Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 28 November 2009

THE INVERNESS Choral is in good health off the stage these days, and is in commensurately good form on it. Under the able direction of conductor Gordon Tocher, they tackled a demanding programme of Brahms and Bruckner that did not draw quite the full house pulled in by a warhorse like their sell-out Messiah this time last year, but provided a very satisfying concert.

Inverness Choral Society

Bruckner’s Motets feel like miniatures when held against his huge symphonies, but they are exquisitely constructed miniatures. Their selection of three opened with Locus Iste, with its the pleasing clarity of 4-part harmony, before tackling the more expansive 7-part vocal texture of Ave Maria.

The singer were less precisely together at all times in this one, but that is nit-picking. The Latin text was generally well sung, as was the concluding Ecce Sacerdos Magnus, with its addition of keyboard and – more surprising, but surprisingly effective – three trombones.

The members of the orchestra then filed onto the decidedly crowded stage, leaving the evening’s two soloists, soprano Wilma MacDougall and baritone Alan Watt, to squeeze into position dangerously close to the lip of the orchestra pit (the Choral prefer to have the musicians on stage rather than consigned to aforesaid pit, but it does make for a tight fit).

The soloists were engaged primarily for Brahms’ A German Requiem, but with a limited amount to do in that work, the programme allowed them a slot prior to the interval, filled with two duets from Mozart’s The Magic Flute (sung in English), and a solo each from The Pirates of Penzance, in which MacDougall sang ‘Poor wand’ring one’ and Watt ‘I am the very model of a modern Major-General’ to round out a brief but enjoyable first half.

That brought us to the main fare of the evening, A German Requiem. It is a work that the Choral have performed in the past (most recently in 1997), but not in the original German. Gordon Tocher was keen that they take on that challenge, rightly seeing the language – taken from Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible – as central to Brahms’ vision for the work.

The singers rose to the challenge of their third language of the evening, and if they did not sing it in truly idiomatic fashion, they coped well with the unaccustomed demands. The accompanying musicians – the Inverness Choral Sinfonia, led by Robin Calvert and assembled by Donald Goskirk – is an element of the Choral’s performances that has grown notably stronger in the current decade, and if their comparatively modest numbers inevitably sounded a little thin at times, they did a fine job.

The Choral Society will round out their year with their annual Carolthon at the Eastgate Centre in Inverness on 19 December. For the first time this year, they will include an hour-long Lunchtime Concert at the Town House (12.30pm) in between the morning and afternoon sessions at Eastgate, with proceeds from all the day’s activities going to the Choral and their partner charity, Children 1st.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2009

Links

• Inverness Choral Society