Reviews

Once again Aberdeen Orpheus Choir under their ever popular conductor Jane Murray drew a ‘House Full’ audience to their Summer Concert, this time in Mannofield Church. Audiences always enjoy joining in singing at their Christmas Concerts, so on Saturday, Jane Murray gave us the chance to take part in their opening number, The Old Hundredth Psalm Tune in an arrangement by Ralph Vaughan Williams with two trumpets and clarinet. I think we did quite well, but the fourth verse sung by the Choir alone sounded absolutely magnificent, with rich perfectly well-balanced harmonies and soaring sopranos.

The first two pieces in the concert proper had a kind of connection in that they were by composers of popular, rather than pop music. The first, Fields of Gold, was by Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE better known as Sting. This setting for choir was by the American top arranger Roger Emerson. It went down particularly well. I was impressed by the tenors. It is like a folk song, could be Scottish or Irish but of course it is not, because we know who composed the words and music.

Erika Fairhead’s piano playing matched Randy Newman’s in his You’ve got a Friend in Me. Newman is a good pianist but I think the choir’s singing was better than Randy’s.

Jane Murray always likes to invite a young up and coming musician to perform as a guest in her concerts. This year it was the turn of a young clarinet player from Meldrum Academy, Linden Stewart. I believe she is also a student at the North East of Scotland Music School. Jane Murray herself provided the piano accompaniment for Linden’s first piece, Contradanza (for Ernest Lecuona) by Pacquito D’Rivera, a Cuban American saxophonist and composer. Linden captured the Latin-American rhythmic pulse of the music rather well.

The next three pieces for the Choir were from the area of Sea Songs. The men of the choir opened Liverpool Girls with sturdy singing before the full choir took off in jaunty spirit. Skippers and Mates by Robbie Smith (1954 – 2019) in an arrangement by the Canadian Dr Mark Sirett, was exciting with its complex rhythms, to and fro choir exchanges and crazy foot stamps. Soloist Steve Stuart was the one wearing the stormproof hat.

The Leaving of Liverpool, a folk song in an arrangement by David W. Jepson (1941 - 2021) was like a conversation between the male and female voices before they all joined together with the sopranos and tenors sounding particularly enthusiastic.

Linden Stewart’s next piece was for unaccompanied clarinet. Caprice No.1 by Anton Stadler was a fun showpiece with scalar passages, quotations, spiky passages against smooth flowing moments, leaps and trills. Linden was right there on top of it all.

The next three pieces for the Choir dealt with the theme of war. Mark Sirett had set words by Robert Graves in Walking. This was for the sixteen men of the choir split into groups. They did well. The next piece dealt with the idea of peace in a splendid setting of A Prayer of St. Francis by non-other than Andrew Fairhead who always sits with his wife, as page turner? He has dedicated the piece to Jane Murray, his wife Erika and to the members of the Orpheus Choir. It was well composed with delicious harmonies.

Also with fine harmonies was Mark Sirett’s After the War, a song sung in the film Passchendaele.

Jane took to the piano once again to accompany Linden Stewart in her performance of No.2 From 5 Bagatelles Op. 23 by Gerald Finzi. A tuneful pastorale sounding piece, I enjoyed Linden’s relaxed performance of this piece.

Full female chorus along with a seven voice semi-chorus and with Graeme Morrice on bass guitar were in rock mood with Roger Emerson’s arrangement of Please, Mr Postman. There were hand claps from the men, I think? I could hear but not see.

The theme of war returned with the final piece in the first half, Jay Unger’s Ashokan Farewell from the television programme The Civil War. I was familiar with it as a fiddle piece, but this was the first time I had heard it sung, and yes, I liked it better that way.

After the interval, the Choir performed four short movements from Miserere in c minor by the Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679 – 1745). Great orchestral sounding piano from Erika Fairhead and marvellous contrapuntal singing from the Orpheus Choir. Yes, they can still sing baroque music splendidly well.

Franz Krommer (1759 – 1831) was another later Czech composer. With Jane back on piano, Linden Stewart gave a fine performance mostly but not all on the upper range of the clarinet. It was a smooth performance with proper attention to variations in dynamics.

Carly Simon’s Let the River Run had Graeme Morrice back on bass guitar, this time with a five voice semi-chorus. It is not really a spiritual, but surely there is something of that about it and the choir got stuck into it with obvious enthusiasm. Exactly what was needed. They got me going all the way with them.

Four Strong Winds by Ian Tyson (1933 – 2022) arranged by Larry Nickel (b.1952) got an enthusiastic response from the men in the choir. Then I enjoyed Oh, Where Art thou Dreaming a part song by Hamish MacCunn, famous for his orchestral work The Land of the Mountain and the Flood. Thank-you Jane. It was great to hear something else by this composer.

With Jane back on the piano we had two more pieces from Linden Stewart, Forlana No.4 from 5 Bagatelles by Gerald Finzi followed by Allegretto scherzando from 3 Intermezzi by Charles Villiers Stanford. These were basically two dance pieces, the first gentle and lightsome, the second prickly and passionate.

The Orpheus Choir could do no wrong with their next piece, one of my all time favourites, Sure on this Shining Night by Morten Lauridsen who has performed it several times in Aberdeen when he was a guest of Aberdeen University Music. The music is brilliant and the words by James Agee are marvellous, especially if you know the story behind it. Agee was not well at the time he wrote it, but on that night he felt recovered.

A Red, Red Rose with words by Robert Burns is surely familiar to most people in Scotland. Apparently the well known tune is not the one that Burns himself used but that one is difficult to find. There have been many versions over the years, including one sung by Pat Boone in the 1959 film Journey to the Centre of the Earth composed possibly by Bernard Herrmann. The Orpheus Choir had another version composed by James Mulholland (b. 1935). I thought it sounded good and the rich singing of the Orpheus Choir certainly made it a hit for me.

Linden Stewart had given us lots of fine music, but she was not finished yet. She was one of the instrumentalists in the final piece in the concert along with Jane Rodger on flute and pianist Erika Fairhead. This was Patti Drennan’s arrangement of Wild Mountain Thyme. In the programme it is listed as an Irish Folk Song but many Scots would lay claim to it as well. In any case it is a great song and the audience thoroughly enjoyed the choir’s version of it on Saturday.

As you will see from what I have written, Jane Murray gleans music for her choir from almost every arena of music, folk, rock, film, popular even pop, classical and more. I am sure she believes in the idea that music is either good or bad, and if it is good, well, lets get the choir singing it. That must be why her concerts are always packed to the door with audiences who set off home like me with smiles on their faces with the Choir’s songs still playing over in their heads. Wild Mountain Thyme anyone?

ALAN COOPER

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