A concert given by the BBC Singers was the latest event at Kings Place in its year-long celebration of Scottish culture, musical and spoken word, that is “Scotland Unwrapped”. And what a range of contemporary and traditional riches it is proving to be. Under the direction of Owain Park, the BBC Singers brought together a miscellany of Scottish and Spanish musical treasures linked by a shared fascination with the interweaving of voices, the whole crowned by Dame Judith Weir’s extraordinary Missa del Cid. Renaissance Spain was represented by devotional works from two of its greatest polyphonic masters, Tomás Luis de Victoria’s O quam gloriosum and Francisco Guerrero’s Regina caeli.
If Park’s unfussy direction didn’t entirely convey the vigour of the saint’s rejoicing in the Victoria, the magnificence of the queen of heaven was splendidly captured in the flowing counterpoint of Guerrero’s motet, its interlocking lines outlined with wonderful clarity. Polyphony from an earlier period introduced the 12th-century French musician Pérotin and one of the first examples of a work in four parts. Possibly written for the Feast of the Circumcision, his Notum fecit from Viderunt omnes was given an idiomatic rendition by tenors and basses, six voices that fully realised the work’s swinging rhythms and melodic embellishments, each syllable of the title musically decorated like letters from an illuminated manuscript.
No less striking were performances of two works by Scottish composers Sir James MacMillan and Electra Perivolaris. Influenced by the landscape and traditions of the Western Isles, her expanding portfolio of works includes If This Island and sets words by Hebridean writer Donald S Murray. Its rich harmonic palette is built on the merging of complex vocal lines mirroring the intricacies of weaving tweed. Judging from its skilful invention, we shall be hearing much more from this gifted composer. This performance did her proud. Equally polished was MacMillan’s atmospheric Miserere (Psalm 51), Park shaping an exquisite account that showcased the composer’s reworking of Gregorian chant and textures that echo the polychoral masters of the Baroque, most obviously Allegri. Blend and intonation were impeccable and the final cadence was a moment of pure catharsis.
But the evening was as much a tribute to Judith Weir (70 this year) and each half closed with choral works from different periods of her career. The Song Sung True (2013) is a memorial for a member of the London Lawyers’ Chorus. Drawing variously on poems by Glasgow-born Alan Spence, Shakespeare and Fletcher and Edward Lear, each of the four songs caught the ear for their characteristic tunefulness and extrovert manner. Direct, spirited and succinct, these pieces are amongst her most entertaining choral works.
Weir built her reputation on works for the stage, yet her theatrical instincts are clearly audible in her Missa del Cid of 1988, not a mass in the conventional sense, more a quirky, partially narrated retelling of the swashbuckling warrior hero Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, who defeats Moorish forces in medieval Spain. Conceived for ten solo voices and narrator, this non-liturgical mass (an opera in all but name) explores the contradictions between religion and warfare. Valencia’s besieged Moors (Kyrie), the Cid’s posturing (Gloria) and prayers for his safety (Credo) were all given ardent evocations. Just as vivid was the appearance of the Angel Gabriel (Sanctus), a battle scene (Benedictus) and the resulting desolation (Agnus Dei). Whether pious or pugnacious, the BBC Singers strode through this challenging score, and were wonderfully responsive to its colourful storytelling. Weir’s setting of George Herbert’s Vertue was the warmly received encore.
