REVIEWS

Dvorak Mass in D The Oxford Times, June 2007

Music from the Chapel Royal The Oxford Times, June 2007

The Glories of Venice The Oxford Times, November 2006

The German Romantic Soul The Oxford Times, April 2006

Calme des Nuits The Oxford Times, July 2005

Cantiones Sacrae The Oxford Times, April 2005

Angels from the realms of Glory The Oxford Times, December 2003

Lennox Berkeley 100th Anniversary Concert The Oxford Times, April 2003

In Dulci Jubilo The Oxford Times, December 2002

Love has turned me upside down The Oxford Times, April 2002

Sacred and secular The Oxford Times, August 2000

Bach 250th Anniversary Concert The Oxford Times, July 2000

Dvorak Mass in D
Wesley Memorial Church, 3rd November
The Oxford Times, November 2007

Enthusiasm, commitment and energy were very much in evidence at the City of Oxford Choir's concert at the Wesley Memorial Church last Saturday. This was a finely-balanced programme of music by Brahms and Dvorák, ranging from romantic lieder to Dvorák's stunning Mass in D.

... Brahms' Fünf Gesänge, an eclectic set of poems by Rückert, Kalbeck, Wenzig and Groth, composed between 1886 and 1888 and scored for an SATB choir. These echoed the melancholy of the composer's lieder, with their exploration of lost youth and happiness and acceptance of approaching death. The choir managed to convey these feelings with exceptional clarity, showing great sensitivity for both words and music... This was a careful and meticulous presentation...

... in the Mass in D its glorious, folk-inspired tunefulness was realised by both choir and soloists in the most glowing terms, combining radiance and eloquence with thoughtful and fluid phrasing. ... and Duncan Aspden's focused conducting ensured an enthralling performance.

Nicola Lisle

The Glories of Venice
Keble College, 18th November 2006
The Oxford Times, November 2006

Saturday's concert, The Glories of Venice, focused on the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, when Venice still had - or thought it had - sufficient mastery of the sources of wealth to demand and supply opulent elegance in every artistic sphere. The concert concentrated entirely on religious music, though there were considerable developments in secular music too - opera, for example. But with composers of the quality of the Gabrielis and the towering Monteverdi all working at San Marco, one can't complain.

The string trio Interplay, with continuo Christian Wilson, also contributed, making a considerable total ensemble under the direction of Duncan Aspden, COOC's director of music. The works naturally reflected the composers' primary duty - to oversee and write for liturgical performance; we heard, for example, three versions of Cantate Domino. No dates of composition were given, rather a pity, though it's true that, like Bach at Leipzig later on, regular cantatas had to be provided for a timeless ritual.

San Marco's elaborate architecture and great dome create a 'halo' acoustic where sound can lose distinctness; the huge vault of Keble chapel presents similar problems... Monteverdi of course could turn a problem into an asset. His Adoramus te used his familiar device of a prolonged high soprano note allowed to linger and take advantage of the resonance. The choir's sopranos, who gave sterling service here, had their own solo glory in Cavalli's Cantate Domino, with its exhortatory stress on 'cantate', 'laudate' and its final cascading 'Alleluias'.

The Interplay trio gave two string interludes, a canzon by Merula and an attractive sonata by Vivaldi in which the continuo was taken by Aspden and the cellist Jenny Hardy. Monteverdi ended the programme with a magnificent Gloria, in thanksgiving for deliverance from the plague of 1630. All his skills are deployed: a slow reflective plea for peace set for lower male voices, a solemn contemplation of peccati mundi, the urgent insistence on prayer, praise and blessing, and the unleashing of the full choral and instrumental resources and those soaring high sopranos in the Glorias.

Jeanine Alton

The German Romantic Soul
St. Barnabas Church, 1st April 2006.
The Oxford Times, April 2006

It was one of those strange moments that happen occasionally in concerts. The singers shuffled uneasily, and looked a little bemused. As well they might. They had just finished singing, quite beautifully, the Benedictus from Rheinberger's Cantus Missae, and applause came there none. Whether the audience, mindful of pre-concert instructions not to applaud after every single item, had been left uncertain of where they could applaud, or whether they were simply stunned by the power of the music, is hard to say. Happily, after the next item, they showed their appreciation in the time-honoured way, and it was certainly well deserved.

The City of Oxford Choir has, in its three decades of existence, established a reputation for its innovative themed programmes. Last Saturday's concert, The German Romantic Soul, focused on rarely-performed choral works by composers more often associated with the German symphonic tradition. These pieces are "unjustly neglected in this country", claimed the publicity flyer. After hearing them performed, I am inclined to agree.

It helped, of course, that this choir performs with meticulous ease, every note delivered with the utmost purity, every phrase perfectly sculpted. Conductor Duncan Aspden coaxed from them a high level of precision, and an acute appreciation of the different moods and styles. From Brahms's richly scored Geistiches Lied and Funf Gesange, to Bruckner's well-known motet Locus Iste and Mendelssohn's Verleih uns Frieden, the singers explored the canonic and contrapuntal techniques used to such masterful effect by all three composers. In contrast, there was the Cantus Missae and Abendlied by Rheinberger, whose fame - unlike that of the other three - rests largely on his choral output.

This was a memorable evening, both for its fearless exposure of little-known works and for the quality of the singing, which ensured that every piece was a totally moving experience. The choir's next concert, intriguingly entitled The Call of Nature, is on July 8. Visit www.cityofoxfordchoir.org.uk for details.

Nicola Lisle

Calme des Nuits
Music and Words for a summer evening, The Queen's College Chapel, The Oxford Times, July 2005

There can be few more agreeable ways to spend: a summer evening than listening, in a gracious college chapel, to one of Oxford's illustrious musical groups. On Saturday, it was the City of Oxford choir, with guest conductor David Ireson, the singers garlanded with nearly 30 years of acclaimed experience, he - also a choral singer - with a special interest in marrying words and music.

Their programme of readings and songs might be dismissed as 'undemanding'. But it was certainly not so for the performers singing a cappella music from 16th-century France to 20th-century Britain, with only Ireson's tuning fork to anchor them. Some of the most testing pieces were among the more familiar Vaughan Williams's Shakespeare settings, for example, originally written as competition pieces and correspondingly bristling with changing part-writing. Full Fathom Five, with echoing bells for sopranos and a gentle end, suited the choir especially.

Texts and music were carefully chosen pairs Certon and Baif 16th-century near-contemporaries, while Robert de Pearsall enjoyed in 19th-century Germany what Ireson called the late Elizabethan "wallow in melancholy" and created lush textures of sound to suit lovers' laments. Saint-Saëns wrote his own words to the two songs we heard here. The first gave the evening its title: Calme des nuits, whose pianissinmo opening and closing bars were well handled.

Interspersed were jolly readings by choir members, including an unusually jocund Adelstrop (Shirley Holder). David Jaques knew how to deliver an iambic pentameter in Sonnet 128, and Robert Fletcher read two witty pieces (Herrick and Glyn Maxwell) very wittily. Britten's Gloriana, an unexpected Coronation commission after the sudden death of the King, isn't among his best. He was never really happy with it and the songs have a stiff, slightly contrived quality. Ireson hit on the brilliant idea of ending the evening with a reprise of scapegrace Pierre Certon's sparkling gossip song and its refrain: "I daren't tell you... but I will."

Jeannine Alton  

Cantiones Sacrae
Tallis 500th Anniversary Concert, Exeter College Chapel, The Oxford Times, April 2005

The choir’s most recent concert, mainly devoted to the music of Thomas Tallis, whose birth probably occurred in 1505, was also the swansong of the regime of its present conductor, Peter Leech, an artist who has presided over the ensemble since 1998.

What kind of instrument he inherited is open to discussion; judging, though, by the performance the choir gave in Exeter College Chapel last week, he has certainly let nothing slip.  Covering a range of testing works, the corporate balance of the group proved excellent, its confidence unshakeable, its tone on the whole remarkable…

The craftsmanship was here illustrated and reflected in singing rarely less than meticulous; and replacing any ‘developmental’ arrangement of the works on show was a display of Tallis’ ease and virtuosity in mixing styles (in Audivi vocem de caelo, for instance, where rich imitations alternate with homophonic plain chant) along with what links all his work and in many ways identifies him, specifically his strength of feeling and the expressive quality of his settings.  Especially memorable, on this occasion, was the rending the choir produced of O nata lux, with the sopranos in fine fettle, the whole smooth, balanced but affecting and – no less – the way the intensities of O sacrum convivium and O salutaris hostia burned themselves into the mind.

Derek Jole

Angels from the realms of Glory
French Baroque Christmas music, St Barnabas, Jericho, The Oxford Times, December 2003

Angels for the Realms of Glory began with an evocative journey through the old French provinces, featuring traditional carols familiar and not so familiar, but all offering different visions of the Nativity.

Conductor Peter Leech achieved some impressive multi-tasking, playing organ, drum and tambourine – sometimes more than one at a time! – and all the while coaxing a high level of precision and tonal warmth from his singer. The choir tackled the pieces with obvious enjoyment, contrasting well between the uplifting mood of the first half and the greater solemnity of the second. Their diction was excellent, dynamics were well observed, entries were crisp and precise, and intonation remained accurate throughout – despite the fact that for much of the time, they were singing unaccompanied. This was a fitting contribution to the pre-Christmas season and, among all the other festive treats on offer, refreshingly different.

Nicola Lisle

Lennox Berkeley 100th Anniversary Concert
Queens's College Chapel, Oxford Times, April 2003

Scouring Oxford recently for recordings of Lennox Berkeley’s music, I drew nothing but blanks. Such neglect is particularly sad in view of the fact that Berkeley was a local composer – he was born at Boars Hill, spent much of his childhood in Oxford, and studied at Merton College. This year also happens to be the centenary of his birth, so a major revival of his work is surely overdue. Fortunately, The City of Oxford Choir took a step in the right direction last Saturday with a celebratory concert in the magnificent setting of Queen’s College Chapel. Berkeley’s repertoire stretches to over 200 pieces, across the whole spectrum of genres, so a two-hour concert could only offer a fleeting glimpse of the man and his music. But anyone unfamiliar with Berkeley would have gone away with a firm impression of his personal idiom. The programme focused on his sacred and organ music, often considered his finest with his Missa Brevis and Mass for Five Voices forming the framework around which other pieces were interspersed.

The choir, under the authoritative direction of Peter Leech, sang with conviction, achieving good crisp entries and unwavering intonation. But there was a tendency to force the sound occasionally, and they made the all too common mistake of dropping consonants from word endings. Nigel Nash, on the other hand, thrilled with his stirring renditions of Three Pieces for Organ, playing decisively with style and panache. The programme was peppered with items by other composers who have either lived or studied in Oxford. The most memorable were Nicholas Wilson’s lovely Ave Maria and Bryan Kelly’s joyous frolic Fruit Machine which brought the evening to a rousing conclusion.

Nicola Lisle

In Dulci Jubilo
Christmas Music from Baroque Germany with Frideswide Ensemble and Soprano Katherine Mahon, Keble College Chapel, Oxford Times, December 2002

Featuring audience carols, followed by Chorales, Carols and Cantatas by Praetorius, J.S.Bach, Samuel Scheidt and Dietrich Buxtehude 'Das Neugeborne kindelein' and 'In dulci jubilo'.

The COC's aim with In Dulci Jubilo was to guide us through some relatively antique workings of the Christina: music, done in Germany and most of ii baroque. Praetorius's handling of carols, for example, reveals some knowledge of Italian methods of ifs time, but here it's fused with. idioms imbibed from Lutheran Chorale – inspiring a manner which; as candle-bearer to the work of Schütz and Buxtehude, sound; a bit more ugly-duckling than it was in fact.

A priori, though, it hardly strikes the modern mind as very `Christmassy' and unremote, indeed, it begins to only when you tell yourself that Christmas is remote; it is the coldness of a distant star, dark spaces, earthly visits. from eternity. And yet it is, as we all know; the warm touch of the familiar too. It celebrates a birth, it takes us home Yuletide cheer is never quite complete-unIess these aspects, overlap. Last Saturday, in Keble chapel, the Choir focused them as one Archaic scores, bequeathed to us by long dead artists far away, yet resonating with sense of a living, common culture, proved neighbours, after all, to everybody's memory. In Dulci Jubilo (in three versions, by Praetorius, Buxtehude, Bach), the music that we sing as Jesu, son above all other, and the cradle-carol Joseph dearest, Joseph mine came dressed up in the high-art habits of a distant time.

Peter Leech's singers, and the Frideswide Ensemble, tackling the concertato roles that Buxtehude specifies in works like O dulcis Jesu (sweetly sung by Katherine Mahon) echoed the needed contrasts through their quality and style. Here, in the acoustic sparkle of the chapel space, Leech coaxed from his artists an unearthly uniformity of utterance, a discipline of dynamics and of tone, which seemed the closest thing imaginable to far off, heavenly song. Yet the phrases were caressed; some pieces, companioned by the drum, recalled the origins of carols in the village-dance; and the restrained, but subtly emotional approach expressed good news for folk alive on earth.

Derek Jole

Love has turned me upside down
French chansons from the Renaissance to the present day, Oxford Times, April 2002

Some composers of the music performed include: Josquin, Goudimel, Manchicourt, Berton, Debussy and Ravel.

'Love has turned me upside down' was the intriguing title for the COC's selection of chansons in Queen's College chapel. But fluent French was not necessary for enjoyment of them: full translations were provided in the programme – except that is for Clement Janequin's Le chant des oiseaux. "The words are a bit too risqué to print," explained conductor Peter Leech. "Let's say that the song reflects the coquettish behaviour of birds going about their business at this time of year."

The words in question, complete with the odd 'cuckoo' thrown in for good measure, were certainly tongue-twisting. But that was no problem: both here and throughout, the choir provided exemplary clarity and spot-on ensemble, which fully overcame the rather wallowing acoustic. Composers ranged all the way from Josquin des Prez to Poulenc, with a first half devoted to the 15th and 16th centuries.

Des Prez's Mille regrets ("It is with such regret that I leave you, and lose sight of your loving face") was suitably sorrowful, but the mood was generally light and romantic - and blessedly free of the over-earnest, academic solemnity which can attend the singing of music from this period. Pierre Passereau's Il est bel et bon, which asks "What's your husband like?", vividly reminded me of an occasion when, marooned in a tiny tent on a French campsite, I couldn't avoid overhearing the wives in the neighbouring canvas palaces discussing their husbands in the most intimate detail.

Later, two songs by Debussy were more downbeat, but there was a moving performance of Saint-Saens's Calme des nuits, with warm underpinning from the basses. Altogether this was an expertly planned and delightful concert, showing that this medium-sized choir is in excellent voice – and it possesses the ability to stay in tune in all conditions too: the chapel was delivering an extremely cold draught.

Giles Woodforde

Sacred and secular
Merton College Chapel, Oxford Times, August 2000

The City of Oxford Choir has a difficult task This is a city with three world class choral foundations, not. to mention half a dozen others of comparable excellence. yet as in their imaginative Christmas programme, they brought us in this summer concert. (Merton College Chapel) some superb secular, as well as church compositions, well beyond; the range of a chapel choir.

Brahms, for instance his a cappella music is a treasure trove, full of the fresh melodic feel of his finest songs. Peter Leech, conducting, brought out the infectious rhythm of Da unten im Tale and even more the breathless quietness of In stiller Nacht. It was also good to hear Liszt's Ave maits Stella – a great tune hackneyed in Victorian times, but a joy to hear today; also Grieg's setting of the same text, with the choir doing justice to the feather-light pianissimo at the end.

Only in the Renaissance motets which began the programme did I feel a momentary regret that we -were hearing women's voices; the unique sound of boy sopranos is really integral to such a masterpiece of Spanish/Roman polyphony as Victoria's Ave Maria. Not so at all; of course, in the well chosen, Lutheran anthems by Bach family members, unusually before the great J.S.Johann Michael's Das Blut Jesu Christi was pictorially vivid; even more so Johann Christoph's meditation on "Man, who has but a short time to live", which strongly recalled the most expressive moments in some of the Matthew Passion arias.

In high Victorian mode, Stanford's My Love's an Arbutus, with its ravishingly simple melody, reminded us what a deeply creative musician was lost in the dim recesses of 19th century church music. Vaughan Williams, also at his best in a cappella works, was brilliantly served (especially by the tenors) in the relentlessly jolly Five English Folk Songs.

I trust it's praise enough to say that, at the end, the choir, reached the unique spiritual and musical heights of Palestrina's O magnum mysterium.

Hugh Vickers

Bach 250th Anniversary Concert
Oxford Times, July 2000

Bach. The name immediately conjures up thoughts of the great Johann Sebastian. Or perhaps a pleasant piece by one of his composing sons might surface in the memory. But the City of Oxford Choir had other ideas. In their latest programme, they explored the works of older Bach's: as the programme note pointed out, "Johann Sebastian Bach was not the miracle child of an otherwise unmusical family” First Bach on the bill was Johann (1603-73). His motet Sei nun wieder zuflrieden perhaps didn't display a particularly individual style, but Johann Michael (1648-94) sounded very much his own man: Das Blut, Jesu Christicame over as confident and dramatic.

The Choir sang this music in full and rounded fashion. Works by Jacob Handl, Schutz and yet another Bach, Johann Christoph (a very cheerful composer), were also excellently served. The list of singers printed in the programme showed a staff shortage in the tenor section, but in actual performance there was a good balance across all four parts. Conductor Peter Leech had evidently inspired enthusiasm, for the works on offer too. Reaching Johann Sebastian himself, however, the choir sounded almost overawed at times by Jesu Meine Freude.

Like Johann Sebastian, the earlier Bachs were plainly also no slouches in the organ department. Proving this point was Konstantin Reymaier, playing an excellent instrument for the purpose, the organ of The Queen's College Chapel. Mr Reymaier began with Heinrich and followed with Johann (1604-73 vintage): his Sei nun wieder zufrieden being played on delicate flute stops and given an added shimmer by use of tremulants. Altogether, the organ music was delightful. The fact that Johann Sebastian was supreme, however, was made very clear by a riproaring performance of his thrilling 'St Anne' Prelude and Fugue. Those ancestors were surely applauding loudly from their graves.

Giles Woodforde