NOT far from the north door of Worcester Cathedral, and opposite Elgar’s statue, is a century-old antique shop, Bygones. The Three Choirs Festival has been in existence since the early 18th century. But nobody could accuse this great festival, spanning three cathedrals, of being a “bygone”. Indeed, one of the many impressive features of this year’s flood of events has been the exceptionally large number of new commissions, or very recent music, among the central events.
“Nature Sings” was the appealing title of one of its additional collective gatherings, a delightfully varied amalgam, drawing in amateur participants from all sorts of backgrounds; and the natural world, a celebration of our planet and our obligation to protect it, featured prominently behind many of this season’s contributions.
A few titles, sometimes of works just a quarter of an hour long, give a taste of the priority allocated to exploring the theme of “nature”. The Imagined Forest, by Grace-Evangeline Mason, a vision of magical spaces, enclosed glades, and shimmering light, makes much gripping and alluring use of the orchestra, to fine effect. And hers was just one of the pieces in this programme, which gave great prominence to Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, the wondrously expressive leader and principal chair of the Philharmonia Orchestra, now for many years in regular residence at the festival. His solos played an uplifting part in numerous items; his orchestra’s offering was exemplary.
“O sweet spontaneous earth”, with warm, sensitive, hushed string playing, was one of several pieces (including “A Wreath”, heard at one evensong) celebrating the 70th birthday of Dame Judith Weir, till this year Master of the King’s Music. Weir’s music is often tonal, graspable, inspiring, and masterfully capable of evoking the precise subject that she is addressing.
In the Land of Uz is a seven-section semi-oratorio setting texts from the Book of Job. It is a highly dramatic exploration, sung here with great aplomb by the BBC Singers, visiting for just one night. In a four-minute miniature (“Still, glowing”) she conjured the most enticing, whispering adagio. Of exciting power, too, was one of the many vivid works issuing (with young singers) from the widely hailed Cecilia McDowall: The Shipping Forecast. It was amazingly bright, alive, fresh, and original.
Dale HodgettsJudith Weir with the BBC Singers after her cantata The Land of Uz
Shorter items embraced another miniature (“Lux aurumque”) from the award-winning American choral specialist Eric Whitacre; a desirable new four-part cycle from an acclaimed Welshman, Paul Mealor; Yr Afon Yn Yr Awyr, by Cameron Biles-Liddell, expressively evoking the magic, even mystique, of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over the river Dee in North Wales; Nathan James Dearden’s Messages, sensitively evoking various cultures, culminating in a fearsome nuclear warning from a disturbing top laboratory in New Mexico. Several of these works were specifically, and imaginatively, commissioned by the Three Choirs.
Of course, the tributes to great figures of the 19th or early 20th centuries played a very significant part, not least because of the consistently overwhelming quality of the Festival Chorus (or part thereof), embracing the choral societies of all three cathedrals. It fell to Geraint Bowen to bring life to Holst’s The Cloud Messenger, scarcely ever done, perhaps a little over-long, but a formidable piece for choir and orchestra, whose text the composer translated from Sanskrit poetry.
Despite appeals for the “Bringer of rain to the thirsty land”, a proportion of the text is in fact passionate love poetry, a cousin, perhaps, to the Song of Songs. Of the quality of this performance and Bowen’s perceptive reading, there could be no doubt. But chamber works, organ adaptations, and much else as well played their part in bringing Holst to the fore: he had a good run.
Rossini’s celebrated Petite Messe Solennelle, even (maybe particularly) in the two-piano (plus harmonium) version, is always rumbustious and in places electrifying, underlining its very late, mid-19th century date. By tradition, one of Elgar’s two bracing evocation of the Apostles, The Kingdom, shone awesomely and gloriously under the experienced baton and predictable insight of Adrian Partington, and brought the festival to a sensational close.
But the remarkable surprise was Samuel Hudson’s introduction, after a stunning performance of Holst’s The Hymn of Jesus (mostly taken from the apocryphal Acts of St John), of Stanford’s Stabat Mater: performed in 1907 at Leeds, and first heard at this festival in 1908. The originality, vitality, and variety of this setting — at times indeed verging on Elgar — of this medieval text came as surprise — even though Stanford’s Requiem is also a staggering masterpiece.
With soloists of such a dramatic power as the tenor Nicky Spence, and, soaring above all, the magnificent soprano Rebecca Hardwick, and with the chorus generating a superb impact, Hudson made out as magnificent case as could be wanted for this work to be reaasessed as a masterpiece in Stanford’s anniversary year.
The UK première of the American (Princeton-born) Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered was, at three-quarters of an hour, one of the three longest modern compositions heard. It is almost a kind of Benedicite. Between sections of the Mass for the Dead are interspersed pleading passages for a beleaguered planet. The Credo thus becomes “We believe in stones and moss”; “On earth, air, and water, have mercy”; “To barren, poisoned land: Forgive us”.
The inventiveness of her score to match the evocative words was impressive: she makes tremendous use of her orchestra — from near-silence for the “Quoniam” to marvellous yelping flutes in the Credo and a mesmerising addition, especially sometimes alone, of piano. This proved a most inviting work.
Yet, for all the wonders of a packed week, two items seemed to stand out gloriously, both of which featured young singers, for whose excellence the Three Choirs is nowadays justly celebrated.
The first was the extensive “environmental cantata” by Bob Chilcott, a festival special guest: The Angry Planet, from 2012. It featured just the three cathedral choirs, and under Hudson’s direction they shone at every point. It was obvious that this work is one of Chilcott’s finest, deeply expressive at every point. Again, the exploratory modern text, by Charles Bennett, was rich in poetry. This was matched by the imagination and variety of Chilcott’s score. The finesse of these boys and girls and the lucidity (with the soprano Florence Price added above) simply bowled one over.
The other was a stupendous performance by the impeccably drilled Three Choirs Festival Youth Choir, who performed the work that possibly drew the greatest cheer of the week: the Requiem by Ian Venables. At an evensong, we had already heard a beguiling first performance of a set of canticles by Venables, now as known for his adroit sacred choral writing as for his songs.
Since its première at Gloucester Cathedral (under Adrian Partington, who conducted here, and who founded this youth chorus), Venables has orchestrated the Requiem in a breathtakingly beautiful version. To hear it here with the Philharmonia Orchestra felt all but a miracle. It was bold to include it as a major item in the evening programme, but the decision paid off.