A Song on the End of the World, Three Choirs Festival, Gloucester Cathedral, Tuesday 25 July, 2023. 4****: David Gray & Paul Gray

A Song on the End of the World, Three Choirs Festival, Gloucester Cathedral, Tuesday 25 July, 2023.

4****: David Gray & Paul Gray

Randall Svane – Quantum Flight

Gustav Holst – Ode to Death

Arnold Bax – Tintagel

Francis Potts – A Song on the End of the World

This concert confirmed, if confirmation is required, that new music can be complex, challenging and profound yet still accessible, immediate and engaging. And, conversely, that older music, more established in the repertoire can be less interesting.

To start with the new and engaging, Randall Svane’s Quantum Flight is an exhilarating orchestral showpiece. It hits the ground running with a repeated ostinato opening. A second lyrical subject area is introduced, and the rhythmic and lyrical motifs converse playfully. Their conversation is punctuated by grand orchestral flourishes. It’s simple yet effective in its structure and carries the listener along with a bubbling momentum. Great fun!

Conductor, Adrian Partington maintained a suitably sombre atmosphere for Holst’s Ode to Death, a setting of text by Whitman. It’s a gloomy work, and the choral texture was, also, also rather murky. Final consonants were not always unanimous, and the sopranos did not always support fully to the ends of phrases. That said, a largely a cappella section in the middle did stand out for the clarity and strength of the singing.

The less said about Bax’s Tintagel the better. This is an orchestral showcase, full of instrumental colour for the players, but not that interesting a composition for the listener. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed it with gusto.

Composer, Francis Potts, in his oratorio A Song for the End of the World, has taken various and disparate texts and created a clearly structured work that is impressively coherent. This is partly because the texts are linked be a commonality of images, but also because the music is shot through with thematic strands that bind it into a unified whole.

His theme is Christ as an Everyman figure and the Crucifixion as an ongoing horror present in all the atrocities humanity inflicts upon itself. Tightly interwoven orchestral writing surges and writhes under long, lyrical, sinuous, and highly expressive vocal lines. A trio of impressive soloists, soprano April Fredrick; mezzo soprano Clare Presland; and baritone Marcus Farnsworth, all gave thoughtful and emotional performances, and seemed to be totally immersed in the storytelling.

The choir sang with control and attention to detail throughout. Conductor, Adrian Partington allowed tension to build with growing intensity to the work’s final movement, I Am the Great Sun, a setting of words by Charles Causley. This was a chorale-like, searing explosion of sound that tied all of the preceding motivic threads together and, consequently, delivered a satisfying sense of catharsis.

The term ‘masterpiece’ is probably overused. This emotionally compelling, at times harrowing, and monumental work may well deserve its application.

April Fredrick – soprano

Clare Presland – mezzo-soprano

Marcus Farnsworth – baritone

Three Choirs Festival Chorus

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Adrian Partington - conductor