- Tippett
work
finely sung
‘A CHILD of Our Time,
composer wants in terms of expression and effect, but this
Sir Michael Tippett’s - should take nothing away from
great cry against oppres- the credit due to all the persion and persecution, en- formers in conveying the sense
of the piece.
compasses and expresses
Such examples as the almost
sentiments of monumen- frenetic nature of the choral
tal proportions that fugue, ,Burn Down their
demand from performers Houses, the anger so vividly
expressed in the chorus The
of this work a deep sense Cold Deepens and the thrilling
of conviction to text and
notes.
Such a sense came across in
Saturday’s performance, given
in Guildford Cathedral by
Guildford
Philharmonic
Orchestra and Choir and the
Goldsmiths’ Choral Union,
under Sir Charles Groves’
baton.
The directness of Tippett’s
writing — helped in this oratorio by both text and music
flowing from the mind of a
man on a crusade against inhumanity — does make it abundantly clear exactly what the
effect of the soprano voices, in
echoing the words The Trumpet Sound in the negro spiritual Steal Away; these are just a
few impessions which come to
mind from the fine choral
singing,.
Turning to the soloists, it is
a pleasure to recall the luscious
sound of Jo Ann Pickens, a
coloured American soprano
with the ability to float a beautiful legato line combined with
a rare richness of timbre and
tone.
It is nowhere demonstrated
better than in the delicate so—
prano glissando which provides
such a magical bridge to the
Steal Away spiritual.
Linda Strachan (contralto)
and Ian Caley (tenor) both
brought an impressive intensity
of feeling to their narrative and
also to the more pungent of
the text, but the bass, Matthew
Best, while bringing an appropriately compassionate approach to his interpretation,
was occasionally in danger of
sounding a little too detached
from the strong sentiments so
central
to a com&incing
performance.
The orchestra, led by Hugh
Bean, played most impressively, the sound as strong and,
when needed, as sweet as any
they have produced this season, as they reacted to Sir
Charles Groves’ ever-sensitive
approach to the work.
The concert opened with as
good a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No.l
as one
could expect in a building
which swallows up semi-quavers all too easily. “Too many
notes,” said the Emperor of
Austria to Mozart on one occasion and so it is with early
Beethoven
in
Guildford
Cathedral.
Whether one should be paying a supplement for the notes
one hears twice or asking for a
refund for the ones which disappear into the plaster is difficult to decide.
But the orchestra did its
best, which came, not suprisingly, in the circumspectly
taken slow movement which
contained all the cantible qualities sought by the composer.
Robert Benjafield.