The Cappella Singers joined their friends in the north, the Viva Voce Chamber Choir, for a concert at St John’s Church, Ranmoor, Sheffield, as part of St John’s May Music Festival.
They performed Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in the church on 6th May, a year to the day since the Sheffield based choir collaborated with Cappella for a concert at Holy Trinity, Stroud.
A sizeable audience in this elegant Victorian church listened intently first to Nonsense, seven humorous pieces composed by Richard Rodney Bennett from Mervyn Peake’s eclectic Rhyme without Reason. Aunts and Uncles was full of colourful verse, all delivered at great speed. There followed Lean Sideways on the Wind, shorter but with beautiful harmonies. Oh Here It Is! & There It Is! was neat and concisely sung, but the highlight was The Men in Bowler Hats, true nonsense with rhythmic harmonies. Amanda Cowan and Andrew Young shared the direction. Peake’s poetry, creating “a dense, eccentric world of nightmare and nursery rhyme”, made a fitting vehicle for Bennett’s use of pastiche, borne evidently from his experiences as a film composer.
After the interval, the choir and two pianos were joined by an impressive percussion ensemble for the Chamber Version of Carmina Burana, directed by Tony Jones. All the hard work at that afternoon’s long rehearsal paid off. This remarkable and varied collection of medieval profane poetry set to music was performed with considerable power and drama.
The choir began with the familiar strains of O Fortuna, always
changing like the moon. Initial pounding rhythm is followed by a whispered
passage, all using endless repetition of the same single phrase, building to a
great crescendo. Soon the mood had changed to merry spring songs, with just a
hint of melancholy. The first of several baritone solos reminded us that “the
sun warms everything” but, with mournful tone, the young spring lover must oft
“admire his beloved only from a distance”, a painful lot: how true, even today.
The scene switched to choruses In the Meadow. There was continuous
movement in the presentation, including the animated lament of the abandoned
woman, a sorrowful lady in red. Then In the Tavern, we understood why the
cross had been draped for this performance as we heard tales of bitterness,
exuberation and quite ungodly practices prevalent in a medieval bar.
Philip Colls sang the sad tale of the swan who once lived on the lakes, now spit
roasted on a serving dish.
St John’s Children’s Choir (Ragazzi) then sang about the joy of love and The
Court of Love was generally celebrated in soprano and baritone solos with
chorus.
Finally, the full might of choirs and accompaniment returned with “a clap of timpani thunder” to O Fortuna, which is where we came in. The wheel still turns…………TP
The Cappella Singers: Registered Charity no 262530