St Mary’s Church, Haddington, Friday 5 September 2003

IN SPITE OF the irony of English armies attempting to burn down St Mary’s in the same period of history that produced the Dunedin Consort’s programme there on Friday evening, this great, now restored, medieval church provided a magnificent setting for a typically outstanding performance.

With a more serious first half of sacred music and a second showing something of the English madrigal tradition, the five voices of the Consort were beautifully balanced. All successful singers in their own right, each one brings their own distinctive sound to the ensemble.

In Thomas Tallis’s O Nata Lux and Laetentur Coeli by Byrd, it was as if soprano Susan Hamilton and bass Matthew Brook were the musical outer layers of the sort of secure sandwich that the filling never manages to spill out of.

With only one voice to a part and no accompaniment, nothing can be hidden. Even in the concert’s most substantial work, Byrd’s 5-part Mass, the group produced a disciplined clarity and consistency of approach to its weaving polyphony with perfectly secure tuning.

Contrast came between, for instance, the firm but reverential ‘Kyrie’ and the more fluid movement of the ‘Gloria’, which itself contained adroit and appropriate changes of mood. St Mary’s generous acoustic could have allowed the group to sing down a little, especially in the lengthy ‘Credo’, but the ‘Sanctus’ and ‘Agnus Dei’ were magical in their unruffled etherealism.

Difficult to follow, the Mass might well have ended the first half. Tallis’s O Sacrum Convivium and Byrd’s Gaudeamus Omnes seemed a bit too much of a good thing, although the brightness of the latter paved the way for the post-interval selection.

Of this, John Bennet’s Weep, O Mine Eyes was a seamless unfurling of spatial luminosity and the highlight of the second half. Giving the singers a rest while simultaneously letting the audience hear some of the keyboard music of the period, John Kitchen played the Consort’s own chamber organ with his customary flair, Byrd proving particularly effective in the opening Prelude and Earl of Salisbury  pavane.

The singers are: Susan Hamilton (soprano), Clare Wilkinson (mezzo-soprano), Ashley Turnell (tenor), Warren Trevelyan-Jones (tenor), Matthew Brook (bass). Stuart Hope will play organ in the remaining concerts.

The Dunedin Consort will visit the following venues:
Dunkeld Cathedral, Dunkeld, Sunday 7 September 2003
St Andrew’s Cathedral, Inverness, Tuesday 9 September
Dornoch Cathedral, Dornoch, Wednesday 10 September
St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Thursday 11 September
Chapel of Garioch, Inverurie, Saturday 13 September

© Carol Main, 2003