Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)
Jesus Christ the apple tree
Christmas Oratorio
The Pear Tree Carol
Welcome, all wonders in one sight!
Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano); Nick Pritchard (tenor); Neal Davies (bass)
Choir of Merton College, Oxford
Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia/Benjamin Nicholas
rec. 2023, Merton College Chapel, Oxford, UK
All sung texts provided
Delphian DCD34321 [72]
For those still to encounter the music of Bob Chilcott, a living composer, it might be helpful to point out that if you respond well to the music of John Rutter you will find nothing to offend you in Chilcott’s. My own first contact was many years ago when the children’s choir of my local town here in Southwest France performed his Can you hear me?, a song that evokes the world from the point of view of a deaf child. With piano accompaniment, in two parts and with much of it in unison, it is a beautiful creation from a purely musical point of view. If you seek it out – there are many performances on YouTube – be warned that the choir uses sign language: when they begin to sign the visual and aural effect is almost unbearably moving. Since then I have had several encounters with Chilcott’s works, including his Requiem which I have been fortunate to conduct in concert. Here we have a programme made up of a large-scale work – the Christmas Oratorio – alongside three shorter pieces.
The Christmas Oratorio comprises congregational hymns interspersed by narratives sung by an ‘Evangelist’ in the same way as in Bach’s Passions. In addition, there are settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, and the work is completed by a number of shorter choral pieces on diverse texts. My colleague John Quinn has provided an expert account of the work, its nature and its form. Rather than cover the same ground I will take a different tack by exploring a number of features that strike me particularly.
Let me begin by observing how fearless Chilcott is when following in the footsteps of earlier composers. The first piece in the programme, for instance, preceding the oratorio, is Jesus Christ the apple tree, unaccompanied and in five parts but structured in a way that allows the performers considerable freedom as to how to present it. Here it is sung by upper voices, and the use of spare textures and the same melody for each verse will inescapably recall for many Elizabeth Poston’s sublime and celebrated setting of the same words. Within the oratorio, we find ‘A Boy was born’. One of the earliest works to reveal the young Benjamin Britten’s genius was his unaccompanied choral work with the same title, completed when he was only 19 (though revised later). The ‘Alleluias’ in Britten are understated, appropriately since we are at the beginning of an extended work. Chilcott makes much more of these, and his setting overall has a contented sweetness largely absent in the Britten. The Magnificat, too, has been set to music by a multitude of composers. In Chilcott’s setting the mezzo-soprano soloist sings the text in English over a plainchant version in Latin intoned by the choir. He eschews for the most part any feeling of ecstatic wonder and joyful excitement that many composers have brought to settings of this text, preferring tranquil pensiveness. This is a perfectly valid view, and the setting is highly effective. Perhaps the most daring example of what I mean occurs at the words ‘And there were shepherds … abiding in the field’. This leads into a multi-layered setting of the words ‘Glory to God’, highly effective and dramatically successful in the context of the narrative. We need not attempt anything so crass as a direct comparison, but we can still appreciate Handel’s miraculous, contrapuntal ‘good will toward men’ in Messiah.
I turn now to the hymns. My own regular church-going days are behind me now, but well do I remember the ‘encircling gloom’ of many of the hymns I sang as a young and otherwise enthusiastic communicant. Ralph Vaughan Williams famously fulminated against the poor musical quality of many of these hymns, and was instrumental in a campaign of replacement and renewal. (Heaven knows what he would think about what passes for congregational singing in many parishes today!) In his Christmas Oratorio, Bob Chilcott includes hymns in which the audience is invited to participate, rather as they were in Britten’s Noye’s Fludde and Saint Nicolas, though in the absence of an audience it is the choir that does the honours on this recording. Some of these already have perfectly acceptable tunes: one can really let rip singing ‘Moscow’ (‘Thou whose almighty word’) for example. But Chilcott has composed new tunes, and given his melodic gift we should not be surprised to find that they are splendid and easy to pick up, and that in spite of the occasional change of key or the odd descant that could startle the unwary! These tunes would certainly enliven any church service, and would also underline hymn-singing’s role as active prayer.
The only aspect of John’s review with which I find myself rather at odds is his observation that the work is well constructed. The hymns frame the work and are placed at intervals throughout. The story is narrated by the Evangelist, his interventions given an attractive, folk-like quality by their harp accompaniment, with a flute frequently added, especially when anything to do with angels is mentioned. But I find his passages sometimes too long, his arrival not always welcome. Then the work’s 18 sections are separated by sizeable pauses, giving the work a rather patchwork feel. This is even the case in the Evanglist’s presentation of Simeon, which ought surely to lead directly into the Nunc dimittis. And interestingly, Stephen Pritchard, in an excellent booklet note, refers to Chilcott’s lovely Herrick setting, ‘A Carol to the King’, as ‘a motet that, like others in this piece, will surely enjoy a life of its own, independent of the oratorio, as choirs seek attractive new Christmas repertoire.’ The oratorio presents us with a series of individual delights, each one delicious in itself, but I find the flow of the whole work less than fully convincing and prefer to take these delicacies a few at a time rather than all at once.
The principal soloists on this disc are those who gave the work’s first performance in Gloucester Cathedral in August 2019. Admirers of Sarah Connolly and Neal Davies will not be disappointed, and Nick Pritchard’s assumption of the difficult role of the Evangelist is very engaging and deserves special praise. Tim Burton, singing the role of Gabriel, and Ciara Williams as the angel, are members of the choir and are very fine indeed. Some lovely flute playing from Chloe Vincent and from harpist Olivia Jageurs complements the excellent playing of the small ensemble, discreet but highly effective brass and timpani, plus the ubiquitous organ, with two players named, Owen Chan and François Cloete.
Two more short pieces follow the oratorio. The Pear Tree Carol, to words by Charles Bennett, a previous Chilcott collaborator, makes effective use of echo-like effects and richly scored diatonic dissonances. This is followed by the ebullient Welcome, all wonders in one sight!, featuring the words ‘Great little one, whose all-embracing birth/Lifts earth to heaven.’ This piece really swings, the organ part massive in the opening and closing sections, then interweaving with the choir’s challenging rhythmic patterns in the contrasted middle passage. It makes for a lively curtain-down on a highly enjoyable seasonal offering.
William Hedley
Previous review: John Quinn (November 2023)
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