THE BEST RECORDING GEORGE GUEST
IN HIS 40 YEARS as director of music at St John’s College, Cambridge, George Guest built a formidable choir of boy choristers and male undergraduates. He had a particular affinity for French repertoire, and it’s no surprise his recording of Poulenc’s Christmas Motets is so vividly successful.
Even in the hushed opening of ‘O magnum mysterium’, which can seem flat and sleepy, Guest is already conjuring atmosphere, the subtle dynamic inflections of the lower voices sharpening expectations. The treble entry, when it comes, is pure and silvery, and the tenors match it at ‘Beata virgo’, which rises up gleaming and supple from the choral textures.
Guest’s expert balancing of the four voice-parts reveals more of the detail in Poulenc’s often tart, surprising harmonisations than in any competing version. The awkward side-steps on ‘aurum, thus et myrrham’ (‘gold, frankincense and myrrh’) in ‘Videntes stellam’, and again at the conclusion, are pitch-perfectly tuned, and heighten the sense of strangeness Poulenc finds in the story of the Magi’s visit.
The nuanced account of ‘Hodie Christus natus est’ – often an aggressive shout-fest – underlines the infectious alacrity Guest brings to the musicmaking, and his ability to give the Latin words meaning. It caps a wonderfully warm, involving performance, ideally captured by the Chandos team.