'Concert by candlelight is a dream come true' - 4.10.04

[Review: Hexham Abbey] Howard Layfield: September 2004, Hexham Courant

Tenebrae again? Yes, and for this reviewer, again, please.

Nigel Short’s self-confessed dream choir delighted us once more with a performance of depth and quality. Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil was the work of the programme. It was given further liturgical shape with psalms, prayers and litanies from the Orthodox tradition, including Rachmaninoff’s own Great Litany from the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom and Kedrov’s setting of The Lord’s Prayer. An authentic sounding role of Deacon was taken by Peter Scorer who began the proceedings with the choir, out of sight in the Abbey Chancel. They then moved up the night stair to the gallery, leaving behind a quartet of male voices whose sonority and projection belied their numbers.

The whole ensemble then gathered to continue the majestic procession of Deacon’s intonations, prayers, psalms and hymns.

It is worth remembering that we were listening to the music of the cosmopolitan Rachmaninoff, celebrated piano recitalist, a few years before his emigration to the USA.

The Liturgy of St John Chrysostom was written in 1910 and the Vigil in 1915, not long after the Second Symphony and the Third Piano Concerto. The harmonic and melodic characteristics familiar to us from his well-known “romantic’ music are to be found in the Vigil but transformed into t truly characteristic choral medium.

Tenebrae responded with both power and subtlety. Their ensemble and their gradation of tone and dynamics were exemplary, their phrasing genuinely breath-taking.

What might have been anticipated as a monochrome candlelight finale to the festival became, in reality, an absorbing and superb revelation – a fitting conclusion to an outstanding series.