Collegium Singers: Review by Andrew Carter (From Somerset County Gazette)

Collegium Singers: Review by Andrew Carter

4:20pm Thursday 19th November 2009

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THE motto of Collegium Singers (formerly Taunton Camerata) is exploring beautiful music.

The Singers’ inaugural concert in Taunton School Chapel on November 14, conducted by Peter Leech and featuring the organist and composer David Bednall, did just that with skill and sensitivity.

Entitled My Soul Doth Magnify The Lord, the concert presented church music from the 19th century to the present day, and showed how the (predominantly Anglican) liturgy, and sacred texts, still inspire composers to produce works which deserve to be judged and appreciated by the same high standards that apply to any form of serious music.

Central to the programme were three contrasting settings of the Evensong canticles, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis.

Herbert Howells’ St Paul’s Service, a masterpiece written for the opulent acoustic of that cathedral, enabled the choir to sustain long melodic lines and revel in lush post-Romantic harmony.

Ian Higginson’s setting was immediately attractive, with modal tunes and perky syncopation.

David Bednall’s own Gloucester Service revealed a distinctive musical personality, rooted in tradition but with original rhythmic and harmonic features; this stretched the choir up to – and occasionally beyond! – the limit.

The composer, at the organ, provided agile and sensitive accompaniment; he also played one of his works for solo organ, ‘Magna voce cano et magno cum jubilo’, in which the contemporary French organ style collides with jazz piano – with exhilarating results.

The rest of the programme consisted of short pieces in varied styles which illustrated that ‘church’ music is as capable as any other sort of music of evoking mood, atmosphere and feeling: among others, mellifluous Victorian (Hubert Parry) and its 20th-century descendant (William McKie); tributes to medieval carols (Timothy Rogers) and to Bruckner (Nicholas Wilton); the bittersweet ‘Englishness’ of Gerald Finzi.

Of particular interest was Set Me As A Seal by conductor Peter Leech; the choir delivered the close harmonic clusters with confidence, and Catherine Bass was the sweet-toned soloist.

Collegium Singers have inherited a reputation for unusual, challenging and attractive programmes, expertly performed.

Their next concert, of Christmas Music from German Lands, on December 18 in St John’s Wellington, promises to be a festive extravaganza.

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