Latest news with #Benedictus
Powys County Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Powys County Times
Welshpool: Guilsfield Singers perform at Methodist Church
Guilsfield Singers celebrated Welsh music in a concert at Welshpool Methodist Church. The performance marked the culmination of a successful period under the leadership of musical director Paul Wardell. The church was packed with an audience for the concert, titled The Gentle Earth of Wales. The first half of the programme included Robat Arwyn's Benedictus and Bugeilio'r Gwenith Gwyn, alongside two pieces written for the choir: Ar lan y Mor and Si Hei Lwli Mabi. Choir member David Thomas read three poems by R.S. Thomas, capturing the essence of farming life and the Welsh countryside. The first half concluded with the rousing Pantyfedwen. Mezzo-soprano Samantha Lewis performed The Water Mill and The Last Rose of Summer. Her expressive use of British Sign Language while singing added to her performance. Baritone Patrick Larley offered a masterful rendition of Handel's Ombra Mai Fu and Where'er You Walk. Guest accompanist Heather Howells accompanied the pieces. The second half began with a performance of Calon Lan by the entire audience. This was followed by Patrick Larley's Gentle Earth of Wales, a bilingual suite featuring folk songs and Welsh poetry. Ms Lewis and Mr Larley continued to captivate the audience with their solo performances, interwoven with the choir's versatile contributions and Nicky Dixon's piano accompaniment. The evening was dedicated to former choir member Jill Turner.
The Guardian
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Missa Solemnis review – glorious and memorable Beethoven
Beethoven believed his Missa Solemnis to be his best work, a labour of love and faith. Conceived on a symphonic scale, the huge demands this great and weightiest of choral masterpieces makes on his voices, treating them as instruments, are a deterrent to any but the finest choruses. Here, under the baton of Andrew Manze, the fearless and very fine BBC National Chorus of Wales – schooled by chorus director Adrian Partington – acquitted themselves admirably. They tackled the high tessitura, notably the sopranos, and the tricky fugal writing with impunity and remarkable stamina. In the context of Llandaff Cathedral, despite their slightly awkward placement in the choir stalls behind Jacob Epstein's Majestas, they maximised the resonance and, in the parts of the mass whose prevailing mood is not at all solemn, were joyful and exultant. Yet it was the exceptional quality of the solo quartet – treated by Beethoven as a micro-chorus, without any individual arias and set against the body of massed voices – that allowed the music's complex structure to emerge clearly. Soprano Carolyn Sampson, mezzo Sophie Harmsen, tenor Ed Lyon and bass Darren Jeffery were particularly well-matched in terms of vivid projection and richness of tone. In music as testing as any key operatic role, they nevertheless blended together, each ceding one to the other, in the manner of a string quartet, with Sampson soaring gloriously high in crowning passages. At the heart of the Sanctus section, the Benedictus is simply extraordinary. In it, these four voices realised a sublime expressive beauty, heightened by Beethoven's interpolation of an ethereal solo violin, weaving in and around the vocal lines, perhaps inspired by the example of Bach and wonderfully played here by leader Lesley Hatfield. Eloquent playing by principals in the BBC National Orchestra of Wales also marked this memorable evening. There may have been the odd quibble about the occasional loss of detail in the overall wealth of sound, but this was a performance whose broadcast on Radio 3 next week should not be missed. On BBC Radio 3 on Maundy Thursday, 17 April
