Cathedral Concert, Allegri & Part
I had the first of my birthday presents a week last Saturday, a concert at the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral - they seem to have a decent concert most years round this time so it makes a nice extra treat :)
This one was called Ikons and was a slightly odd mix of secular and religious music, though it worked very well, with the cantata choir, some soloists and a very small orchestra. Lots of combinations of musicians, from the a cappela choir pieces to a string quartet, solo piano piece and one for piano and violin. The latter was one of my great favourites, Part's Spiegel in Spiegel which just builds and builds on very simple phrases between the two instruments, hearing it echo around the vast building was amazing, though I'm not sure if the violinist was nervous or if the cold room was affecting her strings, as the notes seemed rather hesitant and reedy compared to recorded versions I've heard - perhaps its more challenging a piece than it sounds? More Part included Da Pacem Dominem, truly peaceful played by the quartet, and the rather wonderful Variationen zur Heilung von Arinushka which is for solo piano and had me spellbound, so much so I've tracked down the sheet music and want to learn to play it myself. I'd not heard much of Part's pieces beyond Spiegel but definitely need to try and hear more of them, lovely minimalist stuff, so sparse but really effective.
Click to hear Arinushka
The "showpiece" of the concert and the opening was Allegri's Miserere, probably my favourite vocal work and again a real treat to hear live and echoing, especially when the four voices in the secondary choir came bursting in from up in the choir loft, the soprano especially had a marvellous voice on those well-known high notes, rich and clear (I usually prefer a boy soprano to an adult singer but her voice worked so well). I'm not sure what happened on the final section mind, the choir had been perfectly in harmony and then all of a sudden it was as though someone pressed a switch and the whole thing fell apart, oops. Dad knows one of the tenors from his poetry course and we ended up chatting to him in the interval and he brought up the chaos without us needing to, he had no clue what happened either but it wasn't a moment of glory by any means *giggle*
The other pieces were a mix of good and not-so-good for me, Monteverdi is always a treat, Beatus Vir with the full choir was excellent and the soprano and alto from the Allegri proved their skills with a lovely duet, Chiome d'Oro which was so bouncy and lilting. Less enjoyable was a piece by Janacek. I'm not a huge fan of his stuff at the best of times, I just can't hear enough melody and the dissonances and odd changes of rhythm and tune wrong-foot me. In this case I couldn't quite tell if it was the piece itself, Otcenas, which was the problem, as parts of it were melodic and powerful, or the limitations of the choir - its years since I sang in the choir but I can spot a challenging piece when I hear it and I think some of them were struggling with some of the harmonies. Either way I was quite glad when we moved onto more tuneful parts! Oh and there was the "world premiere" of a new choir piece by someone named Moseley, Sine Die, which I did enjoy, reminded me a little of Stanfords The Blue Bird, I love that.
All in all it was a great evening, nice variety of pieces that all worked very well together and seemed to follow a theme of sorts. And its always good to be out and about with my dad, been doing less of that now I've been more independent about going shopping etc, so it made a pleasant change.
took 6 attempts to post this correctly, sorry for anyone who got the failed versions..
This one was called Ikons and was a slightly odd mix of secular and religious music, though it worked very well, with the cantata choir, some soloists and a very small orchestra. Lots of combinations of musicians, from the a cappela choir pieces to a string quartet, solo piano piece and one for piano and violin. The latter was one of my great favourites, Part's Spiegel in Spiegel which just builds and builds on very simple phrases between the two instruments, hearing it echo around the vast building was amazing, though I'm not sure if the violinist was nervous or if the cold room was affecting her strings, as the notes seemed rather hesitant and reedy compared to recorded versions I've heard - perhaps its more challenging a piece than it sounds? More Part included Da Pacem Dominem, truly peaceful played by the quartet, and the rather wonderful Variationen zur Heilung von Arinushka which is for solo piano and had me spellbound, so much so I've tracked down the sheet music and want to learn to play it myself. I'd not heard much of Part's pieces beyond Spiegel but definitely need to try and hear more of them, lovely minimalist stuff, so sparse but really effective.
Click to hear Arinushka
The "showpiece" of the concert and the opening was Allegri's Miserere, probably my favourite vocal work and again a real treat to hear live and echoing, especially when the four voices in the secondary choir came bursting in from up in the choir loft, the soprano especially had a marvellous voice on those well-known high notes, rich and clear (I usually prefer a boy soprano to an adult singer but her voice worked so well). I'm not sure what happened on the final section mind, the choir had been perfectly in harmony and then all of a sudden it was as though someone pressed a switch and the whole thing fell apart, oops. Dad knows one of the tenors from his poetry course and we ended up chatting to him in the interval and he brought up the chaos without us needing to, he had no clue what happened either but it wasn't a moment of glory by any means *giggle*
The other pieces were a mix of good and not-so-good for me, Monteverdi is always a treat, Beatus Vir with the full choir was excellent and the soprano and alto from the Allegri proved their skills with a lovely duet, Chiome d'Oro which was so bouncy and lilting. Less enjoyable was a piece by Janacek. I'm not a huge fan of his stuff at the best of times, I just can't hear enough melody and the dissonances and odd changes of rhythm and tune wrong-foot me. In this case I couldn't quite tell if it was the piece itself, Otcenas, which was the problem, as parts of it were melodic and powerful, or the limitations of the choir - its years since I sang in the choir but I can spot a challenging piece when I hear it and I think some of them were struggling with some of the harmonies. Either way I was quite glad when we moved onto more tuneful parts! Oh and there was the "world premiere" of a new choir piece by someone named Moseley, Sine Die, which I did enjoy, reminded me a little of Stanfords The Blue Bird, I love that.
All in all it was a great evening, nice variety of pieces that all worked very well together and seemed to follow a theme of sorts. And its always good to be out and about with my dad, been doing less of that now I've been more independent about going shopping etc, so it made a pleasant change.
took 6 attempts to post this correctly, sorry for anyone who got the failed versions..