The National Chamber Choir's summer series of concerts is called "The Eternal Feminine", and celebrates "feminine influence and ideals in music". The opening programme was devised by the concert's conductor, Brian MacKay, and showed good judgment.
Rhona Clarke - Two Marian Anthems. Brahms - Marienlieder Op 22 (excs).
F. Mendelssohn - Morgengebet. O Herbst. Lockung. Schöne Fremde. Barber - Let down the bars, O Death. To be sung on the water. Ruth Byrchmore - In the silence of the night. Odaline de la Martinez - Two American Madrigals.
There was no token archaeology, for the the only non-contemporary music written by a woman came from Felix Mendelssohn's accomplished sister Fanny. With an engaging sense of mischief, MacKay announced that we had to guess which "F. Mendelssohn" wrote which of the four Eichendorff settings we were to hear. The work I and several others were most certain was by Felix, turned out to be by Fanny.
Ruth Byrchmore's In the silence of the night (1995) sets three poems by Christina Rosetti via a very English inclination towards step-wise movement of parts, harmonically rich scoring, and slightly held-in intensity. The Two American Madrigals by Cuban-born Odaline de la Martinez (who will be conducting the series's second concert), were composed for the 1978 Cork International Choral Festival; and the concert's opening work, by Rhona Clarke, was commissioned for this series.
Clarke's Two Marian Antiphons are inspired partly by the slow movement of Bartók's Fourth String Quartet, as the composer acknowledges. Their long-line counterpoint and idiomatic writing make them rewarding to sing. So I would be surprised if they are not picked up by other choirs; and neither of them is unsuitable for liturgical performance.
The performances in this concert were well-shaped, steady and, apart from a few ragged edges of attack, reliable. They were safer than in concerts under the NCC's former artistic director, Celso Antunes, who resigned in controversial circumstances earlier this year, but not discouraging for that. It remains to be seen if the choir's hard-won artistic excellence can survive the recent turmoil and the uncertainty in management and funding. Martin Adams
• Series continues in Dublin and Belfast until August 9th. For details telephone (01) 7005566 or visit dcu.ie/chamber/ index.shtml
