The Choir of Royal Holloway
Rupert Gough Music Director
Orchestra Nova
George Vass conductor
Resonance RES10359
Cecilia McDowall is a composer in whose catalogue of works music for the voice or voices occupies a central place. This disc features four of her most recent cantatas. The earliest work is the Christmas sequence A Winter’s Night from 2014. Her musical language is distinctive with fluid rhythms which allow word setting which is unforced.
She manages to avoid mannerisms, yet there is plenty of rhythmic variety. At times one fully realises the extent to which she has taken her place within the British tradition of choral writing; the music has poise and elegance and at certain moments, to me recalls works such as Arthur Bliss’s Pastoral.
A Winter’s Night is a Christmas work where the movements run into each other without a break. It seems to take a leaf out of Malcolm Arnold’s book, who adopted a similar approach with his work for wind quintet, New Wine in Old Bottles (based in this instance on traditional sea shanties). Here the composer’s skill in maintaining her own artistic identity is at its most evident.
The number of composers who have tried to place their own ‘take’ on traditional carol melodies is legion. The peril lurks in either sounding reminiscent or trying too hard to be individual, and in doing so sacrificing the appeal of the original material. McDowall successfully avoids both of these dangers, sounding like herself yet never obscuring the material upon which this very attractive work is based.
I was particularly struck by the clever device of quoting from the descant of In dulci jubilo in the final verse of the Sussex Carol, which links both the beginning and end of the work. The comparatively modest orchestral forces are used with great subtlety, not merely accompanying the choral forces, but adding colour, pointing rhythms and achieving an excellent balance.
Music of the Stars is a little more austere in tone, as befits a work commissioned during the pandemic. The work aims to reflect the ability of music ‘to console and uplift in difficult times’. The middle movement is a setting of prose, an explanation of how light is perceived. The final movement, The Gift to Sing is a celebration of being able to sing again after having to endure the restrictions imposed by the crisis.
Bird of Time draws inspiration from birdsong and was commissioned by the Ealing Choral Society to celebrate its 60th anniversary. The central Aubade features a solo soprano voice, Rowan Pierce who also makes a distinctive contribution to the middle movement of the first work the disc, The Ice is Listening. This is a most enjoyable release which reflects great credit on all concerned.
Review by Martyn Strachan