Beautiful Brahms, Birmingham Bach Choir, CBSO Centre, Birmingham 1 July 2023, 4****, David Gray & Paul Gray
Brahms - Fest und Gedenkspüche op. 109 * Intermezzi op 117 nos. 1 & 2 * Zwei Motetten op. 74 * Drei Quartette op. 64 * Intermezzo op. 117 no. 3 * Fünf Gesange op. 104 * Veir Quartette op. 92
If you thought you knew Brahms, you might have come away from Birmingham Bach Choir’s Beautiful Brahms Concert a little less sure about that. This was a fascinating journey into the unfamiliar, exploring some lesser-known byways of that composer’s choral repertoire.
The CBSO Centre is a venue at which I think this choir has not previously performed. It is an, if not dry, then certainly un-reverberant acoustic, designed to display the performer with forensic precision. Perhaps used to a more generous space, the choir took a while to settle into this new reality. The opening set of items, Fest und Gedenksprüke op. 109, felt uncertain. Individual voices stood out, the overall sound could have been better blended, and exposed pianissimo lines were swallowed and unsupported, rather than sung out.
As the evening progressed, these issues ironed themselves out. That collective consciousness which all good, well-established choirs have, asserted itself. The blending improved and singers found their own internal acoustic spaces. Zwei Motetten op. 74 developed with some lovely phrasing, and the second of the pair, O Heiland, was perfectly shaped and heartfelt. The choir clearly responded to the influence of Bach in these works
Pianist, John Thwaites not only accompanied the choir in some of the choral numbers - and with great assurance - but also performed three intermezzi with sensitivity and understanding.
After the interval, the choir seemed very much at home. The conductor, Paul Spicer, had clearly communicated his understanding of the repertoire to his singers. The choir drove purposefully through Brahms’ complex harmonic progressions to deliver intelligent and satisfying readings that left one really wanting to find out more about a wrongly neglected aspect of Brahms's musical output.
Birmingham Bach Choir * Paul Spicer – Conductor * John Thwaites - Piano