Testimonials

We are indebted to Alan Cooper for his very kind review :-)

CATHEDRAL AT NOON
Saturday 25th May 2024

CON ANIMA CHAMBER CHOIR
Conductor: Dr Roger B. Williams MBE
Folk-Song settings from Germany, Britain and France

PROGRAMME:

Arnold Schoenberg (1874 – 1951)
Drei Volkslieder Op 49:
1. Es gingen zwei Gespielen gut;
2. Der Mai tritt ein mit Freuden;
3. Mein Herz in steten Treuen.

Gustav Holst (1874 – 1934)
Two Folk Songs:
1. I Sowed the seeds of Love;
2. There was a tree.

Reynaldo Hahn (1875 – 1947)
Four Folk songs:
1. Vivons, Mignarde;
2. En vous disant adieu;
3. Pleurez avec moi;
4. Les Fourriers d'Été.

REVIEW:

Saturday's concert, part of the weekly series of events in the Cathedral Church of St Andrew in Aberdeen, was dedicated to the memory of Don French who passed away some two days ago. He has sung with Con Anima in the past. I was sorry and indeed surprised to hear that Don had passed because I saw him on Sunday 19th of May in the Stonehaven Town Hall. He was there, singing in the bass line of the Stonehaven Chorus, taking part in a splendid performance of Holst's First Choral Symphony. Well, at least we can say that Don was still singing right up to the end, what a hero!
Saturday's programme which Dr Roger Williams had chosen for Con Anima was challenging but made for marvellous listening. The three composers, Schoenberg, Holst and Hahn had taken the folk-songs of their countries, and in completely different ways, transformed them into the finest examples of highly developed classical writing.
The three songs by Schoenberg took the original melodies and coloured them magnificently using detailed contrapuntal writing. The songs were full of complex cross entries which the singers of Con Anima accomplished with perfection. The result was music that was harmonically colourful and deeply expressive as the English translations in the programme notes pointed up. The balance of the choral singing was excellent. I was delighted to hear that the basses and in particular the tenors, sometimes a weak factor in local choirs for numerical reasons, were easily able to match the fine singing of the sopranos and altos. Here, and elsewhere, Roger controlled the variations in dynamics from the various sections of the choir quite splendidly. In the second song, Der Mai tritt ein mit Freuden, Schoenberg brings up the altos and basses. Roger and Con Anima brought that out splendidly. This second song flowed forth so delightfully smoothly. In the final song the tenors and altos stood out as Schoenberg demanded, yet the overall choral balance was perfect. There were moments of real flourish in the singing which I found absolutely joyful. Schoenberg of course is remembered for a quite different type of music of which he himself was one of the major creators, but some of his earlier music, for instance The Gurrelieder, are at the very apex of romantic writing but the three folk-song arrangements we heard today show him as one of the finest composers of harmonic and contrapuntal detail.
Holst's two songs demonstrate refinement and expressiveness in a completely different way. He contrasts unison and harmony in the opening verse of I sowed the seeds of Love. Then he uses the male and female voices separately. Once again Roger preserved the contrasting balance of the voices perfectly to give the whole performance a sense of unity. In the final verse, two of the altos had a lovely solo section. There was, where necessary, a softness in the singing that was delightful.
In the second of Holst's songs, the altos have the first verse. In the second they are joined by the sopranos. The tenors took off magnificently at the opening of the third verse, followed by a blend of altos and sopranos. It was the basses that shone forth at the opening of the final verse. I felt that Holst, by separating out the different sections of the choir, was using it in an almost orchestral fashion. By the way, I must point up the excellent diction of the choir in these English songs.
Emotional expressiveness was the high point in the four songs by Reynaldo Hahn. The first song, Vivons Mignarde (Let's live, my darling one) lets the original folk-song feeling of the music float to the top. There was marvellously smooth-floating singing from the sopranos to start with. In the centre of the verse there was a splendid crescendo before Roger made the tone soften once more. In the second song En vous disant adieu (Saying Goodbye to you) the sopranos gave us beautifully smooth-floating singing. There was a rich full choir crescendo then Roger brought back the softness of sound once more. That variety in dynamics (loud versus soft singing) was brought to a new level of refinement. The soft singing was unwavering and clear yet splendidly pianissimo when required.
The final song Les Fourriers d'Été (The Harbingers of Summer) opened with grand singing from tenors and basses then the female voices came in. There was lively dance-like rhythmic enthusiasm in this music a perfect conclusion to an excellent Saturday lunchtime performance:

Hiver, vous ne demeurez plus!
Les fourriers d'Été sont venus.
Words by Charles Duc d'Orleans (1394 -1465)

Begone now, Winter, haste away.
Be off – you have no longer stay!
For Summer's harbingers are here.

Yes! And when I left to go to my car following a delicious strawberry tea at the Cathedral, the sun was blazing down on the streets of Aberdeen. Thank-you Con Anima, Roger, Reynaldo Hahn and Charles Duc d'Orleans, we need more of you to keep the Summer going after a long hard wet winter in Aberdeen!

Alan Cooper

ABERDEEN SINFONIETTA with CON ANIMA

Sunday 19th November 2023

MUSIC HALL ABERDEEN

Garry Walker Conductor
Moira Docherty Soprano
Tara Leiper Alto

PROGRAMME:

Mikhail Verbytskyi (1851 – 1870)
The National Anthem of Ukraine arr. John Hearne
George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)
Overture and Arrival of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon
Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741)
Gloria in D RV589
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Symphony No. 3 in E flat op. 55 “Eroica”

REVIEW:

Aberdeen Sinfonietta were at their expected best for their Autumn Concert in Aberdeen's Music Hall. For this concert, they were to be joined by Con Anima Chamber Choir, bringing together the very best the City has to offer in both instrumental and choral music making. The upstairs in the Music Hall was well filled. Downstairs was all right but considering the quality of the performances we were about to enjoy, I would have been happy to see it packed. Nevertheless, there is nowhere else in Aberdeen that would have been able to accommodate Sunday's audience.
As has been a regular feature of these concerts, the music began with The National Anthem of Ukraine and this year, with Con Anima in attendance onstage, the words of the Anthem were also sung. I was pleased that conductor Garry Walker asked us all to stand for the Anthem. In previous years, myself and a few others did stand, this year everyone did.
Then, it was time for the concert proper to begin. The Overture from Handel's oratorio Solomon is quite extensive and in several parts. It was an opportunity for Sinfonietta's string players to show just what they could do. The playing was wonderfully clean, clear and well balanced. Blair Cargill added the spicing of harpsichord sound albeit on an electronic instrument. A pair of oboes were also there in the overture but it was in the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba that they had their moments centre stage as it were, and they were excellent. A sizzlingly fine performance indeed.
As the late James Lobban wrote in his excellent note reproduced in Sunday's programme, Vivaldi's Gloria is in 12 sections beginning with the full chorus with strings oboe and trumpet, that latter played with considerable delicacy by Alan Haggart. The blend of instruments and chorus was perfectly well balanced, clean, bright and exhilarating. Our two female voice soloists Moira Docherty and Tara Leiper blended nicely in the Laudamus Te. Tara Leiper though an alto had to sing second soprano here and it worked pleasingly. In the Domine Deus soprano soloist Moira Docherty was supported by a delicious blend of oboe, harpsichord, cello and double bass. That was a highlight of the performance. Tara's first solo opened with a delightful cello solo played by Alison MacDonald, and you don't get better than that. The second alto solo had to contend with full orchestra but I think she did well. Throughout the work, orchestra and chorus were splendid and in the fugal ending, Cum Sancto Spiritu the music really took off brilliantly. Can I say that throughout the singing, the sopranos soared skyward magnificently and both tenors and basses were excellent. You don't always get that with some choirs but then Con Anima are special, being numerically perfectly well balanced.
I have heard numerous performances of Beethoven's Eroica. Some of these have been heavy and wet so I was not sure what to expect. Well, Sunday's performance was conducted with real razzle-dazzle spirit by Garry Walker. He put his whole body into a sprightly, animated first movement that for me was a revelation. There were things that stood out in this performance that I had hardly noticed before, things that made sense in Beethoven's writing, things that had simply passed me by in some other performances. Throughout the symphony there were splendid moments of solo playing, horn, flutes and later clarinet. The strings were marvellous with melodies that swept past in that first movement almost as if we were in a fast train with the music whizzing past, and yet nothing was lost. The second movement was slower and as the programme note stated ‘with an almost tangible sense of deep tragedy' and yet, with the way in which Sinfonietta's strings delivered Beethoven's delicious melody, I could only feel optimistic.
In the Scherzo, Sinfonietta's delightful horn trio took us out on a hunting expedition. There was a marvellous sense of the open air in this performance.
For the final movement, Garry Walker brought back the full energy he had brought to the first movement of the Symphony. Every section of the orchestra excelled. Horns called out to the trumpets who replied and let's not forget the splendid Isabel John on timpani. That is a part of the orchestra in Beethoven's time that gives the music its very heartbeat along perhaps with the three double basses on Sunday. Above all, what contributed to the success of this particular performance was that the orchestra was exactly the right size.

ALAN COOPER

MADRIGALI: Fire and Roses - Con Anima Chamber Choir - Paul Mealor (Conductor) - 809730509421 - Released: October 2011 - Divine Art DDA25094
Morten Lauridsen - Madrigali: Six 'fire songs' on Italian Renaissance poems
Claudio Monteverdi - Se per havervi, oimè
Carlo Gesualdo - Luci serene e chiare
Vincenzo Ruffo - Lo piango
Girolamo Scotto - Amor, io sento l'alma
Yvo Barry - Quando son piu lontan
Henricus Schaffen - Ov'è, lass', il bel viso?
Paul Mealor - Now sleeps the crimson petal
Anonymous - There is no rose
John Ward - Upon a bank with roses set about
John Wilbye - Lady, when I behold the roses
Gustav Holst - Now sleeps the crimson petal
James MacMillan - So deep
Morten Lauridsen - Chanson éloignée

A luminous collection of a cappella choral works spanning five centuries, the showpiece of which is the Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal cycle, by Paul Mealor himself, of which the first movement was personally chosen by Prince William and Kate Middleton (now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge) as the musical centerpiece of the April 2011 Royal wedding service. An impressive choral work that superbly combines the clean and open harmonies of the Renaissance, with the more distant harmonic intervals of today, and sits within a pitch range that always serves the four individual voice parts extremely well. An evocative work that at times demands vocal gymnastics from the singers, but most of all commands a beauty and richness of sound too often absent from today's music.

The Scottish Con Anima Chamber Choir is quickly establishing a reputation as a choral ensemble that can comfortably adapt to the various demands of music past and present, as evidenced on this new recording. From John Ward, to Gustav Holst, to Morten Lauridsen, their delivery enhances the music's character and style, and never sounds as if out of its element. The blend of voices from the basses to the sopranos is always in perfect equilibrium, and could be compared to a supple and malleable fabric that conductor Paul Mealor can easily mold and shape to fit the music at hand.

The Divine Art sound recording has calibrated the distance between you and the choir very well, giving it a tangible and realistic feel that wraps you in a warm blanket of sound. You will understand what I mean when you hear the final chord of the Paul Mealor work.

Jean-Yves Duperron - November 2011
Classical Music Sentinel

http://www.classicalmusicsentinel.com/collections/collection-madrigali.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doHVUa_Cdus

- Classical Music Sentinel