BREMF – Roots, Shoots and Celestial Flowers

Sublime music, unsung for half a millennium and as anonymous as nuns, formed the core of this complex, brilliantly constructed programme from collaborative directors Deborah Roberts and Laurie Stras. In the warm, golden glow of the Gothic setting, professional quartet Musica Secreta and specialist amateur choir Celestial Sirens, sensitively underpinned by Alison Kinder (bass viol) and Claire Williams (organ), sang hymns to the Virgin, the verses interspersed with elaborate motets and a sumptuous parody Mass. Seductive plainchant flowed smoothly into so many varieties of delicate polyphony. In trying to copy the Pope’s choirs those talented nuns succeeded in echoing heaven!

St Paul’s Church, 3 November 2017
Rating:
Andrew Connal