The New Choral Singers, directed by Robert Calleja, recently presented a concert in collaboration with Spanish choir Coro Garoé from Madrid, directed by Raúl Barrio at the Hall of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Birkirkara.
The two choirs shared a concert of mixed sacred and profane music, with the Spanish choir singing during the first half.
The 26-strong Spanish choir presented a selection of three 16th-century sacred works, beginning with Con qué la lavaré from the Canconiero de Uppsala.
Definitely more Spanish were the motets Niño Dios de amor herido by Guerrero and Date de fructu by de Victoria. These are very well-crafted works. They were sung with crisp precision and feeling, although the texture here and at several other points later in the programme was not all that fresh-sounding.
With the 18-strong female complement’s average age tending to be on the high side that ideal freshness was lacking, even bordering on the shrill although this was rather infrequent.
It surfaced most at the beginning of the 15th-century piece by Juan del Enzina, Más vale trocar.
The strongly rhythmic character of the piece was kept up, a piece which alternated between sections in folk style and the amusing irreverent sections set in a rather ‘sacred’ mode.
Very jolly was another work from the Canconiero de Uppsala, Dame albricias, in which there was some use of a tambourine and yes, a glass bottle’s surface being scratched with a sharp object.
The last three works had a more modern ring to them, especially La reina del placer, a beautiful lilting habanera by Montsalvatge. The choir’s diction, which was very clear throughout the concert, enabled one to appreciate the beauty of the lyrics by Federico García Lorca.
Pianist Shirley Helleur accompanied the NCS in some of the pieces. The choir is numerous, balanced and with fresh-voiced female section.
If Reimann’s Regina coeli sounded well, Elgar’s Ave Verum Corpus sounded even better and it is an exquisitely beautiful piece which deserves to be better known. In the unaccompanied motet O magnum mysterium by de Victoria, the sopranos started on an uncharacteristically shaky note but recouped quickly.
The work progressed to its full fruition and climax with all sections sustaining the long concluding note to an impressively fine finish.
There were two Maltese pieces, both to arrangements by Calleja.
The first was the unaccompanied and very entertaining Il-Banda ta’ Indrí by Joe Tanti followed by Charles Camilleri’s Festa, which was just as well-received for its music and amusing lyrics by Joe Friggieri.
Shirey Helleur accompanied the choir in this work and in the traditional Irish song Gypsy Rover (arr. David Nino) and the rousing traditional Sing Hosanna (arr. Geoffrey Nobes).
At the very end the two choirs joined forces, singing the unaccompanied Ave Maria be de Victoria (conducted by Calleja) and Bach’s Jesu joy of man’s desiring conducted by Raúl Barrio and to Helleur’s accompaniment. The blend proved to be a highly satisfactory one.
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