Path of Miracles sung by the Tenebrae choir - Wow! - 30.06.08

St Magnus Festiblog [Posted by David R. at 9:24 AM ]

Path of Miracles sung by the Tenebrae choir – Wow!

This was one of the best things I have ‘ever’ heard. In fact, I think I’m still slightly in shock. The music must have been written by some mad genius, and the singers some strange mutants with bizarre vocal powers.

In the opening section, a few of the choir stood in a circle (it was in St Magnus Cathedral BTW) and very gradually began to make very low sounds. Think of the Ligetti in 2001 and you’re about a third of the way there. As the sound built to a crescendo, suddenly the female voices crash in from nowhere, scaring the crap out of you. The harmonies are so close, the interference patterns make you fear for your eardrums. It was actually ‘scary’. I realised my heart was hammering and I was breathing too fast.

Throughout the performance, the choir used the space in the cathedral to move around, changing the sound. It really was the height of showing off to sing so superbly while walking about! At one point, the deepest bass went to the back of the nave – his voice was deeper than I thought humanly possible, making our chairs vibrate. You could almost ‘see’ the frequency of the sound waves.

After the wordless(?) opening bits, recognisable words and melody gradually appear. But it’s still not comfortable music. There’s a long middle section where the main words I could make out were “gallows” and “hell”, part of the choir singing a pendulum-like non-melody underpinning the dread. Eventually the audience is gifted a beautiful resolution into tuneful harmony. The final bit, where parts of the choir walked down the each side of the nave and sang right next to the audience, was so profoundly moving I had great difficulty controlling my emotion.

The performance finished and everyone sat in silence for about a minute before someone at the front yelled “bravo”, scaring the hell out of us all I think! There then followed a sustained standing ovation for what was a truly remarkable experience. The late start (10:30pm), the setting (St Magnus Cathedral) and the incredible performance all combined to create a unique atmosphere.

It was one of those times when you can almost believe there are supernatural agencies at work, to result in something so beautiful. G, sitting next to me, said it made 30 years of giving his time to the Festival worthwhile. It was very difficult to move at all, and when we did it was to go straight home: I didn’t want to talk to anyone or hear any more music, just allow the Path of Miracles to resound in my head for a while longer.