Grantham Choral Society performs Trad to Jazz at ChristChurch
Grantham Choral Society and their conductor, David Humphreys chose for their November concert at ChristChurch, Finkin Street, another mixed-bag programme of short works centred around Will Todd’s Jazz Mass, writes James Bone.
The resulting musical journey included some evergreen standards as well as unfamiliar works including Trilo, a simple but unusual arrangement of a Swedish folk-song to words by 17th century English poet, Thomas Campion.
Baritone soloist Nicholas Morris gave the short, emotionally laden melody full measure with the choir dovetailing in neatly behind him over a static, drone-like pedal in the basses and tenors, before rising to a powerful high-point.
This piece came in complete contrast to the opening selection of three of Stanford’s songs from Songs of the Sea. Once upon a time, Drake’s Drum, Devon, O Devon and The Old Superb would probably have been known to every man-jack in town. Saturday night’s audience proved no exception, and certainly relished these rousing patriotic classics from the English choral repertoire.
Nicholas Morris’s sturdy and warm baritone imparted a certain martial vigour to the opening verses with the choir’s entry, ‘Captain, art thou sleeping there below’, positively raising the hackles before taking Newbolt's poem to suitably spectral conclusion.
English folk-songs came again to the fore with the soloist’s offering of Britten’s The Salley Gardens and Vaughan Williams’ Linden Lea, accompanied by Richard Cox, this folkish theme following through into two purely choral numbers, John Barleycorn and the Wassail Song.
The Choral Society have acquired additional tenors and basses since their last concert, and both Vaughan Williams settings gave the lower-voices ample opportunity to shine, naturally having the lion’s share of the work in the latter, and imparting a definite Christmassy-feel to proceedings.
Following an excursion into American folk music, with six of Aaron Copland’s American Songs, the choir returned to more familiar territory of spirituals either side of the Jazz Mass.
Pianist Richard Cox was on top-form succeeding in creating the foot-tapping ambience of banjo inspired accompaniment to the first two songs.
High-point of the evening, however, was Will Todd’s Jazz Mass, a setting of the usual Latin words in a traditional jazz style for four-part choir with piano accompaniment. Not really knowing what to expect, it was an unalloyed pleasure to listen to this performance and to watch, from beginning to end, starting with a very confident, lyrical Kyrie.
The sopranos and tenors (all I could see), at one point, really did exhibit the most gentle and subtle but quite obvious ‘swing’ from side to side as they sang. There was excellent choral discipline, as ever, from conductor, David Humphreys, in the rhythmically tricky Gloria. See how many different rhythms can be applied to this simple word and, again, the choir obviously got a ’buzz’ from this quite punchy number.
Todd offers tasks to every section in his Mass, ranging from intertwining and soaring melodic lines to the challenge of singing a convincing ‘blue-note’ at one point – which the tenors did, splendidly, as well as having to cope with tortuous seven-beat phrases in the Benedictus.
This piece marked a novel and attractive departure from the usual liturgical settings and both choir and conductor are to be commended for trying it out in Grantham. The audience enjoyed the Todd as much as the Stanford, which says a great deal. I very much hope that it will remain in the Choir’s repertoire.
