Saturday 6 July 2024
Exeter Cathedral
A memorable and uplifting performance
Yesterday evening Exeter Cathedral welcomed a large audience to hear Exeter Festival Chorus perform Bach’s magnificent Mass in B minor, directed by Andrea Brown, with the Devon Baroque orchestra and five soloists. This is a monumental work, with about two hours of choral singing, arias, duets and orchestral marvels.
For the singers, as well as musicality and vocal dexterity, it requires endurance and stamina. The shaping of the performance of such a long work is crucial to avoid the sheer length of it being communicated to the audience. Andrea Brown’s vision of the piece was inspirational and there was not a moment when the work seemed to drag.
The evening opened with a moving tribute from EFC Chairman, Jill Nickels, to Nigel Perrin, Musical Director of EFC for over twenty years; a small book mark was included with each programme (which went to print before Nigel’s recent death) - a poignant and sensitive touch.
The choir not only rose to the musical, technical and physical challenges of the piece, but from beginning to end demonstrated their ability to create different moods and hold the audience in the grip of their performance: joy and jubilation, sorrow and drama, light, dance-like vigour and majestic vision were all there. It is to their very great credit that they had enough vocal power left for the final movement, Dona nobis pacem, which was simply wonderful. This is no small feat for such a complex work, with the demands of the long and challenging semi-quaver passages which need to be light and accurate (well done tenors and altos in this respect, and particularly to first and second sopranos), or to important lines which contrast with what the rest of the choir is doing (in the Sanctus the basses gave their all in their “striding octaves”, to quote Diana de la Cour’s splendid programme notes). The work includes plenty of musical variety, and this was enhanced by the use of the semi-choir in Et incarnatus, Confiteor and Sanctus; the semi-choir are to be congratulated on some beautifully moving singing. It must have been beyond difficult to sort out the challenge of the choir’s seating plan, with the need to have the semi-chorus in a block in the middle; there was a sense that some members of the choir were uncomfortably positioned in terms of having a clear view of the conductor, but to their credit almost everyone had their eyes firmly on Andrea Brown’s expressive hands. This was particularly important in Cum Sancto Spiritu which was taken at quite a lick: the choir and their conductor were almost dancing through this movement. There were occasional moments, particularly in the first half of the programme, where the choir took a few bars to settle with the orchestra but there were also some impressively “seamless” moments, the best example of this being the entry of the choir in Qui tollis which comes as the soprano and tenor soloists finish their duet.
Soprano soloists Elizabeth Drury and Bethany Partridge sang with delicacy and elegance; John Upperton (tenor) and Timothy Dickinson (bass-baritone) were particularly effective, respectively, in the Benedictus and Et in spiritum sanctum of the second half. A name to watch for the future will certainly be that of the alto soloist, Benjamin Irvine-Capel, whose performance was a real highlight: both Qui sedes and Agnus Dei were sung with grace, clarity and a beautifully sustained tone.
As for Devon Baroque … their performance was quite simply magical and exciting, with exceptionally lovely playing from all sections of the orchestra. What beautiful lines from the violin, bassoon, flute, oboe soloists, and what bright and triumphant tones from the brass section! And what excitement when the corna da caccia (Baroque hunting horn) made its appearance!
Congratulations to Andrea Brown and the Exeter Festival Chorus, to Devon Baroque and to the soloists for this memorable and uplifting performance.