Paul Stanhope (b. 1969)
Requiem (2021)
Chloe Lankshear (soprano); Richard Butler (tenor)
Sydney Chamber Choir/Sam Allchurch
rec. 2022, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Texts and translations provided
ABC Classic ABCL0119 [45]

Paul Stanhope’s Requiem was commissioned by the Sydney Chamber Choir with funds from the Russell Mills Foundation, an organisation set up in 2014 to support the arts and social justice issues after its founder’s death. Stanhope was Musical Director of the Sydney Chamber Choir from 2006 to 2015; his successor, Richard Gill, engineered the commission for this major work. The Requiem is dedicated to the memory of Russell Mills, but one section is additionally dedicated to Gill, who died in 2018. Three further passages carry individual dedications, one in memory of the composer Richard Wesley-Smith (1945-2019), a second in memory of Tim Marks, a member of the Adelaide Chamber Singers, and a third to Ben Wilson, of St. Peter’s Chorale in Brisbane.

The publisher gives 2021 as the date of Stanhope’s Requiem, though the composer, writing in the booklet, tells us that it was ‘completed before COVID-19 brought a wrecking-ball to many aspects of life in 2020, including a devastating blow to the performing arts.’ A word on that booklet essay now. It is exemplary, as Stanhope, unlike so many composers, writes clearly about his music, identifying those aspects that will interest listeners as well has helping them appreciate the work. He is also extremely eloquent and gets to the heart of his subject without recourse to the kind of technical language that excludes so many listeners. His Requiem, he writes, ‘has a number of themes all beginning with “C”: consolation, connection to country, commemoration and, strangely enough, celebration.’ Stanhope does not by any means set the whole of the Requiem text, preferring, like Britten in the War Requiem, and innumerable composers since then, to intersperse the Latin words with non-liturgical texts in English. His explanation for this decision is interesting: ‘For me, these [Catholic] Mass texts are from a problematic tradition and require new forms of illumination to render them meaningful.’ The work is scored for soprano and tenor soloists and choir, accompanied by an ensemble of barely half a dozen instruments. The variety of colours the composer conjures up from such a restrained group is remarkable, and each member plays with great skill and conviction. They are Nicola Bell (oboe), Matthew Tighe (oboe and cor anglais), David Rowden (clarinet and bass clarinet), Andrew Barnes and Laura Brown (bassoon in alternate movements), Euan Harvey (horn), Emily Granger (harp), and Jess Ciampa (percussion).

Stanhope’s Requiem has nine sections. ‘Introit’ opens with solo voices that ease into the plainchant melody that will be familiar to those who know Maurice Duruflé’s wonderful Requiem, a work that shares the same overall atmosphere as does Stanhope’s. (Many settings, post-Fauré, have followed a similar path, avoiding the more dramatic aspects of the text.) We are already, in this first section, very much aware of the imaginative scoring. The second section, entitled ‘Tree Grave’, is a setting for solo soprano of a poem by the Australian indigenous poet, Oodgeroo Noonuccal. The composer writes: ‘…the music suggests the idea of a slow walking-pace procession with ponds of instrumental writing included for more abstract reflection.’ Faster music begins the following Kyrie, though the staccato treatment of the word in outbursts from the choir, does not last. A poem by Neela Nath Das deals with the healing power of rain. The passage was composed during a devasting drought, but it closes with gentle and encouraging rain noises which, if not electronically generated, are presumably spirited up by the percussion.

Another poem by Noonuccal is featured in the fourth movement, ‘Song’. It deals with the inevitability that love will, one day, lead to grief. If we are willing to accept the one, the poet seems to be saying, we should also appreciate the other. The solo tenor part exploits the extremes of the voice, but with great restraint and subtlety. The Sanctus follows, ‘a fast-tempo, exuberant hymn of praise’ whose nature and scoring immediately recalls Stravinsky. Indeed, memories of singing that composer’s Mass under Richard Gill is cited as behind the inspiration for the music, though that work’s austerity is almost totally absent. The hosannas, with tom-tom ricochets, are spectacular. The Agnus Dei incorporates a poem attributed to Mary Elizabeth Fry entitled ‘Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep’. The poet is not there, she did not die; instead: ‘I am a thousand winds that blow/I am the soft stars that shine at night.’ If I, speaking personally, am unable to take this argument on board it is, nonetheless, touchingly expressed, and the way in which the composer has tied the duetting soloists into the choral texture – the accompaniment is silent here – is masterly. There is also a second, less striking, point of similarity between Stanhope’s and Britten’s great masterpiece, in that both composers decide to employ the phrase ‘Grant us peace’, words that do not appear in the Requiem text.

A long, unaccompanied, ‘sobbing’ solo for the horn opens the seventh movement, ‘Dawn Wail for the Dead’. The day begins with a communal cry of mourning, a practice that allows for a kind of healing as the day progresses. Yet the horn solo returns at the end. The composer, significantly, writes that this ‘perhaps represents unreconciled elements in Australia between non-indigenous people and the original, continuing owners of this land.’ The following Lux aeterna begins with an unusually dissonant treatment of the word ‘light’, and the music becomes ecstatic when the text exhorts the saints to grant eternal light. The ending is peaceful if not totally resolved. The plainchant melody is given near-complete in the final movement, In paradisum. ‘Darting, scalic woodwind figures flutter around’, an exquisite effect that provides the link between the liturgical text and the setting of Emily Dickinson’s poem, ‘Hope is the Thing with Feathers’. The storm which Dickinson’s bird must confront is portrayed in music of great restraint, and the appearance of the angelic choir, always a crucial moment in a Requiem setting, is most movingly handled. The final word of the work, ‘Requiem’, is not sung by the choir, but whispered, where a sudden, harsh preceding discord followed by a brush of cymbals is enough to render what might have been a hackneyed gesture into something meaningful and touching.

The performance of this fine work is exemplary. Chloe Lankshear’s bright, clear voice is just right for this music. The higher notes hold no fear for her, and her simple, unaffected singing demonstrates profound sympathy with the text. Richard Butler is just as fine, equally suited to the work’s demands. Neither singer has much opportunity – or reason – for forceful singing, but there is much duet work that comes over to this listener as a fine symbol of the inclusion that seems to be part of the reasoning behind the work. The singing of the choir is very distinguished. 27 singers are named in the booklet, their voices fresh and focussed, and with all the tuning and agility required.

A characteristic of the recording is that the instrumental ensemble is given equal prominence to the singers. This is most satisfying: we appreciate all the more the superb quality of the playing. There is a little ambient noise noticeable in quieter passages, but this only emphasises the feeling that a group of musicians have come together in one room with a single and worthwhile aim. They have pulled it off marvellously, the strength of feeling and commitment no doubt inspired, at least in part, by the Sydney Chamber Choir’s current musical director, Sam Allchurch.

William Hedley

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