Bruckner, Palestrina & Allegri – Ex Cathedra, Town Hall, Birmingham, Sunday 13 October 2023,

5☆☆☆☆☆. Review David Gray & Paul Gray.

“Bruckner given an interesting contextualisation.”

Palestrina – Missa sine nomine

Bruckner – Aequale, Locus iste, Aequale, Ave Maria, Inveni David, Ecce sacerdos

Allegri – Miserere mei

Bruckner – Mass in E minor

One of the joys of Ex Cathedra’s approach to music making is that they often approach things in an unexpected way. It was, therefore, typical of them that a concert celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anton Bruckner did not comprise entirely of his music. Instead, they gave us a glorious selection from his vocal output, but contextualised it with the music of other composers.

This resulted in an exploration not just of Bruckner’s place in an ongoing sacred musical tradition, but on the way that music from different cultural eras interacts. Music from the past influences music from the future. In turn, each era hears music from the past in its own way, reinventing it to suit its own current aesthetic.

Thus, after an organ improvisation, the choir rose to sing two movements from Palestrina’s Missa sine nomine. But in a case of authenticity eating itself, this was a historically informed interpretation of how it might have been heard, and perhaps performed, by Bruckner – accompanied by organ with German Latin pronunciation and a robustness of tone to which audiences are no longer accustomed when hearing renaissance music. The result was dark and rather grand, with little room for textural contrast and nuance. This is not necessarily a criticism of the performance; it did what it set out to do and made us hear a piece of music through the ears from another century.

Similarly, Allegri’s Miserere mei was presented as a familiar object seen from an unfamiliar angle in an edition by Ben Bryam-Wigfield that draws variously on the original Allegri, highly ornamented 18th Century versions, and 20th Century approaches to the work.

The effect of this contextualisation, when it came to the music of Bruckner himself, was to highlight the extent to which his compositions draw so richly on the musical tradition from which he came. But also how he took this tradition and used it to create his own, unique musical voice.

Ex Cathedra’s performance of Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor, complete with wind and brass players from the CBSO, was quite simply glorious. Players and singers brought particular pathos to the Kyrie, bringing out the searing suspensions and intense chromaticism. The Gloria & Credo contrasted sections of immensity with passages of quietude in an expert reading by conductor, Jeffrey Skidmore. A magnificent conclusion to a magnificent concert.

This concert was recorded by the BBC and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Tuesday 22nd October at 7.30pm. Here is a link if you'd care to listen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023yrh

Conductor – Jeffrey Skidmore

Organ – Rupert Jeffcoat

Ex Cathedra

CBSO Woodwind and Brass