Concert
Prelude to Christmas
Mdina Cathedral
During this season, choirs all over the island sing to their hearts’ and their audiences’ content. The problem is that very often there is not one, but even two if not three Christmas concerts going on at the same time in different places.
The latter was the case last week and the concert I could go to was the one presented by the Amadeus Chamber Choir, directed by Brian Cefai. This choir has presented its Prelude to Christmas concerts for quite some time.
The concert was very well-prepared and consisted of the usual mix of choral pieces, a few not being exactly Christmas carols. There were solos as well as a purely orchestral work, the ever so lovely Sinfonia Pastorale by Emanuel Galea.
Of the 18 pieces performed, worthy of note was the perfectly balanced and cohesive choir in the softer passages of Jenkins’s Benedictus from The Armed Man – a Mass for Peace (arr. Michelle Cachia Castelletti, assistant director of the choir), which led to a really lovely climax in the Hosanna in excelsis. It also included some fine obbligato work by the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra’s leader Nadine Galea. Later during the concert Ms Cachia Castelletti sang in Ennio Morricone’s Nella Fantasia (Gabriel’s Oboe), also to her own arrangement.
It was a pity that in some instances, the male section vocalising along were not always ideally polished.
One of the jolliest and best interpreted carols was John Gardner’s The Holly and the Ivy, and so was the excellently handled, unaccompanied carol In Natali Domini by Fr Albert Borg. Of great charm indeed was Mistletoe and Wine, made famous by Sir Cliff Richard some years ago and which was performed in an arrangement by Mro Cefai.
It is scored for a trio of sopranos, sung here by Arlene Gatt, Roxana Dimech and Ramona Camilleri with chorus. A soloist who sounds pretty promising is soprano Marilyn Buckle who sang Giulio Caccini’s renowned Ave Maria. It reminded me of the same choir’s Christmas concert some 17 or 18 years ago in St Julians parish church when I first heard the future star tenor, Joseph Calleja, singing just one stanza from We Three Kings.
Oriental royalty was absent at Mdina but Silent Night, Adeste Fideles and The First Noël made themselves inevitably heard. Joseph Chircop performed the very sprightly rondeau from Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto and later the concert continued with Ms Cachia Castelletti in her arrangement of Adam’s lovely O Holy Night with Mr Cefai singing with great verve and devotion together with the choir.
He was back directing to conclude the evening with his own arrangement of We Wish You a Merry Christmas.