Date: Saturday 21st June 2025
Venue: The Lady Chapel, Ely Cathedral
Programme: Old and New; Sing a new song
Featuring: Ely Consort with Matthew Rudd (Conductor), Anne Reece, (Piano), Cherry Blanchard (Flute)
A thoughtful programme of choral music from Ely Consort gave the packed audience plenty to enjoy and think about. Interspaced between items were two versions set to the same text, one written in the 17th Century and the other quite often in a more modern style.
Ely Consort is a splendid choir, under the directorship of Matthew Rudd. Their voices are full, rounded and combined well, blending the sound to make tremendous chords that added to the excitement, or softened to produce a warm, lush sound of peacefulness. Many of the pieces were quite challenging and this sophisticated choir rose to the challenge magnificently.
The concert opened with a splendid performance of Cantate Domine by Claudio Monteverdi and with the voices singing masses of sound echoing through the chapel it was easy to imagine its grand effect in St Mark’s Venice when it was performed in the 16th and 17th centuries. Matched to this performance was a more modern version by the contemporary Ko Matsushita. This was very different and featured lush, beautiful melodies and harmonies with a very attractive piano accompaniment forming a vital part of the work thanks to the excellent performance by the pianist, Anne Reece.
The Silver Swan, a well-known madrigal, followed. The traditional version first by Orlando Gibbons. The phrasing in this was particularly expressive. The more modern version by Bob Chilcott had a fuller harmony and flowed with very attractive additional phrases. It also had additional accompaniment by flute and piano sympathetically played by Cherry Blanchard (flute) and Anne Reece (piano).
Cherry Blanchard also played several solo flute pieces of varied character. The Bach Adagio ma non troppo from Sonata in E minor was a mellow, tuneful and leisurely performance admirably accompanied on piano by Anne Reece. While the Pan pieces were very atmospheric and conjured up images of the creature effectively, the beauty of Poulenc’s melodies was particularly well enhanced by Cherry’s playing.
Another twinned work was Gaudeamus Omnes first performed in the first part of the programme. The composer was Peter Philips from the 16th and 17th centuries. The music was obviously from that era, if not a little more chordal than usual. Under Matthew’s conducting, contrasts were made clear and sudden changes of rhythm common in that period were expertly executed. The more modern version by contemporary Marek Raczynski contained gorgeous modern harmony and magnificent contrasts from unison to a massive ‘alleluia’.
If ye love me by Thomas Tallis was a charming, slow, reverent piece from the 16th century in which the words were particularly clear within the customary style from that period. The version by contemporary composer James MacMillan, heard later in the programme, was also hymn-like but developed into greater contrasts, especially the emphatic ‘keep my commandments’ and contained more modern harmonies.
One of the most moving pieces to be included was When David heard. This was when David heard that although he had given orders for his son to be spared in a forthcoming battle, his son was nevertheless killed. The pain and anguish that David felt was particularly well expressed in both versions of the piece. In the early version by Thomas Weelkes, the repetition of ‘my son’ helped convey the anguish felt by David as were the slowly descending tones. In the more modern version by Eric Whitacre, the anguished words ‘my son’ were even more emotional and clothed in more complex movement within the choir, at one time extending to an 18-part cluster chord – expressing real suffering. It was easy to see that the singers were engrossed in the sentiments of the works for their serious facial expressions said it all.
Finally, Sing o heav’ns by John Amner and Ben Ponniah both contained features of the early style: common harmonies of the time and the use of echoing parts to which the Lady Chapel was well suited. Ben Ponniah, who was in the audience, had been commissioned by Ely Consort to write this piece and he gave this music a modern twist while including common features albeit at a more sophisticated level.
This was indeed a unique and well-designed programme that was a pleasure to listen to in the delightfully-suited environment of the Lady Chapel.
The next concert to look forward to by Ely Consort will be on Saturday 22nd November, in St Mary’s Church, Ely.