Review Details
MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN MUSIC PRIZE In association with S-O-U-N-D A COMPOSER PORTRAIT OF JAMES MacMILLAN
Alan Cooper
21 November 2009
King's College Chapel
An incandescent male chorus set every corner of King’s College Chapel ablaze with the words of a Latin text attributed to St. Augustine last night. This was the thrilling high-voltage opening of a new work by James MacMillan with which the magnificent Chapel Choir of King’s College launched A Composer Portrait. In conversation with James MacMillan himself, Professor Pete Stollery introduced a wide ranging selection of the composer’s music to astonish and delight the capacity audience that packed into the Chapel on a dreadfully inclement evening, all eager to be a part of this very special event. Who Are These Angels? was receiving its UK premiere in a version for five part chorus and string quartet. A joint commission from the Edinburgh Quartet, Sound and De Doelen of Rotterdam, it was funded by the Scottish Arts Council.
Roger B. Williams, Master of Chapel and Ceremonial Music and Organist to the University conducted the huge Chapel Choir in this shining work. MacMillan had separated the male and female voices of the choir into two distinct sections, the men singing the Latin text, the women shadowed by the strings of the Edinburgh Quartet repeatedly asking the question: “Who Are These Angels?” The male voices were largely unaccompanied except at the climax of their singing where the strings joined them in a passionate outpouring. At the conclusion of the work, the ghost of Olivier Messiaen seemed to be there as the strings melted into a succession of falling bird-like sounds. Messiaen, we remember, often equated bird sounds with the voices of angels. A piece later in the programme for solo organ brought back a broader extension of this idea.
The spotlight then centred on the Edinburgh Quartet who played Memento a quiet gentle threnody that echoed the sounds of Gaelic psalm singing. The title of HB to MB for solo cello signifies “Happy birthday to Michael Berman”. It was he who commissioned the piece. It was played in a bravura performance by another MB namely Mark Bailey of the Edinburgh Quartet. Shimmers, harmonics and a broad variety of cello timbres were used, not for their own sake, but to bring essential colour to this work.
Paul Tierney took over the Chapel Choir as Dr Williams provided the organ music in one of MacMillan’s early works composed in 1979. “The Lamb has come”, already shows a remarkable talent for choral composition with its variation of vocal colour and dynamic response. It has undoubtedly stood the test of time very well and still sounds fresh today.
Still at the organ, Dr Williams gave us a work first performed by Joseph Cullen in Pluscarden Abbey. Gaudeamus in Loci Pace had a central core of meditative hymn-like music above which the mystical sounds of an angelic host swarmed and rejoiced amid the highest pipes of the Aubertin organ.
And who indeed are these Angels? A second performance of the opening piece this time with antiphonal separation of the voices, the men at the front with the Quartet as before and the female voices towards the back of the Chapel volunteered to give us part of the answer. Well, I still don’t know, but one thing is for sure, it is James MacMillan who is writing their wonderful music for them.