‘Surge amica mea’ and ‘Surgam et circuibo civitatem’ from Song of Songs (Palestrina)
Parce mihi, Domine (Palestrina)
Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence (Poulenc)
Peccantem me quotidie (Palestrina)
‘Kyrie’, ‘Gloria’ and ‘Credo’ from Missa L’Homme Arme (Palestrina)
Un Soir de neige (Poulenc)
Salve Regina (Palestrina)
‘Agnus Dei’ from Mass in G (Poulenc)
The Sixteen
Harry Christophers (Conductor)
Instead of the usual full review, one of the blog contributors made a commentary on The Sixteen's recent revisit to Hong Kong:
Even during the opening piece, Poulenc's 'Salve Regina', one could immediately sense the sublime phrasing, excellent diction and although there were 18 singers (6S, 1A, 3CT, 4T, 4B) the balance was pretty much spot-on.
Harry Christopher's style was extremely expressive (I have not seen him conducting before), very expansive, clear with gliding and directional arms/hands. Actually I felt that the music stand got in his way rather a lot, as he likes to move around with the style of the music. One might describe his style as 'jaunty'.
All the Palestrina items were sung with precision though I felt that the singers were not totally consumed by the emotion of the music - indeed they stood fairly still and at times came across as slightly functional. I prefer a much more lilting and emotional way of performing Palestrina, especially with the accidentals and tensions between parts.
The Poulenc motets, all of which I had sung with local choral groups before, are not easy but of course The Sixteen delivered them well. Some of the soprano entries did not sound as well placed as they might have been, particularly the higher register. Their tone could have been warmer at times in the second half with Palestrina.
The second encore was a Chinese song which went down well with the audience.
Overall, an excellent performance ("depressingly good") which highlighted the levels of near perfection that singers and conductor can achieve when totally at one with each other. But it did not quite deliver me to the heights of 'spine-tingling' which I was expecting!
Harry Christopher's style was extremely expressive (I have not seen him conducting before), very expansive, clear with gliding and directional arms/hands. Actually I felt that the music stand got in his way rather a lot, as he likes to move around with the style of the music. One might describe his style as 'jaunty'.
All the Palestrina items were sung with precision though I felt that the singers were not totally consumed by the emotion of the music - indeed they stood fairly still and at times came across as slightly functional. I prefer a much more lilting and emotional way of performing Palestrina, especially with the accidentals and tensions between parts.
The Poulenc motets, all of which I had sung with local choral groups before, are not easy but of course The Sixteen delivered them well. Some of the soprano entries did not sound as well placed as they might have been, particularly the higher register. Their tone could have been warmer at times in the second half with Palestrina.
The second encore was a Chinese song which went down well with the audience.
Overall, an excellent performance ("depressingly good") which highlighted the levels of near perfection that singers and conductor can achieve when totally at one with each other. But it did not quite deliver me to the heights of 'spine-tingling' which I was expecting!
(Photo credit: YouTube)
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