Albert Storace finds a charming ambience and even more charming music during the New Choral Singers’ concert at the Augustinian Priory.
This choral group is going from strength to strength. If evidence were needed of how serious is the commitment of director Robert Calleja and of his singers, it wafted through the corridors of the Augustinian Priory in Rabat, recently.
An irresistible and overwhelmingly positive mix of superb polyphonic choral singing
The concert was an irresistible and overwhelmingly positive mix of superb polyphonic choral singing and a wonderful architectural ambience of 18th-century Maltese baroque at its best.
The New Choral Singers deliver from beginning to end, something which pleasantly surprised connoisseurs who were hearing this choir for the first time.
The purity of sound, beautiful texture and crisp phrasing were strikingly evident in Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus and his contemporary de Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium.
From this rather contemplative mood the singers, in a joyous outburst of praise, sang Giuseppe Pitoni’s Cantate Domino which they were to sing later as an encore. There was then a sleek change in style in Durufflé’s Ubi Caritas, with its token nod to earlier idiom couched in 20th-century terms. This was followed by Bruckners’ famous Locus Iste, which stands out against the following equally famous work.
This was Allegri’s very famous Miserere Mei, Deus in which there is a marvellous variety, with different sections being sung by smaller groups of singers. Then, of course, everybody waits for those six sequences during which a solo treble or soprano voice flies away soaring high up. Even if the feet are firmly rooted to the ground that is the feeling created.
The soprano’s job was entrusted to Suzanne Bezzina, who was deemed capable of doing it, although I hear she is not really trained as a solo singer. Trust in her was justified because she did very well, even if her fourth attempt was not as well-pitched and sustained as the others, especially the second, fifth and last attempts, which left a very good taste.
The concert was also meant to familiarise the public with the splendid priory. Being Augustinian territory, tribute was paid to the great teacher and Augustinian composer, Fr Alberto Borg (affectionately remembered by most as Patri Bert) by the inclusion of two of his works.
Regina Coeli came across as vibrant and vigorous with finely undulating Alleluias and rousing Resurrexits. Cantate Domino Canticum Novum was projected with robustness and well controlled manner. When Robert Calleja introduced his own setting of the Ave Verum, he hoped that the audience would enjoy – and enjoyed by all it was, this interesting composition which bears many more hearings.
The singers then inter-preted Rakhmaninov’s Bogoroditsye Dyevo, Raduisia, an Ave Maria in the original Russian. Closer to our time was the charming God So Loved the World by Bob Chilcott. Closer still was US composer Eric Whitacre with his really fine Lux Aurumque, in which a sometimes complex structure produces beautiful tonal effects and which went down very well.
Concerts by the New Choral Singers typically also help some worthy cause, in this case the restoration work needed on the architectural gem that is the priory. Donations to the cause are welcome on HSBC account no. 58068040001 or BOV account no. 40013793636.