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Winchester Cathedral Saturday 23 June 2007, by Derek Beck
Musical warmth dispelled much meteorological gloom for an appreciative audience at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's final "Best of Baroque" concert in Winchester. In charge was Andrew Lumsden accompanied by his well-drilled and highly focused Waynflete Singers. It was the choir's night producing rich, supported tone, good balance between sections, crisp rhythmic momentum, fair agility at speed and commendable diction in English and Latin texts. Helped by judicious tempi the 120 singers demonstrated real commitment and a uniform sense of style throughout. Their least effective contribution was perhaps in the awkwardly scored Chandos Anthem, O come let us sing unto the Lord, where Handel expected tenors to replace altos. In the last chorus here the ladies' low register music could not provide the drama achieved elsewhere. By contrast the swinging fugue to Tell it out among the heathen was dispatched with great vigour and total confidence.
Handel supplied the perfect opener in the Coronation Anthem Zadok the Priest. Its cumulative build-up will thrill the most lethargic listener if the first choral entry is as dynamic as this was. And Vivaldi's evergreen Gloria in D was delivered with welcome freshness at the end of the concert. In this work counter tenor Christopher Ainslie not only supplied valuable solos but covered for an indisposed colleague by sharing the soprano duet Laudamus te with Katherine Broderick. Their voices matched remarkably in range but also in sharing a less appealing rapid vibrato that obscured some of the more ornamental writing in this piece and the Chandos Anthem. The evening's third soloist was the young tenor, Adrian Ward, whose contributions to the Handel revealed a bright, clear voice very much more suited to these conditions.
It is unfortunate that symphony orchestras still play baroque programmes with relatively large number of strings - especially in cavernous church acoustics. This can disadvantage solo singers and also blur intricate, florid writing. This was occasionally the case in Bach's Suite No.4 in D where the composer's prolific ideas including subtle fugal textures lacked definition at times. By contrast, incisive, often virtuosic wind playing marked all items with Bach bassoon parts and Vivaldi trumpet writing getting special attention from the experienced Bournemouth musicians. The orchestra's timpanist and upper string players deserve extra compliments for coping so professionally when that meteorological gloom appeared to strike their floodlights in the Overture to the Bach suite.
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This page updated 29 June 2007
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