MOST classical singers don’t sing well in any other style. They can’t relax, and their enunciation is just that little bit too careful. The classically trained American countertenor Reginald Mobley showed in his Wigmore Hall recital of African-American spirituals last month, with the French jazz pianist Baptiste Trotignon, that he is an exception to the rule.
Perfectly at home in the spirituals’ idiom, he sang with sincerity and an artless naturalness that concealed his technical mastery as his diction changed subtly to suit the music, the vowels widening, the final Gs slipping gently away. The voice is luminous, almost feminine, and constant throughout its range. His top register is powerful without being hooty; and the pianissimi were audible at the back of the hall.
Some numbers stood out. “My Lord, what a morning” was a simple expression of hope. A jazzy “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” was decorated with tasteful flourishes. “Steal away” quietly tugged at the heart, while “Were you there?”, with its unaccompanied lines, was a simple expression of faith. Underlying everything was the sadness of an imprisoned people who sang because they had no other way to express themselves.
Trotignon noodled around and between the singer’s lines, slipping from jazz to ragtime by way of gospel and blues, without ever getting in the way.
Art songs from the African-American composers Florence Price (1887-1949) and Harry T. Burleigh showed an equally perfect understanding of the classical idiom. Price’s “Sunset” and “Because” were beautifully coloured, and his gentle and solemn handling of Burleigh’s “Jean”, with the rippling piano underneath, brought out its understated eroticism.
We have heard him elsewhere, of course, notably with the Monteverdi Choir at the pre-Coronation concert. Much of the concert material can be found on their album Because, which won the German 2024 Opus Klassik “Classics Without Borders” Award, and a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Deservedly so.
IT IS becoming increasingly fashionable to devise programmes with a theme running through them. A Wigmore Hall concert by the Cardinall’s Musick under Andrew Carwood last month took up this idea with a meditation on relationships, “The Price of Love”.
They began with Pierre Cadéac’s “Je suis déshéritée”, a sad 16th-century French song from the lips of a girl whose love has left her. The tune forms the cantus firmus of Palestrina’s four-part Mass of the same name, which was intertwined during the first half with three of Vaughan Williams’s Ten Blake Songs, smoothly and expressively performed by the tenor Steven Harrold and the oboist Rachel Harwood-White.
The cunning juxtaposition of the Kyrie and Gloria with “A Poison Tree”, and the Credo with “Cruelty Has A Human Heart” heightened the purity of one and the viciousness of the other. By contrast, nesting “The Divine Image” between the Mass’s Sanctus and Agnus Dei underlined the plea for mercy inherent in both. The audience did not applaud until the final Ite, Missa Est.
The choir took a middle way between the over-refined choral singing sometimes heard, and emotional over-indulgence. Their singing, collectively and individually, was clear, balanced and accurate, while not neglecting the sentiment behind the words. Having displayed their skill with more conventional repertoire, they made use of a variety of vocal techniques in the world première of Julian Anderson’s “Nothing At All”, a dramatic madrigal with words by Paul Griffiths based on a Japanese Noh play. The music jumped and bubbled, bringing the story of the fisherman and the angel to vivid life. This is a significant addition to the repertoire — for any group with the skill to do it.
Back, then, to the 16th century. The Spaniard Tomás Luis de Victoria was one of the last representatives of the Renaissance polyphonic style. His Vadam et circuibo civitatem (‘I will arise and go about the city’) is full of word-painting, with the sopranos’ rising figure and circular line followed by a descending “quo declinavit”, and a climbing figure on “ascendit in palmam”.
In contrast, his three Tenebrae motets for Maundy Thursday are sparse and austere, the choir dwelling gravely on the recurring “Melius si natus non fuisset”. Much cheerier were Sweelinck’s 1617 setting of Psalm 118 for a friend’s wedding and Jacobus Handl’s 1586 Pater Noster, where two antiphonal choirs swapped phrases before breaking joyously into the florid runs of the final Amen.