Stephen Pettitt: Financial Times
5.6.97 Bath Festival Xenakis Choral Works
...but one concert towered above the rest, and it was given by amateurs. James Wood's New London Chamber Choir, seemingly oblivious of the mountains they set themselves to climb, tackled with poise Ockeghem's wonderfully solemn-dramatic Requiem and, with staggering accomplishment, three choral pieces by Xenakis. If the last, Medea Senecae, demanded more of the singers (all male in this case) with its rhythmically complex tirual chantings, a more dramatic still was made by the harrowing howlings of Nuits, a work for 12 mixed voices about disappeared political prisoners which ends in an all too obviously significant cough of expiry. |