AN EVENING OF HIGH DRAMA AND THRILLS – VERDI REQUIEM
| Type of post: | Choir news item |
| Sub-type: | Choir News |
| Posted By: | Jenny Lloyd |
| Status: | Current |
| Date Posted: | Wed, 20 Mar 2024 |
EXETER CATHEDRAL, 16 MARCH 2024
With Verdi's Requiem, the Exeter Philharmonic Choir, directed by Howard Ionascu, brought one of music’s greatest choral works to Exeter Cathedral on 16 March. The Requiem, of course, demands large-scale forces for maximum effect, duly provided by a choir of 117 singers (or so I counted in the programme) and the luxury of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra fresh from its own performance of the work in Poole a fortnight or so previously. With a well-matched quartet of soloists – Judith Howarth (soprano), Marta Fontanals-Simmons (mezzo-soprano), Oliver Johnston (tenor) and Ossian Huskinson (bass) – and a sold-out Cathedral, the stage was set for a dramatic evening.
Verdi brought a sense of operatic theatricality to his setting of the Mass, with grandeur and drama in equal measure; and excitement was a-plenty as the evening unfolded. The opening movement, Requiem and Kyrie, introduced us early to the excellence of the performers – soloists, choir and orchestra alike. Then the Dies irae’s picture of the day of wrath came over thrillingly, with the choir’s energetic singing spurred on by a fine bass drum and superb orchestral brass, the latter then moving to even greater volume in the ‘Tuba mirum’, which the valiant choir found it a challenge to match!
The tension did not slacken with Ossian Huskinson’s authoritative delivery of ‘Mors stupebit.’ I liked the vocal shading he brought to his role in the Requiem, both here and in the later ‘Confutatis maledictis.’ Soloists and choir combined effectively in the dramatic contrasts of the ‘Rex tremendae’, while immediately after the interval the choir brought an attractive lilt to its performance of the fourth movement, Sanctus.
But the Requiem is not all blood and thunder; Verdi brought to it much beauty and lyricism. The soloists were the main protagonists in presenting this side of the work, singing expressively as a genuine partnership, for instance, in movement 3, Offertory, at the end of which the Bournemouth strings played the orchestral postlude most beautifully. The orchestra also provided sensitive support to the three lower soloists’ moving performance of movement 6, Lux aeterna, introduced by Marta Fontanals-Simmons' lovely singing, which we had also heard earlier in the ‘Liber scriptus’ and, with soprano Judith Howarth, ‘Recordare’ sections of the Dies irae. When accompanying these more meditative elements of the work, Howard Ionascu ensured that the choir gave careful and effective attention to internal balance and dynamics.
All the different emotions of the Requiem were tied together in the concluding Libera me, where Judith Howarth brought her years of experience and dramatic awareness to a taxing part that takes the soprano soloist up to a high B flat marked ‘pppp’ and, later, the C above, against the fortissimos of choir and orchestra. Here, in the reprise of the Dies irae and in the fugue of the Libera me, as indeed elsewhere during the evening, the EPC singers were in fine voice, with director Howard Ionascu bringing out the best of them. And what a privilege to be accompanied in a major choral work by such a secure and responsive orchestra as the BSO!
The performance rightly attracted much acclaim from the capacity audience. For both them and the performers it was a memorable evening. It was fitting that the occasion was the EPC’s annual Lord Mayor’s Concert, with a retiring collection to benefit the Lord Mayor’s chosen charity, FORCE.
David Batty
With Verdi's Requiem, the Exeter Philharmonic Choir, directed by Howard Ionascu, brought one of music’s greatest choral works to Exeter Cathedral on 16 March. The Requiem, of course, demands large-scale forces for maximum effect, duly provided by a choir of 117 singers (or so I counted in the programme) and the luxury of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra fresh from its own performance of the work in Poole a fortnight or so previously. With a well-matched quartet of soloists – Judith Howarth (soprano), Marta Fontanals-Simmons (mezzo-soprano), Oliver Johnston (tenor) and Ossian Huskinson (bass) – and a sold-out Cathedral, the stage was set for a dramatic evening.
Verdi brought a sense of operatic theatricality to his setting of the Mass, with grandeur and drama in equal measure; and excitement was a-plenty as the evening unfolded. The opening movement, Requiem and Kyrie, introduced us early to the excellence of the performers – soloists, choir and orchestra alike. Then the Dies irae’s picture of the day of wrath came over thrillingly, with the choir’s energetic singing spurred on by a fine bass drum and superb orchestral brass, the latter then moving to even greater volume in the ‘Tuba mirum’, which the valiant choir found it a challenge to match!
The tension did not slacken with Ossian Huskinson’s authoritative delivery of ‘Mors stupebit.’ I liked the vocal shading he brought to his role in the Requiem, both here and in the later ‘Confutatis maledictis.’ Soloists and choir combined effectively in the dramatic contrasts of the ‘Rex tremendae’, while immediately after the interval the choir brought an attractive lilt to its performance of the fourth movement, Sanctus.
But the Requiem is not all blood and thunder; Verdi brought to it much beauty and lyricism. The soloists were the main protagonists in presenting this side of the work, singing expressively as a genuine partnership, for instance, in movement 3, Offertory, at the end of which the Bournemouth strings played the orchestral postlude most beautifully. The orchestra also provided sensitive support to the three lower soloists’ moving performance of movement 6, Lux aeterna, introduced by Marta Fontanals-Simmons' lovely singing, which we had also heard earlier in the ‘Liber scriptus’ and, with soprano Judith Howarth, ‘Recordare’ sections of the Dies irae. When accompanying these more meditative elements of the work, Howard Ionascu ensured that the choir gave careful and effective attention to internal balance and dynamics.
All the different emotions of the Requiem were tied together in the concluding Libera me, where Judith Howarth brought her years of experience and dramatic awareness to a taxing part that takes the soprano soloist up to a high B flat marked ‘pppp’ and, later, the C above, against the fortissimos of choir and orchestra. Here, in the reprise of the Dies irae and in the fugue of the Libera me, as indeed elsewhere during the evening, the EPC singers were in fine voice, with director Howard Ionascu bringing out the best of them. And what a privilege to be accompanied in a major choral work by such a secure and responsive orchestra as the BSO!
The performance rightly attracted much acclaim from the capacity audience. For both them and the performers it was a memorable evening. It was fitting that the occasion was the EPC’s annual Lord Mayor’s Concert, with a retiring collection to benefit the Lord Mayor’s chosen charity, FORCE.
David Batty
