Flower Songs concert review

Despite the competition from the World Cup and the challenge of the heat, a sizeable and appreciative audience attended the Southern Voices Flower Songs Concert on the 27^th June at St Johns Church in Alresford.

Southern Voices are an accomplished, close harmony, choral group who perform a wide variety of well-known and new works largely unaccompanied. Their conductor, Jamal Sutton, likes to challenge the choir and the audience with unfamiliar works and to showcase newer composers, and tonight’s concert was no exception.
This thoughtful programme was themed around flower songs and also marked fifty years since the death of Benjamin Britten, and it gave the choir plenty of opportunity to display their precise harmonies and rich, choral sound. Jamal’s direction and his enthusiasm bring out the best in the choir and ensures that every voice counts in this well-balanced group.

After opening the concert with three madrigals by Pearsall the choir moved on to the first set of songs by Britten. His Five Flower Songs are delightful, classic part-songs which were written as a 25th wedding anniversary present for Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst of Dartington Hall who were keen botanists. The choir interpreted the differing moods of each of the songs very deftly ensuring that the audience were fully engaged with all of the pieces whether it was the bittersweet Marsh Flowers, the ever-so-slightly sentimental Evening Primrose or the final piece Green Broom, a tour-de-force of humour which features the altos singing ‘Go fetch me the boy’ which brought laughter from the audience.

The choir had invited a special guest to join their concert: Matt White, a talented classical guitarist, created an atmospheric mood with his rendition of two well known works by Albeniz originally written for the piano but perfect for solo guitar. Matt plays a guitar from the English luthier Micheal Gee and the rich tone of the instrument combined with Matt’s beautiful playing were sublime.

The choir has strength and depth in its vocal talent and the Shakespeare Love Songs by Owain Park gave an opportunity for two choir members to provide short solos, both Brenda Sims and Jaimie Bland ably demonstrated why Southern Voices are such a respected choir in the county and beyond. The first half concluded appropriately with The Day is Done by Stephen Paulus where the choir demonstrated their ability with dynamics and clear diction to bring the story within the piece to the fore.

The second half of the concert commenced with the work of another contemporary composer, Eric Whitacre, whose settings of Edmund Waller’s Go, Lovely Rose from 1645, Emily Dickinson’s I Hide Myself which along with the dance-like setting of Federico García Lorca’s With a Lily in Your Hand, form Whitacre’s Three Flower Songs.
The audience were delighted to hear from Matt White once again this time with two pieces by Roland Dyens including Songe Capricorne with arpeggios and harmonies like waterfalls.

Next was part of Britten’s opera Gloriana, which was originally composed for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Never an entirely popular work the Six Choral Dances are the most frequently performed elements of the opera and made an ideal vehicle to showcase the capabilities of the ensemble. Britten’s style of writing and his regular use of discordant phrases are challenging to do well, and through their performance the choir enabled the audience to hear the demigod Time and his wife Concord along with country girls and rustics and fishermen. The strong tenor and bass sections were fabulous in these dances particularly as the rustics and fishermen, how lucky to have such a wonderful group of male singers in the choir.

The concert concluded with two lighter numbers, Goodnight Sweetheart and as an encore a crowd-pleasing arrangement of Over the Rainbow.

Another excellent concert from Southern Voices, more information on forthcoming events can be found on their website https://www.southernvoices.co.uk/

Jenny Cridland
Southern Arts Review