Review Details
MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITY DAME EMMA KIRKBY Soprano THE ROSE CONSORT OF VIOLS “From Teares to Turnips”
Alan Cooper
19 November 2009
St MACHAR’S CATHEDRAL
A capacity audience packed St Machar’s Cathedral for a spellbinding recital of early music from Dame Emma Kirkby with The Rose Consort of Viols. Dame Emma’s luminous voice matched the Elizabethan repertoire perfectly as it drifted effortlessly above the accompaniment provided by the viol consort which supplied the ideal slightly gamey sound compliment to the gentle purity of her singing. The astonishingly detailed refinement of her technique was impressive; a genuine example of highly developed artistry which at the same time came across as perfectly artless and uncontrived. As if no effort whatsoever were involved, she leapt to the highest notes while maintaining the most delicate pianissimo. Her diction was crystal clear, her diminuendos totally unwavering and every detail of the music was picked out and sold to the audience with that sense of intimate connection that only the great singers possess, making everyone believe “Here she is, singing this just for me”. From the gentle sadness of Dowland’s “Go cristall tears” to the gleeful earthy fun of “The Cries of London” by Thomas Weelkes, Dame Emma had us totally under her spell.
As Dr Roger Williams said to me at the interval, a consort of viols played properly cannot be beaten, and the Rose Consort lived up to that aspiration magnificently. The two pieces by John Black, an early Aberdeen composer made a nice addition to the programme. The hearty part writing of Dowland’s “Lachrimae Antiquae” and “Lachrimae Galliard” for the five players came across every bit as transparently as the trio that played “Fantasia a 3 No.2” by Orlando Gibbons. Byrd’s “Browning” hotted up nicely as it developed. It delighted the audience just as much as three contrasting dances by Anthony Holborne. These even provoked a flurry of laughter when the Almain lived up precisely to what we had been told to expect in the introduction. Dame Emma sold Byrd’s almost cartoon-like picture of the life and death of a little lapdog to us with a twinkle in her eye and in her voice too. The three part elegy by Orlando Gibbons gave us the sadder side of life and death but it was upstaged by Byrd’s magnificent lament for the death of Thomas Tallis “Ye sacred Muses”. For me, this was the summit of the entire recital. I did like The Silver Swan which was the encore though because I have sung it myself in a madrigal group. I don’t know about the moral of the ending however. In purely musical terms if Dame Emma is the Swan I am forced to admit that our rough singing probably did suggest something more like a flock of geese.