The Sixteen's Blog

At least one of the CDs we make for our own label each year is funded by generous individual donors.  The second volume of our Palestrina mass series (due for release in September) is the next recording to be funded this way and, to broaden the pool of people involving themselves directly with our projects, we are raising some of the costs through the BigGive.  Whether you would like to contribute £10, £100 or £1000, this is a very easy way to do so!  This link will take you to a full project description on the BigGive site.

Everyone making a donation will be credited in the CD booklet; and anybody donating at least £20 will receive a copy of the CD when it is released.

More information on Volume 1 is available here – and there will be at least another 10 volumes to follow!

The choir has moved on to Melbourne; the orchestra has a day off in Sydney; I am still in Hong Kong for another day of meetings; and our offices and colleagues in London and Oxford are helping keep the show on the road.

Tonight’s concert is at the Melbourne Recital Centre at 7.30, with a programme including Allegri’s Miserere and works by Palestrina, Anerio and Marenzio.

The South China Morning Posts arts critics are notorious for finding fault with nearly every event they review (apparently even the Concertgebouw Orchestra got short shrift recently), so maybe today’s review of our Messiah last Saturday isn’t so bad, although it starts with the usual (and here rather tedious, as well as inaccurate) numerological debate: ‘Directed by Harry Christophers, The Sixteen Choir seems a misnomer: on Saturday it was sporting 18 singers on stage, 16 in the programme notes and around 30 on the posters.

Christophers was once one of  the 18  boy choristers at Britain’s Canterbury Cathedral, traditionally known as The Sixteen in deference to ancient statutes. If the point seems laboured, it at least offers a frame for asking whether size matter’s in Handel’s Messiah, which has a greater role for the chorus than his other oratorios.

The work’s unsinkable popularity was confirmed in this highly enjoyable Arts Festival performance, by turns zingy and introspective, and sporting every colour bar grey. Christophers kept the action moving slickly, regularly tweaking details in the instrumental ensemble’s rock-solid support. The chorus delivered faultlessly from a technical standpoint but often sounded once-removed from the emotions, not simply by being small in number but also by being consciously restrained by Christophers in volume and edge.

The four soloists commanded an impressive narrative flair, sometimes captivating more by a sense of theatricality, however, than the quality of voice that Handel puts so roundly to the test.  The exception was countertenor Robin Blaze, whose beguiling shifts in tone and responsiveness to textual shading were exemplary throughout. You would have to go a long way before hearing a more telling performance of ‘He was despised’.

Tenor James Gilchrist led the pack in terms of projection; bass Matthew Brook hooked us with dramatic presence; soprano Gillian Keith trod a middle path. And did the local audience oblige tradition by rising for the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus? Yes, in a bemused, Mexican wave sort of way.’

Domkerk Utrecht

A busy Bank Holiday weekend coming up.  The choir flies to the Netherlands this evening for tomorrow night’s concert at 20.00 in the Domkerk in Utrecht in the Festival Oude Muziek.  The programme includes Palestrina’s Missa Assumpta est Maria, a Magnificat by Aenerio, and Allegri’s Miserere.  Full details are on the festival’s website, but I fear it is returns only as the concert is sold out.  The concert is going out live in the Netherlands on Radio 4, in France on France Musique, and also in some other European Broadcasting Union countries, although I haven’t yet tracked them all down – you can at least listen through one of the above two sites’ streams!

‘The musical developments that accompanied all this movement is still largely hidden under the surface. As the world’s biggest early music festival, Utrecht wants to be an advocate for this unknown repertoire, or for music that we only think we know.  Roma – città eterna promises some unforgettable moments.’  And then, on Monday, the 22 members of Genesis Sixteen assemble in London for the first week’s course, culminating in a free performance at the South Bank Centre on Sunday 4 September at 13.15. Members of Genesis Sixteen will talk about their experiences on the blog during the course of next week.

CD Review

CD Review on Saturday morning gave 30 minutes coverage to our recent CORO Palestrina and O Guiding Night  CDs. If you missed it you can listen here on iPlayer - it is the first part of the programme, so run it from the top.

The programme also reviewed Trinity College Choir’s new CD Beyond All Mortal Dreams:  American A Cappella on Hyperion.  Something which struck me as interesting – and a point which Andrew McGregor didn’t make – is that what these CDs demonstrate is the vigorous scene in 21st century choral composition at present on both side of the Atlantic, and not a note of Whitacre to be heard!  O Guiding Night features Ruth Byrchmore, Tarik O’Regan and Roderick Williams, and Hyperion’s features Rene Clausen, Steven Stucky, Ola Gjeilo, Frank Ferko, Edwin Fissinger, Healey Willan (OK, he was Canadian and somewhat older than the others), Stephen Paulus and Willian Hawley.

Specialist Classical Albums Chart

Just a quick update on various media coverage and items of interest:

1) Our Palestrina CD is back in the Specialist Classical Albums Chart this week, appropriately enough at no. 16.  Very pleasing, as there is some stiff competition from The Hilliard Ensemble, I Fagiolini and Trinity College Choir.

2) I guess reviews such as this bite-size one  from Geoffrey Norris in the Telegraph are helping!

3) Great coverage too on the NPR Classical blog Deceptive Cadence, one of the most influential US music blogs.

4) Plus a positive recommendation on WGBH Boston’s website.