I am writing this on Christmas Eve while the feeling of Christmas is at its peak. A most enjoyable Christmas Concert by the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra under Michael Laus’s baton with the participation of tenor Bernard Busuttil and the New Choral Singers was held at St Publius Church Floriana on Wednesday 22^nd December.

I had never been to St Publius Church apart from attending a couple of family funerals as the Zammit Tabonas are originally a Floriana family and a few cousins still live there. Mentally I had dismissed it as a post war reconstruction and I still find the colonnaded portico stylistically incongruous, however, maybe because it was decked out in warm red damask and Christmas kitsch or maybe because I had time to look at it properly, proportionally it is a smaller version of Mdina Cathedral and St Helena’s Basilica. The ceiling is covered from end to end with murals by Emvin Cremona which despite their post-modernity does not look at all incongruous, set as they are in traditional baroque architraves. What was most impressive however was that the church was packed solid. There is nothing on earth that warms up the Maltese psyche than a traditional baroque church in full festive glory. The atmosphere was splendiferous.

There was nothing terribly innovative about the programme itself but then what is so innovative about a 2000 year old feast. Christmas is a time to rake up emotions and nothing epitomised that more than Leroy Anderson’s A Christmas Festival; a beautifully if not sumptuously scored medley of all the carols we know and love. As the piece raced to a rumbustuous finale, those bittersweet feelings prompted by memories of loved ones who are sadly not with us any longer brought a furtive tear to my eye and a lump to my throat.

Christmas has inspired the most celebrated composers to create those special aural backgrounds that we find immediately recognisable. The Handel pastoral symphony from The Messiah is such a one. I cannot listen to this without visualising the tranquillity of that cold December night and the shepherds lying in fields surrounded by woolly baa-baa lambs being amazed at the voices of angels accompanied by arpeggios on a million harps and the fanfare of trumpets under a Milky Way ablaze with stars. This sinfonia puts one in the mood for magic, for to a bemused child there is very little difference between angels and fairies and Christmas is in fact a magical period in children’s lives which is albeit too short as the realities of living that eradicate fantasy set in earlier and earlier with each generation.

I am not sure whether I liked the arrangement of Corelli’s Christmas Concerto for choir. I find the original so sublime and so unmistakably Christmassy. What I am sure of was that the narration by tenor Bernard Busuttil was unintelligible most of the time and as far as the choir was concerned the very high and most unvocal transcription of the text was very taxing to listen to let alone follow. This was certainly a piece that should have been left well alone and possibly be played in its original orchestral form half way through the rest of the vocal programme; Yon’s Gesu Bambino, Adam’s utterly lovely O Holy Night, Kirkpatrick’s Fuq Tiben f’Maxtura which is of course Away in a Manger and a delightful and polished arrangement of Ninni la Tibkix Izjed by Michael Laus and choirmaster Robert Calleja.

The other two orchestral pieces were Hely Hutchinson’s A Carol Symphony which I found superficial as the two movements played are merely the unaltered melodic lines of Adeste Fidelis and The First Noel woven into a wannabe symphonic texture without a hint of variation, innovation or syncopation. The other orchestral piece of course put all others in the shade. Bach’s glorious D Minor Toccata and Fugue, transcribed and certainly not arranged, by the great Leopold Stokowski into an amazingly dramatic orchestral piece that while pulling out all the stops where the colour and contrast made possible by a modern orchestra is concerned, still retains that Bachian indestructibility. I once read that Bach would sound flawlessly splendid however and on whatever his music is played. To me Bach speaks with the mouth of God as no other composer before or since can. The well-known and well loved Toccata and Fugue is a case in point. Its opening bars are as familiar as those hammerblows that distinguish Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony or those magnificent fanfares that start off Charpentier’s Te Deum. They are immortally iconic.

There was a good rapport between the orchestra and the choir both trained under musicians who are known for their meticulousness and attention to detail. This was indeed a most enjoyable and successful concert and the fact that it was taken ‘out’ of the capital, admittedly not too far but enough to make a point, proves how popular concerts, well promoted, will charm and enrapture people who otherwise would never dream of getting past the portals of the Manoel Theatre or any other Valletta based auditorium. I am a fervent believer that the Summer festival should be taken out of the capital into our towns and villages and in the still summer nights, the ones planned between one festa and another, regale the populace with the Greatest Hits; Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Beethoven’s Fifth, Vivaldi’s Quattro Stagioni and all those compositions which since their creation have instantaneously captivated even the tone deaf to fervent enthusiasm.