BBC First Night of the Proms 2014 Elgar The Kingdom

  

Sir Edward Elgar's The Kingdom, First Night of the BBC Proms 2014. A magnificent start to the season, particularly one which commemorates 1914, the start of the First World War. From that perspective Sir Andrew Davis's The Kingdom moved me deeply.

Elgar dreamed of writing a trilogy of oratorios examining the nature of Christianity as Jesus taught his followers, using the grand context of the Edwardian taste. In The Apostles, Jesus sets out his beliefs in simple, human terms. Judas doubts him and is confounded. In The Kingdom, the focus is more diffuse. The disciples are many and their story unfolds through a series of tableaux, impressive set pieces, but with less obvious human drama. The final, part would hase been titled The Last Judgement, when World and Time are destroyed and the faithful of all ages are raised from the dead, joining Jesus in Eternity. The sheer audacity of that vision may have stymied Elgar, much in the way that Sibelius's dreams for his eighth symphony inhibited realization. Fragments of The Last Judgement made their way into drafts for what was to be Elgar's third and final symphony, which we now know in Anthony Payne's performing version. There could be many reasons why Elgar didn't proceed, but he may well have intuited the contradiction between simple faith and extravagant gesture.

In his excellent programme notes, Stephen Johnson describes The Kingdom "as a kind of symphonic 'slow movement', a pause between two much more monumental pillars. It doesn't exist on its own out of context, and can't really be judged as a stand-alone. Elgar's creative output declined after the First World War. Since we know the wars that followed, listening to this piece is even more poignant. The Kingdom is a fragment of a confident but doomed past. I also like The Kingdom because, like The Apostles, it portrays Jesus and his followers are down-to-earth ordinary men and women encountering events normal comprehension. They're not pious saints but simple folk with fears and insecurities, saved by faith.

 

Andrew Davis conducted the Prelude with sober dignity. The disciples are starting a journey that continues 2000 years later. Davis's tempi were unhurried, with just enough liveliness to suggest the excitement of hopes to come. There are familiar themes from The Apostles here, and lyrical passages, which Davis conducted with particular finesse. I watched his hands sculpt curving shapes, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra responded well. Nice bright horns, seductive lower winds. The long pauses with which Davis marked the different parts of the piece serve a purpose, but tended to break the flow. However, Davis masterfully contrasted extreme of volume and relative quietness, giving dramatic structure. 

When the combined forces of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and the BBC Symphony Chorus entered, the effect was splendid. This is what good choral singing should be: lush richness yet brightened by sharp, disciplined diction, individual sections clearly defined within the mass.  These Christians march forwards but don't lose themselves  to the multitude. Unsurprisngly, the chorus masters were two of the best in the genre: Adrian Partington (of Three Choirs fame) and Stephen Jackson. 

The soloists were Erin Wall (Mary the Virgin), Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Mary Magdalene), Andrew Staples (St John) and Christopher Purves (St Peter). All are extremely reliable, and well experienced in large choral repertoire, and they delivered well. Staples, however, was unusually  expressive. His firm, animated tenor seemed to shine from the dense textures in the music around him. The Kingdom unfolds like a procession of tableaux, each savoured at a measured pace, so Staples provided welcome individuality.

Interestingly, The Kingdom focuses on female figures. The contralto (Wyn-Rogers)  has lovely recitatives and the soprano (Erin Wall) has the glorious"The sun goeth down".  The female choruses have good music, too,  and were very brightly coloured and lively. Davis highlighted the relationship between solo voices and instruments, such as the dialogue between Wall and the First Violin, Stephen Bryant. The Kingdom is a showpiece, not because it's flamboyant but because it's restrained.  More a prolonged recitative than an aria, but without recvitatives to hold the drama together, where would we be ? It's better, in many ways, to start the BBC Proms season with something esoteric than with something crude. 

This review also appears in Opera Today. Each year I cover around 40 Proms, so please keeping coming back. Please also read my other posts on Elgar, on Three Choirs, The Apostles, Caractacus, The Dreeam of Gerontius, The Powicj  musiuc and so on.

Drei Könige wandern aus Morgenland

As an alternative to the English language version " Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar". My favourite, though, remains the version for boy alto.

Drei Könige wandern aus Morgenland; Ein Sternlein führt sie zum Jordanstrand. In Juda fragen und forschen die drei, Wo der neugeborene König sei? Sie wollen Weihrauch, Myrrhen und Gold Dem Kinde spenden zum Opfersold.

Und hell erglänzet des Sternes Schein: Zum Stalle gehen die Kön'ge ein; Das Knäblein schaun sie wonniglich, Anbetend neigen die Könige sich; Sie bringen Weihrauch, Myrrhen und Gold Zum Opfer dar dem Knäblein hold.

O Menschenkind! halte treulich Schritt! Die Kön'ge wandern, o wandre mit! Der Stern der Liebe, der Gnade Stern Erhelle dein Ziel, so du suchst den Herrn, Und fehlen Weihrauch, Myrrhen und Gold, Schenke dein Herz dem Knäblein hold!

Milford, Duruflé Requiem Aeternam - Stone Records

At last, a recording of Robin Milford's Mass for Five Voices op 84 from Stone Records, specialists in British repertoire. Robin Milford (1903-1959) was Oxford born and bred, so it's fitting that this major new recording comes from the Choir of Somerville College, Oxford, conducted by David Crown. Milford would have been thrilled, though in his day, Somerville was all-female. While Somerville doesn't have the cachet of the bigger colleges, its singers are enthusiastic, and their committment infuses this recording with great character. 

Milford is best known for his music for small ensemble, like Fishing by Moonlight (op 96) issued by Hyperion nine years ago, so Stone Records' recording is an important development. Mass for Five Voices (1945-7) was originally titled "Mass for Christmas Morning" but there's nothing specially Christmassy about it other than a general sense of joy. "I'm so glad that you enjoyed my Mass", wrote the composer to a friend, "for I consider it the best thing I've ever done, and I'm very pleased indeed that you felt the work was 'truly religious' rather than 'churchy'" . The voices are SATB choir with organ, so the resemblance to church tradition is clear, but Milford's approach is ecstatic. In Gloria in excelsis, the voices shine. "Miserere nobis" hardly seems relevant, a final "Gloria in excelsis" reaffirms the celebratory.mood.  Even the solemnity of the Credo reflects joy, and when the organ joins in, it's as if it were singing, not preaching.

The Somerville voices sound so fresh and pure that one can understand why Milford thought of Christmas and presumably angels and happiness. There's nothing trite about this. Milford's life was plagued by tragedy, including the sudden death of his 5 year old son.  He had breakdowns, received ECT and attempted suicide, and finally ended his life with an overdose.  Even in our modern, more tolerant times, such things are painful. In Milford's era of repressed Stiff Upper Lip, he must have suffered. So the joy in Mass for Five Voices shines all the more when we reflect from whence it came.

The Somerville College Choir are joined by soloists Christine Rice and Mark Stone for Maurice Duruflé's Requiem op 9 (1947). making this recording of interest even in a crowded market. Rice and Gilchrist communicate sincerity. Duruflé's Requiem is duly famous, and its use of  monastic chant sources give it timeless grandeur. Yet, as James Percval writes, "in the light of the socially-traumatic experience of World Wars", Duruflés Requiem "very much belongs to the twentieth century". Listen to Christine Rice in this Pie Jesu, the stillness in her voice garlanded by cello (Guy Johnston) and organ (Tristan Mitchard). A protracted single organ announces the Libera me. When Stone sings "tremens factus sum ego", he sings with such directness that his words feel personal and heartfelt. This Requiem was recorded in the chapel at Douai Abbey, where the acoustic favours intimacy.

Duruflé's Requiem and Milford's Mass for Five Voices were written in the same post-war period., but are, of course very different. But heard together, we can appreciate the humanity they have in common. This recording is a milestone for Milford, but also a showcase for the Oxford college choir tradition, created afresh by the Somerville College Choir. It seems odd to call a CD of Masses a "hit", but this one is ! For more details, please see the Stone Records site HERE.

Yellow River Cantata Xian Xing Hai China's Weimar

On BBC Radio 3 "The Choir" there's a piece on Xian Xing Hai's Yellow River Cantata,  (黄河大合唱), describing a new edition in English to encourage greater awareness of the piece in the west. Good idea! But The Yellow River Cantata is so central to the Chinese psyche that I'm not sure that western performances would really help.  In this increasingly monophone world, the last thing we need is more west-centrism. We need to learn things from other perspectives. Even Chinese raised overseas seem to be losing their identity. A better approach may be to listen to really idiomatic recordings, and develop a wider understanding of modern China. Only then, perhaps the Cantata and its true emotional impact will fall into place.

Xian Xing Hai (Sin Sing Hoi in Cantonese) (冼星海;) was born 13/6/1905, the posthumous child of a fisherman in Macau, "the lowest of the low", as boat people were looked down on by farmers and townsfolk. Yet almost from the start he seemed destined to rise above extreme hardship. Aged six, he went to Singapore with his mother, who had a job as an amah. Yet, aspiration already. He studied first in an English school, then in a Singapore school affiliateded to Lingnan University, where he learned Chinese and western music. In 1918, mother and son were back in Guangzhou, struggling hard to put the son through music school. He was a clarinet prodigy, known as "The Southern Piper" because he'd grown up in the nam yang (south). At the conservatories of Beijing and Shanghai, he specialized in violin and composition. From the very start Xian worked with both Chinese and western instruments, though he composed in a western style. He wrote many musicology papers, including treatises on Chinese music.

Already, he was fired by the idealism of the May Fourth Movement, who saw modernization as China's way forward "China has no need for private and aristocratic music", he wrote as a youth,  "those who study music should take full responsibility to rescue China from its dormant state". Like so many Chinese progressives at the time, he went to Paris, where he studied with Paul Oberdorffer, Noel Géallon, Vincent d'Indy and Paul Dukas. Some Chinese students, like Zhou En lai, were wealthy,  but the majority, like Ma Si Cong , struggled to survive. It was a sign of how dedicated they were.

Xian returned to China in 1935, where he made a living composing music for films, including A Song at Midnight, (1937) the first Chinese horror movie, which is a lot more than just a horror movie. It's a commentray on politics and cultural change in China - read more HERE. . Movies in China weren't merely escapist entertainment, but a form of social education. Read more about that on this site. It's interesting to compare Xian Xing Hai with Hanns Eisler : both idealists, both intellectuals, both convinced that film was a means of reaching the masses. Both wrote serious art music, but also songs which could communicate with the less sophisticated, and both worked with progressive film directors. This period could be called "Chinese Weimar". The Japanese invasion proved a catalyst. Chinese people organized mass relief and charity efforts, music, theatre and film very much part of the process. Whereas European intellectuals were forced to flee from Hitler, Chinese intellectuals became drawn into the movement for national resistance. Some could go south to Hong Kong or Macau (Xian's birthplace) to continue their struggle, but Xian associated with the Chinese Communist Party and made the long march to Yan'an, where the partisans lived in mountain caves in primitive conditions.

The Yellow River Cantata  was written in the Yan'an caves, securing it a place in the Valhalla of Communist iconography. That's how I learned it as a child, broadcast full volume from CCP schools, night and day, during the Cultural Revolution. Only very much later did I learn it as proper music. It opens with a stirring rally. Already the "water" images in the music surge forward. "Friends" says the baritone, "listen to the song of the Yellow River". The choir sings the famous staccato chorus "Bai yao, bai yao", followed by a serene passage which suggests the eternal flow of a great, powerful river. "Bai yao, hey" sings the chorus (with bass drum) "...hey". The Huang Ho was known as "China's Sorrow" because it would flood and kill millions, yet it also fertilized the soil and became one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. The next two movements  refer to 5000 years of Chinese history and the perserverance of the peasantry. The fourth movement is based on regional folk song. Hence the two simple vocal lines and minimal orchestral support that mimics traditional folk instruments. Then the full chorus joins in : the peasants will beat these new sufferings caused by the Japanese invasion. Then a haunting, elegaic melody. A soprano sings a lament for women, who for centuries have borne the brunt of suffering. As her voice rises, joined by full orchestra, one feels hope for a new society.

The most famous section is the rousing "Defending the Yellow River", where full chorus sing a defiant round, expressing the peasant's struggle to beat off the invaders and remake a stronger, better China.  What a blast this is, nothing like normal, polite choral fare. Moments of reflection, where "Chinese" motifs are heard, before the magnificent finale, announced by trumpets. "Ai ai, Huangho!" the choruses sing gloriously, faster and faster to a single note crescendo held for several bars. "Ai!"  Perhaps it's propaganda music but it certainly reaches deep emotional chords in those who understand the history of China. That's perhaps why it means so much to so many people, who can hear the pain and dignity in the music, far deeper than the political context. It was even performed in Taiwan in 1991, where the Gou Ming Dang regime loathe everything about the Communists. That shows that the Yellow River Cantata surpasses boundaries and unites all Chinese, everywhere.

 HERE is a link to a very good documentary on Xian Xing Hai, with archive film and photos you won't see too often. Even though it's in Mandarin it's not hard to follow. There is a recent movie "Song of Star and Sea" (refering to Xian's given names which mean "star" and "sea". I've only seen the trailer but it looks awful.  HERE is a link to the best recording, I think, by the Central China Orchestra and Chorus. Fabulous choral singing, and very sharp soloists. Much better than the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir recording, conducted by Cao Ding, used on the BBC Radio 3 broadcast.

Xian Xing Hai wrote two versions of  The Yellow River Cantata, the first in 1939 for the limited resources at Yanan, the second reorchestrated for larger orchestra and choir, written the following year in Russia, to which he travelled  with the film director, Yuan Mu Zhi (袁牧之) who made Street Angel (1937), one of the icons in Chinese cinema. (read more here, with full download).  Xian died of penumonia, exacerbated by poor treatment, in the Soviet Union in 1945, aged only 40. The Yellow River Piano Concerto isn't his, but a suite created by others, but is famous because it was performed in the US in the 1970's, part of the rapprochment between China and the US. Two clips below : The Central China Orchestra mentioned above and a  People's Liberation Army version from 1956. It's a beautiful archive film, made by people for whom the Anti Japanese war was not theory but living memory.

School Choir Xmas with a difference

Choral singing is huge in Hong Kong where music education is taken very seriously indeed. At Xmas, one of the popular customs is that school choirs like this sing in public places to raise money for charity. This school's choirs and orchestras (multiple) usually win all the prizes in music festivals all over Asia, but here the girls are singing for pure happiness, which is why they're so good.

More Josquin Masses - Tallis Scholars

From the Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips, a fabulous new recording of two of Josquin des Prés canonic Masses, the Missa de Beata Virgine and the Missa Ave Maris Stella.  Any recording by these performers is an event because they're astoundingly good. This release extends their on-going series of Josquin masses, recorded to the highest possible standards by Gimmell Records, with which they are so closely associated.

This disc pairs the Missa de beata virgine,  Josquin's greatest contemporary hit, with the early Missa Ave Maris Stella. It's interesting to hear the difference between the tightness of the earlier Mass and the later, which survives in many different sources. We don't know exactly what Josquin might have intended, but this non-dogmatism allows performance freedom. As Philips says in his notes, the Missa De beata virgine doesn't fit modern ideas of unified construction. Perhaps, he suggests,"Josquin was deliberately creating a virtuoso exercise in modal relationships". One of the joys of this recording is the way extra voices blend in into the usual SATB format. The Kyrie and Gloria are beautiful enough, but the Credo and Sanctus expand, and the Agnus Dei has resonant depth, so the soprano voices soar as if they were angels.

Josquin's music grows through ever-inventive paraphrases, basic motifs replicating in myriad patterns. Mandelbrot theory in sound? It's no surprise that many modern composers, like Brian Fernyhough, are drawn to Renaissance polyphony as an alternative to symphonic form. The Missa Ave maris stella is so concise that it's almost a surprise when single voices emerge from the different reiterations. For much the same reason I enjoy the Credo quarti toni (the "Cambrai" Credo) where the voices blend without losing their individuality. It's not as gloriously imaginative as the Missa de beata virgine but what lively energy!  Buy DIRECT HERE or through the usual channels.

Sunday Prom 58 Mendelssohn Elijah

FANTASTIC Prom ! Review is HERE with many extra links !  Please bookmark and revisit. In 2009, to celebrate Mendelssohn's anniversary, the BBC Proms did all his symphonies and some other works but not the biggie : Elijah. Or Paulus (which I love). The Three Choirs Festival did Elijah that year so I guess it was too much of a good thing. But when the Proms do something well, they do it ultra well. Week after week of massed choir blockbusters this year, making the most of the opportunities afforded by the Royal Albert Hall and its magnificent organ, the biggest and boomiest in the country. In times of economic and moral meltdown, we need extravagances, because they lift the soul. Besides, these blockbusters honour a grand British traditio : choral singing. One of the pleasures of getting to the Proms early is that you get to see the choristers lined up waiting to go backstage, and afterwards, they mill out among the crowd, still high form having sung their lungs out. In Victorian times, the burgeoning British middle class just loved massive displays. Look at the Albert Memorial, The Royal Albert Hall, the V&A, the Royal Parks. There are accounts of Elijah performances with 10,000 voices, though it's hard to imagine keeping them all together. At least they wouldn't have needed amplification. The excess is ironic, given the nature of the story - Elijah in the desert, the populace starving. Wild man Elijah rejects gods of luxury for an uncompromising God, and gets carried off to heaven in a fiery chariot. But goodness, it's fun!
Sorry I am a bit late with review but in the meantime you might like Elgar Caractacus Three Choirs, Handel Terrorist Samson Prom, Handel Messiah Prom (youth choirs)  Please use search box.

Three Choirs Festival Finzi Gurney Elgar

At the Three Choirs Festival, concerts start with prayers, which is a good thing, because it reminds us how lucky we are. Without music, beauty, spirituality (of any form) what would life be?

Gerald Finzi's Intimations of Immortality is an act of faith, too, in the power of art to transcend. Relatively few composers have dared tackle William Wordsworth, whose poetry is too thorny  to adapt easily to song. Finzi took years perfecting his Thomas Traherne setting, Dies Natalis, but daringly threw himself spontaneously into Intimations of Immortality.

It's ambitious, requiring a large orchestra, a well trained chorus and a tenor with the fortitude to sustain 45 minutes of singing against a loud background. Finzi attempts to match the grand, stirring verse of Wordsworth with an equally expansive orchestral setting. For a composer whose strength was in smaller scale chamber and choral music and song, it is quite an achievement. As Finzi quipped "it makes a hell of a noise, but rather a wonderful noise all told".

James Gilchrist is perhaps the finest exponent, against very strong competition (Ainsley, Langridge, Partridge) because he enters into the heroic spirit of this monumental piece. Against the vast forces behind him, and in the vastness of Gloucester Cathedral, Gilchrist's voice rings out resolutely. He's very moving, for he breathes meaning into what he sings, making Wordsworth's convoluted text feel personal and immediate. Get his recording, it's wonderful, the best introduction to the piece..

Like  Dies Natalis, the introduction whispers themes to come.  The orchestra is singing "There was a time, when meadow, grove and stream" before the voice comes in. The idea of unity between soloist, choir and orchestra, central to the mysticism in the piece.

 Gilchrist draws you into "the visionary gleam". "Waters on a starry night" sings Gilchrist, with the subtlest pause before and after the image, as if he's contemplating a wondrous jewel.  Then again, with "the innocent brightness of a newborn day". What miracle is happening here ? Overwhelming ecstasy that can't be explained in mundane terms, exquisitely wondrous. "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears", revealed by Gilchrist's shining conviction.

The Philharmonia Orchestra, from London, are talking up a three year residence at the Three Choirs Festival,  so their playing adds a sheen much more polished than average. In time, they'll absorb Finzi's very unusual idiom, where intuition counts as much as form. The Philharmonia is possibly the finest British orchestra, steeped in European repertoire. Adrian Lucas, who conducted,  is an organist and choirmaster, long associated with Three Choirs. It was interesting to hear how these two different traditions combine. This partnership between Three Choirs and the Philharmonia could prove quite an innovation.

The Philharmonia has done quite a lot of Elgar. Here at Gloucester, Sarah Connolly was soloist for Sea Pictures, singing with heroic purpose,  Boudicca refined and cultured.

The real rarity on this programme, however, was Ivor Gurney's The Trumpet, receiving its first professional performance, 80 years after it was written.  Gurney was Gloucester born, so deeply identified with the area that, in some ways, he died of a broken heart, forcibly confined in an asylum far away. When a map of the Cotswolds was smuggled into him, he obsessively traced his old hiking trails with his fingers. If only he could have known that his music would be given high profile exposure at Three Choirs, and in Gloucester Cathedral, where he sang in the choir and learned his music.
 
Gerald Finzi would have been happy, too, for he passionately championed Gurney. I don't know if Christopher and Hilary Finzi were in the audience, (they usually are) for their presence would have felt like completing a circle.

The Trumpet, based on a poem by Edward Thomas (text here), is a short piece for choir and orchestra, recently restored in full orchestration by Philip Lancaster. "Rise up! Rise up!" sing the combined voices, "Arise! Arise!". Trumpets and horns blow alarums, the effect overall uplifting. I enjoyed this! Read more about the genesis of this orchestration of The Trumpet on Philip Lancaster's site , which is a goldmine.

On Thursday 12th, another Gurney first, the restoration of Gurney's A Gloucestershire Rhapsody was premiered by The Philharmonia and Martyn Brabbins. That is a major story, no-one's picked up on nationally, except the BBC. It deserves proper respect,so please click here for more. ease keep coming back to this site, where there's lots on Gurney, Finzi, Three Choirs, Elgar etc. and will be more, too. With the beatification of John Cardinal Newman coming up, I might also write about a true life,  real miracle that happened at the last Gloucester Three Choirs Dream of Gerontius. Read about it HERE. Miracles don't have to be fancy stuff like raising the dead and moving mountains.  But there are uncanny, inexplicable things that do immense good. PLEASE READ many other articles and reviews on this site about 3 Choirs, Ivor Gurney, Finzi, Hubert Parry, Butterworth and English music - use labels at right or search button.

Early Music is Modern Music - Aldeburgh

Early music is as much part of Aldeburgh as new.  The 19th century Austro-Gedrman tradition has shaped what most people think of as "music", but it's a relatively recent tradition. Think of western music from a wider perspective, and the straitjacket of what music "must" be starts to collapse.  So many modern composers have turned to early music for inspiration that it's a good idea to listen to early music in order to appreciate what modern music is coming from.

In some ways, the Huelgas Ensemble is the Ensemble Intercontemporain of early music. In France, early music is hugely popular and on a more adventurous scale. There's a renaissance in "modern" early music and new commissions, which has hardly touched the Anglophone world. In England, the closest we get is Exaudi, highly recommended! So when the Huelgas Ensemble came to Blythburgh Chiurch (top picture)  as part of the Aldeburgh Festival, it was special.

The Huelgas Ensemble, founded and conducted by Paul Van Nevel in 1970, grew from Schola Cantorum in Basle (where Andreas Scholl trained), so it combines scholarly erudition with extremely refined performance. Think of the great cathedrals, which were built with precision, long before computer aided design.

The Huelgas sang Clemens non Papa (Clement who wasn't a Pope), Orlandus de Lassus,  Thomas Ashewell and Nicolas Gombert, a programme of the 16th century when Europe was going through cataclysmic upheaval, the certainties of the Middle Ages being shattered by new ideas. The serenity and perfection of this music salved souls, if it didn't save them. The Huelgas's purity of tone and carefully woven harmony was beautiful. They didn't stand in rigid lines, but moved in a circle.. Singing in church was about filling space effectively. Later that evening, Pierre Boulez's Dialogue de l'ombre double showed how sound dynamics shape the form of music. IRCAM isn't all that far from the early music.

The concert is being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 online, on demand, internationally from 28 June for 7 days.

No wonder early music speaks to modern composers and modern times so well.  Complexity, but based on sound architecture and detail.  A few years ago, at Orford, near Aldeburgh,  I heard Exaudi sing some of Brian Ferneyhough's complexities, lines crossing each other, tracing and intertracing like medieval vaulting. 

Please have a look at Iron Tongue of Midnight. Some journalist thinks that science proves the human brain cannot cope with the "Difficulty" of modern music. I won't give the original link, because it will send traffic to a fool, but read the link.  If science knows anything about the brain, it's that the brain's potential is so huge, we don't know the beginning of it. Quoting one source is like saying that the world must have been created in seven days, because the Bible says so. Creationism spreads because it's always easier not to make an effort, whatever the rewards. Music evolves, and adapts. But Creationists don't like Evolution, of course..

At Aldeburgh this year there's been a huge focus on science and art, specifically the neurological basis of creativity.  I don't have time to write that up just now, but keep reading, I'll get it done during July. The picture shows what can happen when people refuse to think. All along the Suffolk Coast, the cliffs are crumbling, just like in Peter Grimes. There once was a huge seaport at Dunwich, now hundreds of metres under the sea.  But this church, at Covehithe, wasn't destroyed by the sea but by men, in the Reformation and after.

Hallelujah! Handel Messiah Prom 68

Hallelujah indeed for this magnificent Messiah at the Proms. Everyone has heard the piece before, but this was different. This Prom was the place to be, for the broadcast can't quite capture the atmosphere, or the sense of festive expectation that built up even before the show started.

This Messiah was fun! Because its theme is religious and it's often performed on occasions of civic worthiness, it can be performed in ponderous sobriety. But this performance was electric. Seldom have I heard a choir of this size so lively. It's no mean feat to bring together seven youth choirs and combine them so well that they sounded like they'd been singing together for years. Such precision, such perfect unison - even the entries were perfectly timed. Seeing three hundred singers rise together in an instant, not one lagging, is quite amazing.

What animated these singers ? They sang with such vivacity that they made the piece afresh, as if the story was exciting news, and the music a thing of wonder. Whoever worked out the balances deserves special praise. Every voice is unique, so putting them together to create such fine balance took some doing. The spread across the higher voices was particularly well-judged, creating a nice spectrum, grading smoothly into darker tones. With choirs this size, clarity is more important than usual, because any muddiness can soon end in mush. Not so here, for the singing was so bright and clean. It didn't matter a jot that "All we like Sheep?" comes over as "We like Sheep!" because the real meaning of this oratorio is the miracle of life. Rnthusiasm is quite in order.

Indeed, it was the choirs who made this Messiah such a thrill. Singing is fun, and singing in a group is electrifying. Whatever these kids with shining faces go on to do, they won't forget this moment. Nicholas McGegan and the Northern Sinfonia, and the soloists - big names like John Mark Ainsley, Matthew Rose, Patricia Bardon and Dominique Labelle - were good, but for once took second place to the combined choirs.

This is why it means so much to support the Sing Hallelujah! project. Follow the link and read about it, because it's a wonderful venture. Anyone can participate - sign in on the site. The idea is to get ordinary people all over the country to sing, and moreover to come together. Handel may be the official tag but what's really being celebrated is the joy of being alive. Singing is an energizing physical activity, and communal singing charges emotional batteries. The BBC and the ENO may be behind this, but frankly, it's something the NHS should be supporting too, for its long term benefits.

Programmes like Songs of Praise aim at a special interest market, but singing can reach out to many more people. That's why I'm going to listen to The Choir when it starts again on BBC Radio 3 on 20th September. With Aled Jones as presenter it extends the concept of choral singing further so it reaches and benefits a much wider community. There is a great deal of interesting choral music beyond the niche. In Europe, choral music has enjoyed a renaissance for some time, withh exciting new choirs like Accentus, and composers like Carl Orff and Clytus Gottwald. Last year The Choir featured the work of Zoltan Kodaly, both as composer and as teacher. Programmes like this are needed more than ever because they bring communal singing into the mainstream for all, where it deserves to be.

Naturally the Hallelujah Chorus will be the centrepiece of the communal singing projects all over the country, for it's a song everyone knows and there aren't many words to memorize! But that's why it's a good starting point : it raises the spirits for more. There's advice online for organizing local groups. In Glasgow and London on the weekend 5/6 December there will be special "learning events". The ENO is presenting The Messiah from November in a staging by Deborah Warner. The cultural Taleban may sneer, but quite frankly, music is born again on performance, so I'm perfectly happy to give it a chance. From all we know, Handel wasn't a po-faced autodictat. Chances are he would have been thrilled to hear how his music has adapted to serve communities more diverse and wider than he could ever have imagined.

Lots more on Handel and the Messiah and singing on this blog - use search widget on right or labels.Updated Prom 65 review Mahler and Ligeti Strauss Nott HERE