Paddock Wood Choral Society Concert - Saturday, 15th December 2018
How very appropriate that Paddock Wood Choral Society should perform Britten’s Ceremony of Carols as the main work in its concert last Saturday. Not only is it a glorious piece for a Christmas concert, but the performance coincided with the 75th anniversary of the premiere of the final version in the Wigmore Hall on 4th December 1943.
From the opening Procession Hodie Christus natus est, it was clear that conductor, Kevin Ashman, had directed his sopranos to mimic the child-like innocence of the boys’ treble voices, for which the work was originally written. Throughout, purity of tone and intonation was impressive, and I’m not sure there are many local choirs who could sustain pianissimo top Gs with such confidence, as the sopranos did both in Wolcum Yole and There is no Rose. Particular mention should go to soloists Helen Gotts, Caitlin Willmott and Maria Webzell who so perfectly captured the ‘piacevole’ qualities (Britten’s own direction) of Balulalow.
One of the greatest delights of the performance was the playing of harpist, Ellen Smith. Her performance of the Interlude – the emotional core of the work – left St Andrew’s Church pin-droppingly rapt, whilst the tremulous accompaniment to In Freezing Winter Night portrayed superbly the shivering cold.
The choir again showed its confidence in the shifting, often transient tonalities of the piece (I like to imagine the inspiration for these being perhaps the seascapes of the North Atlantic, through which Britten sailed for five long weeks as he composed the piece on his return from New York to England), and I particularly appreciated the attention to detail that was evident throughout, for example, the staccato used by Britten for emphasis for the line ‘Moder and mayden never none but she …’, in As dew in Aprille.
I would struggle to criticise a performance of such quality, but if pressed I would have wished for greater dynamic contrast at times. For example, again in As dew in Aprille, the composer’s carefully graded sequence of dynamics from piano to pianissimo to ‘pppp’ was a tad too loud for my ear.
Another notable event of the evening was the Paddock Wood premiere of James Corse’s beautifully evocative Lully, lullay. Re-setting a text, when the original melody is so familiar – in this case, the Coventry Carol – can, in the hands of a less capable musician, leave the listener wondering why people cannot just leave things alone. Corse’s recasting though left one wondering anew at the words and meanings of this hauntingly beautiful carol.
Throughout the evening the choir of Tunbridge Wells Girls’ Grammar School Choir, directed by Susan Waddington, enchanted and dazzled with arrangements of Christmas carols, and the audience were given the opportunity to contribute with a rousing selection of well-known carols.
Paddock Wood Choral Society is a choir that continues to impress with thoughtful programming, music-making of real quality and, refreshingly for this audience member at least, performances from which one departs wanting more, rather than, as is too often the case, with a feeling of being uncomfortably replete.
Charles Marshall
How very appropriate that Paddock Wood Choral Society should perform Britten’s Ceremony of Carols as the main work in its concert last Saturday. Not only is it a glorious piece for a Christmas concert, but the performance coincided with the 75th anniversary of the premiere of the final version in the Wigmore Hall on 4th December 1943.
From the opening Procession Hodie Christus natus est, it was clear that conductor, Kevin Ashman, had directed his sopranos to mimic the child-like innocence of the boys’ treble voices, for which the work was originally written. Throughout, purity of tone and intonation was impressive, and I’m not sure there are many local choirs who could sustain pianissimo top Gs with such confidence, as the sopranos did both in Wolcum Yole and There is no Rose. Particular mention should go to soloists Helen Gotts, Caitlin Willmott and Maria Webzell who so perfectly captured the ‘piacevole’ qualities (Britten’s own direction) of Balulalow.
One of the greatest delights of the performance was the playing of harpist, Ellen Smith. Her performance of the Interlude – the emotional core of the work – left St Andrew’s Church pin-droppingly rapt, whilst the tremulous accompaniment to In Freezing Winter Night portrayed superbly the shivering cold.
The choir again showed its confidence in the shifting, often transient tonalities of the piece (I like to imagine the inspiration for these being perhaps the seascapes of the North Atlantic, through which Britten sailed for five long weeks as he composed the piece on his return from New York to England), and I particularly appreciated the attention to detail that was evident throughout, for example, the staccato used by Britten for emphasis for the line ‘Moder and mayden never none but she …’, in As dew in Aprille.
I would struggle to criticise a performance of such quality, but if pressed I would have wished for greater dynamic contrast at times. For example, again in As dew in Aprille, the composer’s carefully graded sequence of dynamics from piano to pianissimo to ‘pppp’ was a tad too loud for my ear.
Another notable event of the evening was the Paddock Wood premiere of James Corse’s beautifully evocative Lully, lullay. Re-setting a text, when the original melody is so familiar – in this case, the Coventry Carol – can, in the hands of a less capable musician, leave the listener wondering why people cannot just leave things alone. Corse’s recasting though left one wondering anew at the words and meanings of this hauntingly beautiful carol.
Throughout the evening the choir of Tunbridge Wells Girls’ Grammar School Choir, directed by Susan Waddington, enchanted and dazzled with arrangements of Christmas carols, and the audience were given the opportunity to contribute with a rousing selection of well-known carols.
Paddock Wood Choral Society is a choir that continues to impress with thoughtful programming, music-making of real quality and, refreshingly for this audience member at least, performances from which one departs wanting more, rather than, as is too often the case, with a feeling of being uncomfortably replete.
Charles Marshall