IN DULCI JUBILO
Red Dot Baroque
Chamber @ The Arts House
Saturday (17 December 2022)
CHRISTMAS WITH ROS
Resonance of Singapore
Esplanade Recital Studio
Tuesday (20 December 2022)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 December 2022 with the title "Charming chorals for Christmas".
It takes an Ebenezer Scrooge to begrudge the idea of Christmas concerts, events with light festive music where both musicians and audience may be excused for letting down their collective hair to enjoy the moment. There are other occasions for serious reflection during times of pestilence and war, but such concerts make people forget their troubles, albeit for a while.
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| Photo: Yong Junyi |
Red Dot Baroque is Singapore’s premier outfit for performing chamber music on period instruments. Its Christmas concert was totally refreshing by programming fare mostly unfamiliar to local audiences. Some people might, however, know the Coventry Carol which opened as a processional, sung by soprano Teng Xiang Ting accompanied by host Rachel Ho on recorder.
The ensemble of nine players and two singers then performed a sequence of short suites representing Christmas traditions in different European countries. The sequence started with Italy, Germany and France before closing with England. Which group could have offered Dietrich Buxtehude’s Trio Sonata in G major, performed on two violins (by Brenda Koh and Placida Ho), viola da gamba (Mervyn Lee), theorbo (Christopher Clarke) and organ (Gerald Lim), with such missionary zeal? Or Michel Corrette’s Sinfonia No.1, which brought together French carols as light entertainment?
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| Photo: Yong Junyi |
If there were a single work to sum up the evening’s sublime quality, that would be Heinrich Schutz’s Hodie Christus Natus Es (Today Christ Is Born) where the beauty of two voices, Teng and tenor David Charles Tay’s, became intertwined as one, accompanied by just the organ. The titular In Dulci Jubilo by Michael Praetorius received an equally lovely reading, while Tay’s leading of the audience singalong in Wassail, Wassail, All Over The Town got the audience enthusiastically involved.
Resonance of Singapore (ROS), led by award-winning choral conductor Toh Ban Sheng, is an a cappella choir formed entirely of professional singers. Its Christmas concert was an equally sparkling affair, opening with the famous Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, in a medley arranged by Toh and Bob Chilcott (once of the King’s Singers). Its eight singers filled the suitably reverberant Esplanade Recital Studio with a cathedral of rich sonority totally befitting the group’s name.
John Rutter’s saccharine What Sweeter Music? saw guest countertenor Chan Wei En and pianist Matthew Mak join in the festivities. Chan, fresh out of last weekend’s Die Fledermaus, also delighted in Mozart’s most famous motet Exsultate, Jubilate, revelling in its familiar rounds of Alleluias.
In common with Red Dot Baroque’s concert was In Dulci Jubilo, now sounding fuller with more voices involved in R.L.Pearsall’s arrangement. Just as beautiful was Gustav Holst’s In The Bleak Midwinter which sounded anything but bleak with soprano Susanna Pua’s solo contribution. The longest and most serious work was Francis Poulenc’s Quatre Motets pour le temps de Noel (Four Christmas Motets), sung in Latin, rendered sensitively and reverentially.
Eleven-year-old Riyan Ballesteros-Pattanayak, a ROS young artist, was given the spotlight in the gorgeous carol Adolphe Adam’s O Holy Night. Discreetly accompanied by soprano Pua and pianist Mak, he sang with a purity of tone and no little confidence.
The latter segment of the concert showcased popular seasonal favourites such as The Christmas Song (popularised by Mel Torme), Leontovich’s Carol of the Bells (based on a Ukrainian hymn) and a most animated version of The Twelve Days Of Christmas possible, sung with a panoply of slick actions. The general singalong, with no less than five carols, was surprisingly rousing given the usual reticence of local audiences. Perhaps they had been sufficiently roused by ROS to go one better.
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