Choir chronicles Good Friday
Palmerston North Choral Society, St Peter’s Church, March 27. Reviewed by Virginia Warbrick.
Choral music written specifically for Good Friday ranges from the achingly beautiful to the solemn through to the most devastating and thunderous works a choral singer might perform.
A wide spectrum of human emotion for one of the most potent days in the church calendar.
On Saturday, the Palmerston North Choral Society promised to perform the best loved songs composed for Good Friday.
Director Alison Stewart set the tone by requesting that any applause be held until the end of the concert.
She announced that there would be reflective silences throughout the performance and the audience could later meet the choir, while sharing hot cross buns.
The Easter story has captured the imaginations of generations of composers.
However, for this concert, we were presented nine works from the Baroque era, interspersed with three British works premiered in 2008.
Rather than the Easter story itself, we heard selected works from Bach passions; originally premiered on Good Friday, verses from themedieval poem Stabat Mater and a song from a contemporary requiem mass.
As we had no programme notes or texts to follow, the concert relied on either the audience having prior knowledge of Bach’s passion pieces, or that the general mood of each work would carry meaning to the listener.
The Stabatmater poem portrays Mary’s suffering as Jesus Christ is crucified. We heard the first verse set to music by Italian composer Pergolesi sung both delicately and stylishly bywomen of the choir.
The 11th verse, Sancta Mater, was set to music by present day British composer Sir Karl Jenkins.
The powerful and sustained energy of the full choir, particularlywhen singing in unison, was reinforced by the driving relentlessness of the organ, played by Douglas Mews.
These two works wonderfully expressed the essence of Good Friday and might have had more impact by being at the end of the programme.
The choir clearly enjoys singingworks by Jenkins, having given the premiere New Zealand performance of his Stabat Mater in 2010.
The 15 men of the choir gently shone when accompanied by piano and, rather than multiple sessions of reflective silence during the concert, the occasional solo organ or piano works by the renownedmews could have added another dimension to the presentation.
This year’s remaining concerts will be held on June 26, September 4 and November 27.