A Christmas Celebration, Southwell Music Festival 2023, Southwell Minster, 18 December 2023. 5*****: William Ruff.

Southwell

A Christmas Celebration

Southwell Music Festival 2023

Southwell Minster

18 December 2023

5*****: William Ruff

“Music and words that probe deeply into the Christmas spirit.”

The annual Southwell Christmas Celebration is like the Minster itself, its roots deep in the past but also totally engaged with the here and now. Its programme of music and poetry seems to grow from the warm glow of its mighty pillars, the ancient church far from being just a concert venue but rather a space whose air and light breathe meaning into words and music.

The concert began in near-darkness with a Sarum chant from the 12th century, the men of the Festival Voices at the west end of the Minster answered by the women from the east. And the ages melted away. The words were in Latin and few would have understood what they meant – but that didn’t matter at all. Here was an altogether different kind of meaning, the sort that transcends words, that lifts and inspires. The effect of two groups of singers moving together was immersive: the audience held in their spell and carried beyond time.

The singers are all members of the world’s top chamber choirs, all at the summit of their art, as impressive in ensemble as they are individually. Together they become the ideally responsive musical instrument, perfectly tuned, rhythmically alert and capable of thrillingly sudden contrasts, as exultation is transformed into mystery. And there are few choral conductors who understand the human voice with more insight than Marcus Farnsworth, Festival Director and a musician whose ear is attuned to the subtlest of nuances.

The music spanned the centuries, from the ancient to the very modern. It takes courage and trust to present an audience with so much that is unfamiliar, but the risk was amply rewarded by the thrill of the new and the atmosphere of intense concentration it creates. There was no easy comfort-zone cruising but rather a sense of involvement in urgent musical story-telling, such as the spiky Sir Christémas by William Mathias, the virtuosic Fayrfax Carol by Thomas Adès or the highly dramatic Seek Him That Maketh the Seven Stars by Jonathan Dove. This last piece requires the choir to veer from one dynamic extreme to another in the blink of an eye, to climb ever-mounting crescendos, to communicate mystery in every note. The Festival Singers were in their element here as they were in pieces by Arvo Pärt, Hugo Distler, Elizabeth Piston and Errollyn Wallen.

Joining the singers from high in the pulpit was the multi-talented Simone Ibbett-Brown as reader of a wide range of poems portraying the many faces of Christmas: familiar pieces by Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy and T.S. Eliot but also much that was new. Wendy Cope’s plea for peace in Bethlehem could hardly have been more urgently relevant – and Maya Angelou’s Amazing Peace wasn’t comfortable listening either. But just in case things were becoming too serious, Michael Rosen’s very funny wriggly-worm poem Christmas Dinner brought everyone down to earth. Simone breathes life into everything she performs, able to communicate vividly even the most complex of ideas, pacing and articulating them for maximum impact.

If you know anyone suffering from seasonal stress, threatening to pitch their tent on some remote island in an attempt to escape the annual festival of over-indulgence, do mention that the Southwell Christmas Celebration is a much more reliable means of obtaining spiritual refreshment at this time of year.

Southwell Festival Singers, Marcus Farnsworth (conductor)

Simone Ibbett-Brown (reader); Jonathan Allsopp (organ, piano)