When choosing works to perform choral conductors are often faced with a dilemma – stick with what is known, or risk something that might not come off?
Patrick Larley did both, by pairing Fauré’s Requiem, a comfort-zone favourite within the means of any decent choir, with the much riskier Westminster Mass of Roxanna Panufnik.
Both compositions have qualities in common. The Fauré is French Catholicism at its most fragrant: the Panufnik, a contemporary piece dating from 1998, is English Catholic, with French overtones reminiscent of Poulenc and Messiaen.
There, the similarities end. Panufnik’s multi-layered textures, washes of sound and dissonant chord clusters, though often beautiful, are much more challenging technically than Fauré’s tuneful progressions.
Not surprisingly, it was Panufnik who came off worse, with poor intonation, forced tone and discomforting lapses of pitch spoiling what was clearly a well-intentioned performance from the plucky Birmingham Festival Choral Society. And although Kevin Gill did what he could to make something out of the organ part (and an instrument in need of a good tuning) one constantly had an uneasy feeling of bitonality, even in fully accompanied passages.
Fauré fared much better, with a tonal radiance (in the sopranos’ nicely floated In Paradisum), focus (the tenors’ Agnus Dei) and general attention to detail that brought back memories of this once fine choir’s glory days.
A short Messiaen organ solo, Les Anges, well played by Gill, seemed to have been included more for its appropriateness than substance, given the concert’s title, Choirs of Angels. One can only presume Larley thought it up in one of his more supplicatory moments.
