By John Gough
Henry Purcell’s genius is acknowledged by those who have grappled with the difficulties of setting English words to music, and I have seldom heard such a riveting statement of intent as the opening song of this sunny afternoon concert.
The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation is an extended song that suggests sacred opera, depicting the Virgin Mary’s torment when the 12-year-old Jesus is inadvertently left behind in Jerusalem. Soprano Elizabeth Atherton brought all her operatic skill and remarkable variety of tonal shading to match the flickering changes of mood in the text, and her pealing cries of “Gabriel!,” as the Virgin hoped for help from her one-time angelic visitor, now nowhere to be seen, were heartrending.
Robert Plane was the eloquent soloist in Finzi’s Five Bagatelles for clarinet – attractive music that alternated between tenderness, energy and mischief. A short group of Warlock’s best known songs to Elizabethan texts followed, and the skill with which pianist Michael Pollock weighted and matched Warlock’s pungent and sometimes quirky accompaniments with Atherton’s elegantly shaped phrases was a constant delight.
The title of Ian Venables On the Wings of Love comes from Plato’s examination of the various forms that love can take, and in this major song cycle for voice, clarinet and piano Venables explores this universal theme with texts by non-English poets.
This was the first occasion on which this piece had been sung by a soprano rather than tenor soloist, and Elizabeth Atherton’s interpretive gifts gave us the full range of this ambitious and successful work. Clarinet and piano worked well together in the texture of the music, whether setting the scene, or commenting on the array of emotions displayed in songs that treated disappointment, affirmation, passion and, in the Emperor Hadrian’s Epitaph, the sort of still simplicity that only a master can produce.
