Perth’s historic St John’s Kirk’s warm spacious acoustic, which keeps sound focused yet lets high voices soar to the rafters, is a wonderfully atmospheric building to hear sacred music. This is where John Knox lit the touch paper sparking the Scottish reformation in May 1559, which made a programme headlined by music from the Sistine Chapel into something deliciously subversive.
Formed in 2014, the ORA Singers are a professional ensemble directed by Suzi Digby, known for ancient and contemporary material and commissioning new work. Making their first visit to the Perth Festival on a gloriously sunny evening, the May sunshine sending a warm glow through the stained glass of the great East window, it was the perfect place to hear a concert taking us on a journey from Allegri’s Miserere to the astonishing setting of the same text by Sir James MacMillan.
The ORA Singers are masters of the use of space to enhance their performance, the main ensemble singing each section of Allegri’s Miserere at stations around the church, the distant quartet unseen. It’s a well-loved work, here sung in a version organised by musicologist Ben Byram-Wagfield using ornamentations from the Sistine Chapel. Digby shaped the music with careful phrasing and tiny dynamic flourishes, balancing the exquisite sound with changing ornamentation which provided momentum as the piece progressed. The quartet sounded otherworldly with secure top Cs providing an immersive experience for what is surely the most popular a cappella work.
In a contrasting pair of Ave Maria settings, Victoria’s Renaissance version had a double choir robustly exchanging phrases between each other over a dense harmonic tapestry. Mark Simpson’s 2016 version was a more pleading, softer piece, with circular phrases over a bass line, Digby opening the music out as the ”Sancta Maria” emerged through murmurings, a soft chromatic ending adding atmosphere. Another pair of pieces, Assumpta est Maria, were splendidly sung, Palestrina’s version with its densely blended phrases suddenly springing into rejoicing dance. David Bednall’s 2022 approach was a joyous carol, sung with a festal swing, lit up by soprano solo and supported by deep melismatic bass lines and crunchy harmonies.
For the Perth Festival, the Singers brought a recently commissioned piece, An End Without End by Scottish composer Electra Pelivoralis, a setting of William Drummond’s words written in 1623 musing on death and the afterlife, his response to a severe famine in Scotland where many perished. A serious, rather sparse score peppered with solo work was sung with conviction, opening out with fresh-sounding harmonies as death passed to age eternal, a soprano solo ending the piece in an astonishing affirmative crescendo.
Alma Redemptoris Mater was given off-stage plainchant treatment, tenors and basses echoing round the walls and pillars. Cecilia McDowall’s 2010 version, a six-part motet sung by singers in a tight circle contrasted Renaissance settings with a contemporary rocking lilt, open fifths and gorgeous soprano solo as dissonances resolved. Timor et Tremor by Lassus and Poulenc’s Tristis est Anima Mea were a showcase of slow molten sound and exquisite harmonies. Two miniatures of Sicut Lilium, Brumel’s version performed with the singers surrounding the audience, John Barber’s 2017 version commissioned by the ORA Singers full of restless dissonances.
To end the ancient and modern journey, a magnificent and moving performance of MacMillan’s Miserere. His choral writing is astonishing and complex, the use of plainchant, unisons, unexpected snaps and momentum through layering of phrases reflects perfectly on the words. Allegri references appear through the modern harmonies, a comforting ghost of the Renaissance down the centuries. Digby sought out nuances of phrasing and articulation as we could not help but be moved by the outburst of pure joy that preceded a calm spiritual end.
