Visions of Flying Machines

My wife and I have just spent an extremely high octane week-end listening to our two singing sons. The circumstances of their separate performances were very different, and I shall record my reactions in two separate Blogs, but our parental pride is a complex synthesis of the singular and plural.

On Saturday 13th June, Sam, our tenor singing son, performed with the chamber choir ‘Cantus’ at St Gabriel’s Church in Pimlico. I have heard several performances by this fine choir but their singing here of the programme ‘Visions of Flying Machines’ was on another level entirely.

They began with Vaughan Williams comparatively little heard ‘A Vision of Aeroplanes’ from 1956. A setting of words from the first book of Ezekiel, the work takes as its central conceit a contemporary theory that Ezekiel’s ‘vision’ predicted the invention of the aeroplane. This is overly fanciful, but the words of the prophet are certainly extraordinary, as this example indicates:

And I looked,and,behold,a whirlwind came out of the north,a great cloud,and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and everyone had four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.

RVW’s music is some of the most avant garde he ever wrote, with a blazing organ introduction (superbly played by Bel Comoneau) and some notably jagged and chromatic writing for the voices. ‘Cantus’ dispatched these difficulties with aplomb. This was a stirring start. Gentler, haunting music followed. Judith Bingham wrote ‘The Drowned Lovers’ to lead directly into Stanford’s iconic part-song ‘The Bluebird’. Conductor Dominic Brennan thought it made sense to perform ‘The Bluebird’ first, in case it might not be familiar, and reprise the first phrase after performing ‘The Drowned Lovers’. This worked admirably. The Stanford sounding pure-toned and crystal clear while the Bingham with its gently rocking liquid rhythms reaffirmed my opinion that it is one of the finest part songs by a British composer of the 21st century:

In the deepest reaches of the lake

I and my love do lie

I clung to him, and pulled him down

And so we both did die

Th ’uncaring clear blue waters

Over our heads did close

And shoals of fishes, sightlessly

In clouds around us rose

His pale green eyes were cold in death

His love had been a lie

But now we share a watery death

Forever intertwined

Blue below

Cold and still

Beneath me

Cold and still

Blue in blue

His image

Cold and still

This brings to mind a scene from DH Lawrence’s ‘Women in Love’ where Gerald Crich’s sister and a young doctor are found drowned at the bottom of a lake on Crich’s estate. The sister had fallen in and the doctor dived in to attempt to. rescue her.

The bodies of the dead were not recovered till towards dawn. Diana had her arms tight round the neck of the young man, choking him. ‘She killed him,’ said Gerald.

Cantus gave a consummate performance with Eleanor Schranz the rich toned mezzo soloist. After these contemporary pieces, Stanford’s anthem ‘For Lo I Raise Up’ might have been expected to sound rather old hat but in Cantus’ stirring performance Stanford’s most dramatic writing hit home with startling force.

The first half concluded with Eric Whitacre’s ‘Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine’. This masterpiece, tantamount to a mini-opera, tells of Leonardo da Vinci’s struggles to produce a flying machine in response to a dream where he conquers the air. The effect of the 'Cantus' performance was overwhelming.

The second half was taken up by two more very substantial pieces of 21st century choral music ‘Night Flight’ by Cecilia Mc Dowall, settings of four poems by Sheila Bryer, and ‘The Ecstasies Above’ by Tarik O’Regan (the youngest composer represented here, having been born in 1978). This sets most of a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, and concerns the angel Israfel ‘Whose heart strings are a lute and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures’.

These are serious works of considerable difficulty and, certainly in the case of the McDowall, set words of some complexity. ‘Night Flight’ is a very beautiful work, a meditation on various aspects of the flight of birds and the human spirit.(It takes inspiration from Harriet Quimby – the first woman to fly across the English Channel). It would have made an even greater impact if I’d been able to study the text before hand and read the excellent programme notes. I fully appreciate and applaud ‘Cantus’’ decision not to make printed programmes available, but a mobile phone is an unsatisfactory way to access a document of this complexity and it would be a useful initiative if programmes could be made available on line to those who purchase tickets in advance. Be that as it may, the 'Cantus' performance of this complex piece was superb, the rich choral textures enhanced by the lyrical playing of ‘cellist Nicholas Holland.

Holland returned as part of a string quartet to accompany ‘The Ecstasies Above’. This is another rhapsodic piece celebrating the power of poetic inspiration. The work ends

The ecstasies above

With thy burning measures suit—

Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,

With the fervour of thy lute—

Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this

Is a world of sweets and sours;

Our flowers are merely—flowers,

And the shadow of thy perfect bliss

Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell

Where Israfel

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

He might not sing so wildly well

A mortal melody,

While a bolder note than this might swell

From my lyre within the sky.

This drew another fine performance from ‘Cantus’ with Sam Herman-Wilson an eloquent tenor in one of the semi choruses.

As always with ‘Cantus’ concerts, particular plaudits are due to conductor Dominic Brennan who curated this most stimulating programme and directed it with unfailing command.

Interestingly, ‘The Ecstasies Above’ leads pretty much seamlessly to Israfel’s rival for pre-eminent, godly inspired vocalist, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, who is the subject of my next Blog.