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Christ Church Cathedral
November 15, 2013
Christ Church Cathedral was packed for the much anticipated premiere of Victoria-based composer Nicholas Fairbanks' new work, Isbjørn. This work was the outcome of his selection last year, among a multi-disciplinary group of artists, for a first hand encounter by sea and on land with the mysterious world of the northern Arctic. Fairbanks invited four choirs to join his own, with the vision of enveloping the audience in the sound of multiple choirs for a complete immersion in the world he wanted to evoke. But as the work is only 20 minutes long, the first section was devoted to showcasing the choirs independently.
Ensemble Laude took the stage, or rather nave, first , and from the resonant clarity of the opening solo notes of an 8th century antiphon drowned us in a perfection of divinely descending alto entries and thrilling soprano "sanctés", the final solo refrain over an infinitely quiet drone impeccable. The architecture of the cathedral was conceived in the same womb as the long contemplative lines of the antiphon, and the resulting marriage of stone and sound was breath-taking. Laude continued with a Marian antiphon from a contemporary Spanish composer, Javier Busto, slowly building a shimmering dissonance until the word "salve" became like an exquisite fruit in the mouth. Again, the singers produced such a variety of vocal colours, pure pathos from the altos and the tender simplicity of the final Maria, a blessing. Their third selection came from an Estonian composer still in his twenties, Part Uusberg. With astonishingly penetrating clarity and gorgeous harmonies, this gem-cut little ode to music Muusika moved from lulling warmth to a slow lament before dying into its haunting close. Then in a really bold, and surprising successful transition, the Ensemble shape-shifted into a rhythmic, clapping and swaying Southern Gospel number fronted by the commanding sinuous presence of a solo soprano, marrying their pure as crystal tones to to an Afro-American spirituality with effortless ease.
Ensemble Laude proved a hard act to follow for the youthful Viva choirs, and some of momentum and intensity was lost. But young singers have their charms and the four teenage girls did a very creditable job with songs by Brian Tate and Jan Garrett, holding their own in a space that was much too vast for them fill, an impressively strong alto and fine soprano notwithstanding. Two more songs were contributed by the very youngest singers, all looking adorable, but not quite confident yet to let go. Plenty of promise in both these choirs, though.
Via Choralis brought a gently pleasing approach to a group of arrangements of traditional fare including a piece by this community choir's director, Nicholas Fairbank. This was a reprise of their participation in a gala performance finale for the Saanich Peninsula ArtSea Festival in October. In that context their performance was no doubt very well received, and thoroughly enjoyable. Here it seemed disappointingly restrained, both the repertoire and the delivery a little too tame to compete with Ensemble Laude.
Hexaphone (as its name suggests), a vocal ensemble comprising three men and three women singers, went some way to restoring the energy and momentum of this section of the programme. Particularly strong voices in the women provided excellent support for the dramatically lyrical lead soprano. "Gli Amanti" by Barbara Strozzi began with a vibrant entry, demonstrating their accomplished singing and capacity for slightly florid Italian theatrics, and the final sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? " had some lovely moments of tone painting.
But it was Vox Humana, a youthful and extremely talented ensemble of about 30 singers under the direction of Brian Wismath who restored the tuning and focussed intensity of the occasion with an exquisitely beautiful performance of Arvo Pärt's "I am the True Vine." Perfect diction, a bass with resonance evoking the depths of the ocean, a girl soprano with a voice like a boy chorister soaring into the gothic arches, a delicate tracery of gorgeous tones creating a texture like a cut-away silk brodade. A meditation, sung with such stillness and understatement, a sustained high drone like an angelic presence on the very edge of awareness. With no dramatics on the word "joy", the text flies like an unsolicited gift into the heart - the dissonance of the ending an invitation to glory.
Applause came as something of an aftershock, but announced the intermission, and time to look at the slides of Fairbank's expedition to the Arctic in preparation for the main event, Isbjørn, to be sung with the participation of all the choirs, singing from every available loft and aisle.
I was glad that I had had a chance to read Fairbank's blog of his journey to the North, to get a sense of being in the land/seascape of "calving" glaciers, the extraordinary impact of his encounter with a polar bear ("isbjørn" in Norwegian), and the day by day progress of his work on his composition with the cooperation of his cabin mate, Marcus Lund, who provided the text for one of the five sections, and was present in the audience.
The opening lines, "let us probe the silent places" from a text by Robert Service were heralded by a compelling evocation of arctic winds, a sybillant ssshhh-ing building to an eerie howling, shimmering dissonances on "silent places", a soprano's "I know" shadowed by a bass, filling the entire cathedral as if the stones themselves were singing, "the wild calling, calling..."
Marcus Lund's word painting followed. From delicate to bold, tempos and tones everchanging from smooth to up tempo, silence and "inky violet deeps" in beautiful language created the vast and mysterious backdrop in which the "transformative vision" might take place.
The third section invoked Isbjørn like an ancient God, the percussionist making sounds like cracking ice, a deep voiced shamanic intoning summoning up the image of the king of beasts. An unearthly high soprano echoed the invocation, and the climactic sounding of cymbal, drum and bells seemed to peel away the layers of Christian sensibilty to reveal the epoch when the Bear was truly the Great King of all creatures.
The fourth section, based on a text from Barry Lopez' Arctic Dreams, consisted entirely of naming the endlessly subtle gradations of colour in the arctic, hypnotic voices chanting each shade as a separate jewel from white, ash grey through aquamarine, reddish yellow and watered purple.
The last movement left words behind, and in a stunning interplay of beautifully shaped vowels and cadences took me right out into the enormous spaces, the vast horizon, the aurora borealis itself, before fading and dying into the Arctic night. Beautifully written, perfectly sung, it brought a strange and remarkable journey to an extremely satisfying conclusion.
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