THE Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti, a contemporary of Respighi, was conservative enough to object not only to the music of Schoenberg (as being too complex) but also to that of Debussy (as too aristocratic).
Unlike Respighi, whose music is experiencing a revival, Pizzetti has become largely a forgotten figure, so the espousal of his Requiem by the National Chamber Choir under Colin Mawby is a matter of some interest. I first heard the choir sing this austere work in the Chapel of TCD, where its chasteness and sincerity made a considerable impression. On a second hearing, in the smaller, acoustically drier confines of the Holy Trinity Church in Schull, it sounded less well, not least because of singing that sounded less well regulated in matters of intonation, ensemble and balance than what I recall from the TCD performance.
In Schull, at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival's single non Bantry, non strictly chamber music event, the choir's concert took most of the evening to warm up. The instrumental soloist Fergal Caulfied seemed to have neither the full measure of the small instrument at his disposal, for works by Ian Wilson, Raymond Deane and JS Bach, nor of the audience - if he had introduced himself with a proper bow, they would surely have granted him silence rather than chattering over the necessarily quiet start of his performance.
After the interval, there was still unnecessary roughness and hardness of tone in the choir's first group of pieces by Palestrina, Monteverdi, Vecchi and Tallis. And then, in the final three items, the performers lifted themselves to a higher level. Here were the quiet resonances the ear had longed for, the evenness of blend, the stronger sense of shape and direction, the climaxes easily achieved.
The music, all by Mawby himself (his "Christus resurrexit", the Gloria from a mass, and "Ave verum"), was conceived in that idiom where what you might call unharsh dissonance is calculated with an ear for maximum choral effectiveness. On this occasion, it was a calculation that paid off handsomely.
