MiV Home
Christ Church Cathedral
December 18, 2006
I arrived at Christ Church Cathedral just minutes before the advertised kickoff time only to find the place absolutely packed. The place looked like it was Easter Sunday and the second coming had just been reported on CFAX. I eventually found a seat on the north balcony, behind the musicians and with a huge pillar between the choir and me. (Note to concert presenters: if you want a favourable review, save a good seat for MiV stringers.) Still, the sound was not dramatically worse than it is elsewhere in the Cathedral.
The VCC was founded five years ago and the concert programme announced that it "has been pursuing the highest standards of training and performance." From the very first bars of the initial work on the programme, Mozart's Missa Brevis KV 140, it was apparent that the Choir was not only pursuing these standards. It is making good ground in catching up to them.
Every work on the programme was thoroughly prepared. Each line of the text had been given individual attention and the result was richly-textured and detailed performances. It was really remarkable to see a children's choir, supplemented as needed by male voices from the St. Christopher Singers, give such highly musical readings of the pieces on offer.
The first half of the programme was an exploration of the musical tradition out of which emerged Franz Xaver Gruber's beloved carol, "Stille Nacht" (Silent Night). This piece was first performed in Oberndorf, Austria on Christmas Day in 1818. Originally the singers were accompanied on guitar since the church organ was broken. The popularity of the carol soon grew and Gruber published several arrangements, including the one performed this evening, for choir and orchestra. He continued to tinker with the piece all of his life and the melody we know today is not precisely the one performed in 1818.
During the unofficial Christmas Day truce during the first winter of the First World War, soldiers on both sides of the front lines joined in singing this carol, the British soldiers singing in English while the German troops sang in the original. It was one of the few carols both armies knew.
The programme included Michael Haydn's Puer Natus in Bethlehem. Next up were works by three Tyrolean composers: the Aria ex C auf Weihnacht by Joseph Holzmann (which featured a nice contribution by the Cathedral Consort's wind band), Hirtenlied by P. Martin Goller and Josef Abenthung's Welch Freudige Botschaft. None of these Tyroleans has a household name, but the music was consistently charming and Humer is to be commended for her imaginative programming.
The concert featured all three of the VCC's formations, the Concert Choir, the Junior Choir and the Intermediate Choir. One of the most striking contrasts of the evening was provided when the Intermediate Choir sang the Abenthung piece immediately after the Junior Choir had essayed Goller's carol. I do not want to belittle the Junior Choir, who gave a lovely performance, but it was striking to see how quickly singers develop in the VCC programme. In just a few years, the Intermediate Choir had developed from children into young musicians.
Stille Nacht was a delightful climax to the first half of the programme. It was wonderful to hear this delightful composition performed in something like the way (or one of the ways) Gruber intended. (The Consort even brought out a few non-Tourte bows and Martin Bonham's baroque cello.) Gruber may have been an idiot savant, but what an idiot savant! Madeleine Humer coaxed a lovely big finish out of the choir and the orchestra, a positive swell of harmony.
I will not say a great deal about the shorter second half of the concert. It was more of a church Christmas pageant than a concert and so outside the purview of MiV. It featured an eclectic selection of carols, some old and well loved and some neither.
The Choir devoted every bit as much attention to the popular pieces of the second half as they had to those on the first half of the programme. The audience was treated to a couple of samples from the glorious new organ in the Cathedral, appropriately (for the occasion) built in the style of a South German organ of the eighteenth century.
The audience was asked to stand and join in a couple of the pieces, including the last, "The First Nowell". Having the audience stand for the last piece ensured that the choir would receive a standing ovation, but they deserved one. The kids had sung their hearts out.
MiV HomeLast modified: Tue Dec 19 12:19:49 PST 2006