Concert Reviews

THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS
EXETER  CATHEDRAL
15 July 2023

What a splendid concert!  Well worth struggling through the rain and hurricane wind to join an immense sell-out audience in one of England’s most beautiful cathedrals.

When it was built of course this was a Roman Catholic building, and we could almost have done with a whiff or two of incense to accompany this extremely un-Protestant work. The odour of sanctity is continuously present in the Newman poem that Elgar called “awfully solemn and mystic”. The sound of Parsifal pervades the whole work.

I must admit that this sanctity rather put me off when I first heard it as a skeptical schoolboy. In fact I was not too shocked when someone (almost quoting Matthew Arnold) called this incredibly Wagnerian music a “melancholy, long, withdrawing wail”. It is certainly the most un-English music that the hearty Elgar of Pomp and Circumstance ever composed. But then of course it is marvellously warm and human, as well as mystical. Elgar was frighteningly sensitive; his eyes apparently blinked non-stop. Like Amfortas in Parsifal he seemed to have a wound which would not heal. Gerontius and the slow movements of his two symphonies lay his heart bare.

Although I owned a first edition of the great score, my early misgivings meant that I never felt a great wish to conduct the piece which my parents used to affectionately call Gerry’s Nightmare.  So it was with a certain nervous curiosity that I approached the opportunity to hear it once again.

All the more thanks then to the excellent performers that I enjoyed it immensely. The evening had real atmosphere, as well as technical bravura. Andrea Brown the conductor was in complete command of the complex score. Her splendid singers, the Exeter Festival Chorus, together with those from Hanau and Bad Homburg in Germany, and the delightful Youth and Junior Choirs of the Cathedral, sang with real understanding and power (what Sopranos!), while the three soloists were totally convincing: Jess Dandy and Alex Ashworth as the Angels, and the formidable John Upperton, standing in at 10 hours notice, as Gerontius. The excellent Southern Sinfonia, their tiny string numbers sounding much larger than that, made me proud to be their Patron. It’s quite an achievement to arrive on the day, play just one rehearsal, and turn in a performance like this one. These fine musicians do it all the time.

This splendid performance, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Chorus, was a great musical occasion for Exeter. The huge audience showed their appreciation with powerful and heartfelt applause.

Saturday 15 July 2023
Exeter Cathedral

For its performance on 15 July to celebrate its 30th anniversary, Exeter Festival Chorus turned to Elgar's popular The Dream of Gerontius. The noted Elgar authority, Michael Kennedy, observed that The Dream (adapted from words by Cardinal John Henry Newman) is not an oratorio, rather 'a dramatic poem set to music, a music drama of an elemental kind'. There's emotion too; when playing through 'Sanctus fortis' on one occasion, Elgar suggested that 'Verdi would have been glad to have written this tune!' At a pre-concert reception, EFC Music Director Andrea Brown also alluded to the work's dramatic and almost operatic content. So, before a gratifyingly capacity audience in Exeter Cathedral, how did the EFC performance meet the challenges of one of the masterpieces of the English choral repertoire?

Bolstering the choir were almost 100 singers who travelled to Exeter for the concert from the EFC's German partner choirs, the Hanauer Kantorei (assisted by eight students of the Karl-Rehbein-Gymnasium) and the Bachchor, Bad Homburg, while members of the Exeter Cathedral Youth and Junior Choir added further to the numbers. From the concert programme, I counted nigh on 200 choristers in total! Pre-concert rehearsals included Andrea Brown travelling to Germany, obviously to good effect. The blend between the three choirs was remarkable given the short time they had actually rehearsed together before the concert. Particularly impressive were their corporate diction and general accuracy. They sang with the dramatic power often demanded by both composer and conductor, as in the choruses 'Go, in the name of Angels and Archangels' and 'Praise to the Holiest in the height', but also with sensitivity in the quiet and different layers of sound that litter the score – the final pages of Part I were especially affecting. And a special word for the members of the Cathedral Youth and Junior Choir and their brief but effective contributions in Part II of the work: they were perfect angels!

One advantage of such a large choir in the not always helpful acoustic of the Cathedral is that it can ride above the orchestra in the louder passages. This was certainly the case in this performance except, perhaps, in the Demons' chorus, where some of the ferocity of the text was lost in the welter of orchestral sound (the brass were wonderfully snarling!). But no blame should be attached to the Southern Sinfonia, which played its heart out for Andrea Brown during this sometimes turbulent score. The orchestra's impressive playing of the long, tense and swaying prelude to Part I opened the performance in fine style and, throughout, it was sensitive to the wide dynamics of the work. The muted strings accompanying Gerontius in 'I went to sleep' at the start of Part II were beautifully dream-like. (As an aside, I should add that the EFC was glad to welcome the orchestra's Patron, Sir Roger Norrington, to the performance.)

Of course, it is the three soloists who carry the work and this was not without an initial drama. The advertised singer for the role of Gerontius was indisposed and it fell to John Upperton, at less than 12 hours’ notice, to fill the gap. And how well he did so! His bright tenor voice ensured that every word could be heard and he brought passion and feeling to Gerontius's journey from the point of death via the great declamation, 'Sanctus fortis' onwards to Purgatory. Assisting Gerontius on his way, the bass Alex Ashworth was a truly commanding Priest (in Part I) and Angel of the Agony (Part II), riding the orchestral and choral sounds with ease and textual clarity – I'd like to hear him in the Verdi Requiem! Guiding Gerontius in the after-life was mezzo Jess Dandy as the Angel. Her contralto-like register was warm and supportive, culminating in a moving, gentle farewell to Gerontius's soul to end the performance.

The standing ovation accorded by the audience to the performance undoubtedly reflected the stirring performance that we had just heard, but I like to think it was also celebrating the 30th anniversary of distinguished music-making by the Exeter Festival Chorus!

David Batty

Saturday 25 March 2023
Holy Trinity Church, Exmouth

Exeter Festival Chorus made the journey to the sympathetic acoustic of Holy Trinity Church, Exmouth, for its Spring concert on 25 March 2023 and a performance of the German Requiem by Brahms.  And it would have been particularly gratifying for the choir that its initiative had attracted a full house on an evening that later turned out to be a very wet one!

We held a highly successful sell-out choral workshop, directed by Andrea Brown, in January. Attracting 170 participants from across the country,

Saturday 10 December 2022
St David's Church, Exeter

On Holy Night was a delightful programme of music with a Christmas theme.

We were very pleased to respond to a request by the Friends of Kenton Church to put on a concert on All Saints Day to raise funds for their roof repairs.

One of our choir's smaller ensembles supported a wedding at St Andrew's church, Sampford Courtenay, on Saturday 23 July 2022.

The bride wrote "I just wanted to say the most enormous thank you to you all for making the wedding service so incredibly beautiful and special. It was utterly magical and everything I had hoped for.

Your musicianship shone through and I know that all of our friends and family found it very moving and a highlight of the day.

Many parents have said how wonderful it was for their children to be able to listen to such beautiful music. Please especially thank the soloists… they were excellent and made for quite an emotional entrance!"

Saturday 25 June 2022
The Mint Methodist Church, Exeter

Anyone coming along to the concert and expecting a concert of gentle, Baroque music was in for a shock at the Mint Methodist Church last night.

Saturday 2 April 2022
St Michael and All Angels Church, Mount Dinham, Exeter

‘Tis Nature’s voice was the theme of this collaborative and ambitious concert and the choir of Exeter Festival Chorus was certainly in very fine voice.

Saturday 11 December 2021
Southernhay United Reformed Church, Exeter

What an inspirational evening! The excellence of Exeter Festival Chorus is well-known, and tonight was no exception. After an absence of almost two years, and following the retirement of the remarkable and cherished Nigel Perrin (guest of honour at this concert), On this Shining Night heralded a new dawn with newly appointed musical director, Andrea Brown.