melody, and the piece reached a climax with chords that were reminiscent of the long sequence of chords in Britten’s opera Billy Budd. The next movement, By the Sea [Sunday Morning] captured the fluency and virtuosity of Britten’s writing, the running melodies describing the ebb and flow of the sea. The choir handled the complex lines with aplomb and clearly enjoyed the glorious climax. The third movement, Echo [Moonlight] began with the fitting words, ‘Come to me in the silence of the night’, using some of the same chords that Britten used, with slow textures beautifully shaped by Ellie Slorach. The final movement Storm Wind/O Wind, Why do you Never Rest [Storm] began with the same chords as the organ piece, with ‘shh’ sounds evoking the sea as at the beginning of the concert, passed across the choir from one singer to the next. The blowing of the storm winds was palpable. At the centre of the piece was a moment of near stillness, quietly restive and pensive – a spellbinding moment, superbly sung by the choir with excellent ensemble. The movement picked up again to match the ferocity of the opening, with very fast passages of virtuoso singing which, appropriately, created a slight feeling of sea sickness.

Credit was due to Ellie Slorach for her excellent conducting and highly imaginative programming, to Kantos Chamber Choir for their lively and engaging singing, and to the superb soloists, for a very enjoyable and at times moving evening.

Programme

Improvisation – Soundscape
Simon Jackson – Never Weather-Beaten Sail (Trilo)
English Trad. arr. Daryl Runswick – Dance to thy daddy
Scottish Trad. arr. Desmond Earley – Skye Boat Song
Peter Maxwell Davies arr. Robert Gower – Farewell to Stromness
English Trad. arr. Daryl Runswick – Bobby Shaftoe
Scottish Trad. arr. Jesse Beulke – Water is Wide
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi – Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae (Song of Maritime Calamity)

Benjamin Britten trans. Anna Lapwood – Four Sea Interludes/Kristina Arakelyan – Seascapes