Eric Whitacre introduces choral music ranging from Monteverdi to his own works.
5pm Radio3
5pm Radio3
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What to say about this edition of The Choir? Well, very different from last week for a start, and maybe its advanced billing was misleading because it turned out to be a recording of music performed by The Eric Whitacre Singers (conductor Eric Whitacre) at a concert in St Luke's, Chelsea earlier this week. The fare was hardly 'ranging from Monteverdi to his own works' as the only step along the way was Bach's Singet (if you discount the other Bach distortion). Once I realised the format I decided I was just going to sit back and listen, without prejudice, to an enjoyable concert...and one the audience was clearly loving. It was good to hear a variety of EW's music. I am not a particular fan of the Lux Arumque trademark sound...and this was not done; I suppose A Boy and a Girl was of that ilk, but a certain amount of originality...which surprised me...was in evidence in the pieces with piano and in the Leonardo dreams.
Each piece was interspersed with EW talking...about his life, his emotins and his pieces. There was a good bit of name-dropping, e.g. 'my good friend this and that'. It sounded 'off the cuff' and maybe it was. This is the element of the programme which some of us (me included to some extent) find hard to cope with. We have to bear in mind, however that the American style is very different from ours. A certain amount of self-promotion, self obsession and heart-on-sleeve is quite normal, acceptable and even expected. We Brits with our Sang Froid tend to shy away from it and find it a bit stomach-churning. Perhaps this is our problem.
The EW Singers did a good job, IMO. They are I gather, largely 'the usual suspects' some of whom sang in Polyphony's Cloudburst CD. And if anyone wants to pin a Brownie point or two on EW, here's his view on British choirs:
Last edited by ardcarp; 18-03-13, 08:49. -
Copland, Broadway, Ligeti [eat your heart out - maybe 2001 an influence|? He did say how important cinema was to him], et al.
Finely sung, well-articulated.
No horses frightened in the making of this programme.Comment
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