CD-recensie

© Aart van der Wal, augustus 2017

U ziet het: ik heb de titels overgenomen uit het digitaal aangeleverde pdf-boekje. Het is in het Engels, maar ik weet zeker dat u mij dit niet kwalijk zult nemen.

Om nog even bij het Engels te blijven: Suzi Digby (OBE), artistiek leider en dirigent van het Engelse koor ORE, schreef een boeiende inleiding waaruit ik deels citeer:

The opening years of the twenty-first century can justifiably lay claim to being a new golden age for choral music, both in Europe and beyond. Throughout the world choral standards are ever on the increase and today’s composers of choral works are responding by writing exciting and challenging material for singing groups, both amateur and professional. Having spent much of my life in education I have seen this exciting development up close, and when the opportunity came to found ora I decided that I wanted to showcase this development by gathering together some of the UK’s finest consort singers, and to present programmes which showcased contemporary choral music directly alongside some of the English Renaissance’s finest compositions. Our first disc in the ‘Renaissance gems and their reflections’ series for harmonia mundi looked at the music
of William Byrd (HMW 906102). Having been warmly received by critics and public alike, we felt that it was appropriate for our follow up album to look at the music of that other colossus of English composition in the sixteenth century, Thomas Tallis. Picking a small selection of his works to be reflected upon was no easy task, the level of his writing is such that we could have filled the album several times over purely with his masterworks. However, my artistic advisor, David Clegg, and I eventually narrowed the field down to just some of our favourite Tallis pieces and our eyes then turned to the living composers who we thought could do them justice. The brief for the individuals we commissioned was simple – a genuine a capella response to the Tallis piece assigned to
them. No restrictions were imposed, other than length, and the singers of ora and I were thrilled with the rich and varied response we got from all those approached – Richard Allain, Kerry Andrew, Ken Burton, Harry Escott, Frank Ferko and Alec Roth. My heartfelt thanks go to them for their evident talents, and for embracing the project with such fervour. We have interspersed the whole programme with Tallis’ homophonic yet highly characterful settings of individual psalms from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter, and I thought it would be interesting to see how a modern day composer would go about setting Parker’s words for psalme 150. Kerry Andrew has responded with a wonderfully appropriate setting and, like Tallis, attributes particular affective qualities to the text, in this case
‘most joyfull’. The programme is closed with an arrangement by Bob Chilcott, one of the UK’s best known choral composers, who has arranged Tallis’ Canon most effectively for double choir. [...] I feel this pairing of pieces shows exactly the possibilities open to current composers when reflecting on works from previous centuries, and I sincerely hope that all the contemporary works on our recording will be taken up by other vocal groups to be programmed in new and interesting ways.

Wat deze uitgave extra interessant maakt is de mix van 'oud' (Tallis) en 'nieuw' (de overige componisten). Daar komt nog bij dat het deels ook door ORA gegeven compositieopdrachten en wat deze cd betreft, wereldpremières zijn). Het is een indrukwekkende ervaring: de koorstukken van Tallis (ca. 1505-1585) te horen naast die van Allain, Andrew, Burton, Escott, Ferko, Roth en Stucky (hij overleed in 2016: het 'O Sacrum Convivium' uit zijn 'Three Motets in memoriam Thomas Tallis' is als eerbetoon opgenomen in deze reeks).

Over de koorzang van dit ensemble hoef ik het eigenlijk niet te hebben. De vele gevestigde namen spreken eigenlijk voor zich. Hier wordt gezongen met een volmaakte stemvoering en gloedvolle tekstbeleving, warm en stralend in zowel de soli als de tutti. Er wordt een meerstemmig tapijt uitgerold dat zo vol kleur, helderheid en afwisseling is en zo naadloos uitgebalanceerd dat het de luisteraar met spiritueel geladen onverbiddelijkheid naar de hoogste regionen voert.

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