Last Saturday I had the rather remarkable experience of being one of ten young soloists performing as part of The Durham Singers St Matthew Passion in Durham Cathedral. I have sung in the Cathedral on a couple of occasions previously - Mozart's Requiem and Britten's Noyes Fludde - so I had some idea of what a formidable task it is to fill the space safely, particularly when singing under the tower which although is logistically good, it isn't the best place acoustically. But this time it felt like it didn't matter how vast the area was, the emotion was so high that it seemed there was no way it couldn't be filled. This was an occasion which I left feeling like I had grown and changed by being part of it, a feeling which I hope was shared by the audience members. I think that in the end music should always affect us in such a way if we can allow it to, even if it is only by subtle amounts (though this time the effect certainly was very measurable!).
The period orchestra was the absolute highlight for me. It is always so fascinating to hear a sound world other than the one we usually live in these days, even if we can never perceive it in quite the same way as Bach's audience would have. With some wonderful instruments (Theorbo, Oboe da Caccia, Viola da Gamba, etc.) and even more wonderful musicians, the orchestra really added something amazing to the performance.
There are so many other aspects I could talk about which really contributed to such a moving experience but it would easily amount to pages and pages of me rambling about how great everything was when there are already several reviews and blogs out there already which sum up far better than I could the kind of experience it was:
"St Matthew Passion, The Durham Singers and Ensemble, Durham Cathedral" by Gavin Engelbrecht
"St Matthew Passion Concert review" by Amy Charlotte Ryan
"Singing St Matthew" by Jane Shuttleworth
No comments:
Post a Comment