Stanford -
Stabat Mater & Symphony No. 3 (IRISH)
Saturday 24th March 2007
Review: York Music Society
Choir & Orchestra; York Minster
by Martin Dreyer
Congratulations
are in order. Apart from his church music, the works of Charles Stanford
(1852-1924) are rarely heard in live performance.
Saturday
evening's all-Stanford programme may have changed a few minds.
The
plaudits must go primarily to
Philip Moore, conductor of the York Musical Society forces, for scheduling Stanford's Third
Symphony ("Irish") and his Stabat Mater.
The
1887 symphony made international waves - lionised in
Hamburg
and
Berlin
, it was on the Concertgebouw Orchestra's opening programme, and Mahler
conducted it twice in
New York
. In
England
? After the First World War, it was ignored for 70 years.
On
a mere two rehearsals, the orchestra - inexcusably unnamed in the programme -
worked wonders.
Moore
himself has rarely been so animated on the podium.
The
opening Allegro meandered pleasingly, without awakening much expectation. But
the strings danced neatly above the Scherzo's martial undercurrents.
Harp
and wind arabesques conspired to paint an atmospheric, Celtic landscape in the
slow movement, before brass chorales, based on Irish folk-songs, took eventual
control of the stirring finale.
The
Stabat Mater, premiered in
Leeds
exactly a century ago, proved equally rousing.
Symphonic
in scale and far from sentimental, it found the York Musical Society chorus in
excellent voice.
Its
two orchestral sections were shot through with drama, while Lorna Anderson
floated her soprano effortlessly above the well-balanced solo quartet.
A
fiery, not to say thrilling, evening was effectively summarised by the "Inflammatus"
stanza near the close. More Stanford, please.
Source:
www.thisisyork.co.uk
Reprinted by kind permission of the York
& County Press
|
