Folk Songs of the British Isles, Yugoslavia and Estonia
The Ashburton Singers presented a programme of ballads and folk songs arranged for choir by Vaughan Williams, Holst and Stanford, including the well-known Northumbrian songsBonny at MornandDance to your Daddy, the stirring Irish balladThe Sword of Erinand the lovely Cornish tuneI love my love.
Also on the programme, in an arrangement by the Hungarian composer Matyas Seiber, were Yugoslav folk songs depicting a fairy-tale rose growing in a green mountain valley and the horsemanship of the dashing Hussars.
Veljo Tormis, the celebrated Estonian composer, wrote choral works based on the folksong and poetry of languages that are now disappearing or extinct. His mesmeric and unusual settings are instantly appealing. In the programme were Estonian Wedding Songs, RoundelayandRussian Sailor’s Song.
Joined by organist Ian Curror and a string orchestra led by Susan Smallshire, the Ashburton Singers directed by Bridget Ansell performed Haydn Little Organ Mass and Rheinberger Stabat Mater
Haydn’s Missa Brevis Sancti Johannis de Deo, known as the Little Organ Mass, was composed in the mid-1770s for the Brothers of Mercy who ran the hospital in Eisenstadt, where Haydn lived while employed by Prince Esterhazy.
Intimate and short, with some movements less than a minute long, this cheerful work is full of expressive melody and quiet reverence. It is scored for solo soprano, a four-part choir and modest orchestra with an organ, which has a charming solo in the Benedictus.
A feminine perspective can be felt in Rheinberger’s dramatic and heartfelt Stabat Mater. Rheinberger’s music stands firmly in the line from Bach, Haydn and Beethoven, and his style is characterised by flowing melodic lines and the expressive use of harmonic colour.
Other seasonal music in the programme included Mozart’s Ave verum corpus, composed in the last year of his short life and justly counted among the most famous and well-loved choral pieces, and music by Victoria, Byrd, Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner and Gjeilo
With Pianist Jenny Quick
Fantasia on Christmas Carols
“Just as the Tide was Flowing”