BREMF – A Double Bill for Passiontide & Easter – BREMF Consort of Voices

How does penitential music bring so much pleasure? With such magnificent works performed so well. The Lent Prose sounded as if all twenty singers of the BREMF Consort of Voices sing plainchant every day, in flawless unison with a natural ebb and flow, gently prompted by Deborah Roberts sensitive conducting. Plainchant deserves this care; expertise and concentration enable it to sound so simple; it is the hallmark of an excellent choir and it set the standard for the rest of the concert.

Four sensuously plangent Latin motets by William Byrd were punctuated by a contrasting anthem by William Cornysh, who died 100 years earlier. His English text ‘Woefully arrayed, My blood man, for thee ran, it may not be nayed;’ brought a stark dramatic edge to the programme. The fragmented polyphony let us hear individual voices emerge cleanly from the ensemble with lines like ‘with pains my veins constrained to crake’ and ‘My feet and hands sore The sturdy nailes bore; What might I suffer more, O man?’ The distinct voices, however, blend so well when singing together. While the Byrd was blissful, this hymn of the Passion was certainly the most exciting part of the concert.

The second half began with Cornysh’s ‘Magnificat’, a courtly celebration that must have shown off the Tudor Chapel Royal at its best, with more of that divine plainchant interspersed with all kinds of polyphonic and rhythmic display. Byrd’s verses and antiphons for the Mass of Easter Day concluded this delightful evening with bright Latin praises and cheerful alleluias.

St Martin’s Church,
1 April 2023
Rating:
Andrew Connal