Wednesday 20th December 2023
EX CATHEDRA
St. Paul’s Church,
Birmingham ****
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Ex Cathedra’s annual
‘Christmas Music by Candlelight’ series is that the selection of music is so
diverse: from the familiar (‘Away in a Manger’ - tick), to the less familiar,
to the new – and, in the latter category, works by no fewer than six Midlands
composers.
For one of these, Ex Cathedra’s composer-in-residence Liz
Dilnot Johnson, three pieces were included. Here’s a composer that has such an understanding
of the voice, writing with a directness and sincerity that’s immediately
arresting, whether that be ‘Lighten Our Darkness’ (2023) and its clever blending
of texts from the Book of Common Prayer with utterances in local dialects written
by young asylum seekers living in Coventry; ‘Gentle Flame’ for double choir
with its evocative use of fluttering consonants depicting a flickering flame; or
the insistent questioning in ‘Generous Winter’ (a premiere) that takes as its
inspiration Kate Raworth’s ‘Doughnut Economics’ (yes, I had to look that up
too) which challenges the notion of traditional capitalism and promotes instead
an alternative built on social justice and sustainability. So never let it be
said that classical music lacks relevance for today’s world, as Dilnot
Johnson’s three works testified, all of which were highly ‘on point’.
But that’s not to say that there weren’t many moments which
struck a lighter note: the sheer joy of the ‘Sussex Carol’, Martin Bates’ catchy
‘With a merry ding-dong’ complete with ‘vocal pizzicato’ and uneven gait, and
an arrangement of Bach’s ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’ of which the Swingle
Singers would have been proud!
Imaginative use was made of the performing space, whether
that be the thrilling Angelic proclamations from soloists high up in the
gallery in MacMillan’s ‘And lo, the angel of the Lord’, Eŝenvalds’ ravishingly
beautiful ‘The Long Road’ with singers lined up in the central aisle which fully
immersed the audience aurally, or the horseshoe configuration deployed for the
closing Bach chorale ‘How shall I fitly meet Thee?’ which was not quite perhaps
as uniform as I remember from last year.
Throughout this carefully curated programme, Ex Cathedra
sang with a depth and richness of tone that was especially evident in the
thickly scored chords of Jonathan Dove’s ‘Wellcome all wonders’, in the
expansive night sky canvass depicted in Christopher Churcher’s ‘Evening Star’,
and in young Fyfe Hutchins’ ‘O Emmanuel’ which featured some of the finest
singing of the evening, expertly paced and shaped by Conductor Jeffrey Skidmore.
Anthony Bradbury