News from WPC

On entering Winchester Cathedral, one has to stop for a moment and look up in awe at the majesty of this sublime building. On a rainy evening in darkest January, a packed Cathedral was treated to an equally magnificent structure – Bach’s Mass in B Minor – performed by a veritable army of Winchester’s choral battalions – Winchester Philharmonic Choir, Winchester College Choral Society, the Cathedral Chamber Choir, Winchester College Chapel Choir and Quiristers. As one collective, all 200 singers combined with the Oxford Bach Soloists and five impressive vocal soloists under the commanding control of director Sarah Baldock.

As the great Bach scholar Albert Schweitzer observes in his epic study of Bach, solo and choral movements of the B minor Mass ‘co-exist side by side’ and it was through these inbuilt contrasts that both performers and audience were capable of sustaining the powers of concentration in order to take in two intense hours of music ranging from intimate arias and duets through to profound choral movements. This chorus-solo-chorus pattern is at its clearest at the opening: Kyrie eleison was gut-wrenchingly delivered by the large choir – a supplicatory cry to Heaven – followed by the contrastingly sunny Christe eleison, a soprano duet where soloists Sofia Kirwan-Baez and Charlotte Bowden delighted the ear. Then, before one could collect oneself, the choral gravitas of the concluding Kyrie enveloped us. With this alternation the Gloria continues, inside which Bach introduces the other three soloists: the tenor (Sebastian Hill) is first heard in duet with soprano – a beautifully balanced pairing. Hugh Cutting’s lustrous countertenor voice ideally suited the intensity required in Qui sedes and Morgan Pearse (bass) delivered the low-set Quoniam with panache.

How impactful it is that three Baroque trumpets and two kettle drums wait for twenty minutes before unleashing themselves at the start of the Gloria! Indeed, one of the strengths of this evening’s performance was the stylishness of the instrumental playing from the Oxford Bach Soloists – all on their authentic instruments. Playing at Baroque pitch (a semitone lower than modern pitch) seemed to help every aspect of the performance, the most important knock-on effect being added warmth to the choral sound. George Clifford (violin) in Laudamus te, Frances Norbury (oboe d’amore) in Qui sedes, and Richard Bayliss (corno di caccia) combining with two nimble bassoons in the Quoniam, proffered well-crafted obbligato solos; in Benedictus, the dialogue between tenor soloist Sebastian Hill and Yu-Wei Hu (on flute – wooden of course!) was exceptional, each being allowed individual autonomy to control the tempi of their phrases, thanks to a hand-off approach from director Sarah Baldock. One of the hallmarks of a fine director is being able to do the minimum to achieve the maximum. Through her compact, understated approach, Baldock guided the performance from one mood to another so successfully, the golden moment being the deceleration into the chromatic Adagio at ‘et expecto mortuorum’ in the final movement of the Credo – spine-tingling! Another important characteristic of a choir trainer is effective preparation of singers before the big day, which Baldock had obviously done with the chorus bass section: at the fiendishly difficult ‘et iterum venturus est’ the basses handled the gazelle-like phrases with accuracy and athleticism!

It is common practice these days to share some of the choral spoils with the solo quintet, and there was no more effective section to do this than directly after the interval in Credo in unum Deum. While the main choir had some well-deserved respite, they still deserve much praise for carrying off complex choral writing with enviable stamina. The serried ranks were at their most splendid at the start of the Sanctus. What an experience for the choir which spanned from under-10s to over-80s! I cannot think of any other activity that includes such an age range – a tradition of generational collaboration that stretches back into past centuries. 

At the end of the Mass – Dona nobis pacem (‘Give us peace’) – it felt apt that Bach had chosen to revisit the musical material of an earlier chorus Gratias agimus tibi (‘we give You thanks’). In the Cathedral there was a palpable sense of thankfulness. In one of those quiet pauses between movements, as I sat there in the nave looking up at the shadowy arches of Winchester Cathedral, I suddenly became aware of the uniqueness of the moment – hundreds of people, in reverential silence, in a God-inspired building containing this God-inspired music. On a dark and rainy evening, it really felt like the best place to be.