An Evening of Russian Music
In they clattered — handbags or programmes in one hand, cushions from home in the other. Vivace
Chorus’s supporters are clearly well-practiced in their concert going rituals at Guildford Cathedral.
These folks have nouse. Had the programme nailed me to the chair I might have felt a hair shirt
moment coming on — the cathedral’s chairs are designed for the truly devout — but as it was, this
programme of Russian music had plenty to keep feet tapping and pins and needles at bay.
And what a following; the place was packed. The Russian programme presented by this 120-strong
chorus proved a popular choice. Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances launched the first half, followed by
the rarely heard choral version of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Some perfectly placed consonants
in the /812 proved this to be a polished performance. The thunderous gunfire was particularly
effective in the battlefield cathedral acoustic; unfortunately the string writing in the Borodin had not
fared quite so well in that cavernous space, coming across as muddied, with a slight delay at times
between chorus and orchestra.
It was Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible where the spotlight came to rest in the second half. Prokofiev’s
Ivan, banned by Soviet authorities due to its complex characterisation of the Russian hero, provided
some intense moments for the two soloists from the opera course at the Royal Academy of Music
and for the chorus.
A deeply moving solo by the young, poised mezzo-soprano Natalia Brzezinska, ‘Ocean Sea,
Russian Sea’, revealed a treat of a voice with chestnut tones. She was admirably backed by the
murmuring chorus. We had the pleasure of hearing her again in a second solo, ‘The Song of the
Beaver’ in which Brzezinska employed darker tones to emphasise the sinister edge to this
seemingly innocent hunting story.
Vivace are capable of both a great delicacy of colour and a great show of strength. Adjectives to
describe the wordless chorus of benediction in ‘Ivan’s Sickness’, might be, say, ‘sweet’, ‘sublime’,
‘dulcet’, but I'm going to go with ‘mellifluous’.
The baritone’s drinking song in ‘The Banquet’ gave us an opportunity at the last to hear the
surprisingly big baritone voice of Lithuanian Vytautas Vepstas, backed by the men’s humming
chorus, who were a little too tentative at first, but with conductor Jeremy Backhouse’s firm lead,
soon found the right level to project over the orchestra.
“The Storming of Kazan’ afforded another memorable moment in which male voices are answered
by female, marred very slightly by Vivace’s only real problem — a lack of men. There are about
double the number of women to men, and although the men, tenors in particular, clearly do sterling
work, at times the imbalance showed.
This is a chorus well worth hearing. Better still, if you’re a tenor or a baritone, why not join?
What’s the matter with all you chaps out there? Don’t you like having fun? The chorus rehearses on
Monday evenings in central Guildford — what better way to start the week than with a good sing.
Email: membership@ VivaceChorus.org
This time next year Vivace Chorus is singing in Mahler’s Symphony No.8 at the Royal Albert Hall.
This is a tour-de-force of the orchestral world, with its huge orchestra, eight soloists, two large
choruses and a children’s choir. Put 15 May 2011 in your diaries as a date not to be missed.
Rachel Musgrove