On Thursday 16 May at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, we had the pleasure of singing new premiere by Roderick Williams, Cusp, followed by Elgar’s choral masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius.
Starting with a new premiere – Cusp
The evening began with an exciting new work, Cusp, which we spoke to Roderick Williams about before the performance in this exclusive interview in which he also shared a work-in-progress of Cusp.
On the evening, though, we were treated to a work that was transformed entirely by the world-class Philharmonia Orchestra. The text from Rommi Smith shone in this new light as Williams’ work, a ‘prequel’ of sorts to Gerontius, told the story of those who were left on Earth after the titular character’s death.
What the critics thought of Cusp
Nick Holmes said of The Bach Choir’s singing…
“The Choir’s singing was immaculate throughout the new piece, a great achievement considering the amount of music they had to learn for a piece in which they sang almost constantly – by all accounts, a very different from the premiere of Gerontius in 1900 when the choir was baffled by the difficulty of the music.”
Nick Holmes
On the text of the piece, Susan Elkin commented…
“Rommi Smith’s intelligently worked text, based on sources ranging from interviews with
Lukas Elkin for Susan Elkin
Bach Choir members and their experiences of death, through to Shakespeare and Dylan
Thomas helps make this an entirely relatable work: the explored emotions are common to
everyone.”
Cusp segues into The Dream of Gerontius
The audience were asked not to clap after Cusp on the evening as it segued directly into The Dream of Gerontius, a choice made by Roderick Williams which encouraged the audience to look at Elgar’s masterpiece in a different light. This season is our Musical Director David Hill’s 25th with the Choir, and The Dream of Gerontius was the very first one that he conducted with us back in 1998. His experience was displayed throughout the performance…
“Under David Hill’s baton, this masterful performance was everything The Dream should be: at times music that pushed you into the back of your seat, whilst at others music that kept you on the edge of it.”
Lukas Elkin for Susan Elkin
“Hill’s shaping of the orchestral opening was superb, the ground beautifully prepared, a lovely viola solo from Rebecca Chambers. He extracted from the Philharmonia the ideal mix of clarity and warmth; the choir’s ripostes (the “Kyrie” and “Holy Mary, pray for him”) were nothing short of magnificent”
Colin Clarke for Classical Explorer
The Choir received yet more praise for their diction and clarity within Elgar’s work:
“The ensemble was as stunning as that of the orchestra, multiple voices joining to create a single, clear vocal line, a difficult feat with such large forces. Even in the most complex moments, clarity of texture was maintained.”
Nick Holmes
Our trio of soloists also poured their emotion and talents into Elgar’s work, which didn’t go un-noticed:
“Daniel Norman’s Gerontius was a masterful performance, wringing in turn every ounce of angst, anger, peace and tranquillity from the immensely challenging score. Roderick Williams’s Priest was delivered with bravura, whilst the final ascent through D major at the end of Part I was as finessed as I have ever heard it. Jennifer Johnstone gave us a warm, lyrical Angel in Part II, beautifully guiding Gerontius through his journey after death whilst the Bach Choir – heavenly in Part I’s Kyrie Eleison – crackled and fizzed with irreverent relish in the fiendishly difficult fugue-type sequence as Demons in Part II.”
Lukas Elkin for Susan Elkin
What the audience thought
Of course, the audience’s reaction is just as important as that of the critics, which is why it was hugely heartening to see so many wonderful comments coming through on social media. Here are some of our favourite tweets from the evening:
What’s next?
If you were there, we hope that you enjoyed watching this as much as we did singing it – and if you didn’t, there’s always another chance to see us in concert! We regularly perform some of the finest choral works around in some of London and the UK’s top venues including the Royal Festival Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral and many more. Find out what we’re singing next here.