The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Stars align to offer a time of reflection
High-calibre artists join The Bearsden Choir for Remembrance Day performance of works by Duruflé and Vaughan Williams
THREE outstanding soloists, including a celebrated soprano who has performed all over the world, will join Bearsden Choir for a Remembrance Sunday concert in Glasgow next week. Judith Howarth, Penelope Cousland and Jolyon Loy take centre stage at the event on November 10 in the City Halls. All profits will go to Erskine, the charity dedicated to supporting Scottish veterans and their families.
Musical director Andrew Nunn is delighted to have such an impressive pedigree of performers on board for two moving and powerful pieces of music – Duruflé’s Requiem and Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem.
“Penelope, Judith and Jolyon are all fantastic singers and we are over the moon to be working with them for this concert,” he says.
“Penelope will perform the Pie Jesu solo in the Requiem, a particularly poignant moment full of joy, sadness, peace and reflection, and Judith and Jolyon will be performing as part of the Vaughan Williams piece.”
Judith is one of Britain’s most successful sopranos, who first came to public attention when she joined the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as a principal. Since then, she has performed throughout Europe, the US and the Far East, with most of the major international conductors of the last 20 years.
“I am always delighted to sing the Dona Nobis Pacem,” explains Judith. “I recorded this work many years ago and it is something I always enjoy singing and listening to.
“The libretto, along with the music, really does describe the horrors of war but also hope in humanity and our lives after our death.”
She adds: “The Duruflé Requiem is hardly ever done and it’s a most dramatic and wonderful work. Both these pieces mean a lot to me and I am thoroughly looking forward to the performance.”
Glasgow born mezzo-soprano Penelope Cousland studied at the
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
The award-winning singer has since become a much-respected performer across the country. English baritone Jolyon Loy, a Masters graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, studies at the Alexander Gibson Opera School in Glasgow.
The choir will be accompanied by the McOpera Ensemble, which comprises musicians from the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. Since it was formed in 2012, the ensemble has performed in everything from operatic productions to community outreach projects.
Katie Hull, leader of McOpera, says: “It’s always a treat for us to continue our collaboration with Bearsden Choir and their exciting young conductor Andrew Nunn.
“Remembering those who have given their lives for us is hugely important, even more so in these times of political uncertainty.”
She adds: “A concert such as this is an occasion during which both the audience and the performers can reflect on their own memories of family and friends, and take support and comfort in the shared remembrance.
It’s exciting to play these versions of the Vaughan Williams, which was written pre-Second World War in response to growing political tension, and the Duruflé which remembers the fallen.”
Andrew’s choice of music for the Remembrance Sunday concert reflects, he says, his desire to combine recognition of the horrors of war with a sense of hope and of learning from the mistakes of the past.
“The Vaughan Williams piece,
Dona Nobis Pacem – ‘grant us peace’
– was borne out of the composer’s experiences serving in the army Medical Corps in the First World War, which makes it particularly relevant,” he explains.
“Although he was, in common with many First World War veterans, mostly silent about his experience, we know from others that his job involved removing corpses, body parts and wounded soldiers from the battlefield. His experience informs the work’s powerful and desperate pleas for peace.”
Dona Nobis Pacem incorporates a range of very different texts – in addition to a Latin mass and lines from the Old Testament, there are poems from Walt Whitman, who cared for thousands of sick and injured soldiers during the American Civil War; and a quote from the speech made by Liberal statesman John Bright as he tried to prevent the Crimean War.
Andrew adds: “It is an interesting mix and the texts cover four wars, in fact – the American Civil War, the
Crimean War, the First World War and the Second World War, and by extension, all wars. Vaughan Williams’ anxiety about the likelihood of a second world war is ever present.”
The Duruflé Requiem is a beautiful and reflective piece of music, written by the young French composer at the end of the Second World War. “Born near Rouen, Duruflé never really became part of the musical, creative hub that was Paris in the early years of the last century,” explains Andrew. “He was, by nature, reclusive – a character trait most probably exacerbated by his shock at finding himself alone and friendless as a boarder at Rouen Cathedral School, aged 10.
“Later he described life at the school as ‘an imprisonment’ though the music he sang there – particularly that of Bach – continued to delight him for the rest of his life.” Following further musical training at the Paris Conservatoire, Duruflé became recognised first as the most brilliant organist of his generation and then as a teacher; he was renowned for his deep understanding of harmony and of Gregorian chant as well as for his knowledge of organ design.
Andrew says: “The Requiem lay unfinished until 1947 when the death of Duruflé’s beloved father spurred him on to honour him by completing the piece and dedicating it to his memory. A sense of that loss can be heard in the work’s intensity of feeling.”
He adds: “I am very much looking forward to performing this repertoire with such high calibre soloists. Both pieces encourage us to take a step back, to consider the terrible losses of war, but to feel hopeful and determined those events should not happen again – a message I think will resonate with all of us on Remembrance Sunday.”
Both the audience and the performers can reflect on their own memories of family