Church of St Nicholas of Myra, Dublin
Magnificat: Songs of Freedom and Justice
"A dialogue between two pregnant socialists," is how composer Caitríona Ní Dhubhghaill describes the Magnificat, or "Song of Mary" (Luke 1:46 ff, "My soul doth magnify the Lord") in conductor Mark Duley's printed introduction to this concert by his chamber choir Resurgam. In the gospel Mary speaks these words to her cousin Elizabeth, also pregnant.
It’s a description at some remove from the Anglican Evensong tradition to which Duley, cathedral organist and choirmaster, firmly belongs. But this was a departure from tradition which he seemed positively bursting to make. For there is indeed subversion within the song: “He hath put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble and meek . . . He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away . . .”
Focusing on this angle helped Duley import a thematically compatible but otherwise utterly alien musical style: liberation songs from Apartheid-era South Africa. Although simple, homophonic and repetitive, these songs are brimming with an infectious spirit of life, hope and energy. They also call for dance and gesture, something I would not have believed Resurgam and Duley – annual providers of Handel's Messiahin period style – could have pulled off until I saw it with my own eyes.
And so to the concert's core, six hugely diverse settings of Magnificat. These ranged from the late renaissance to modern day: Praetorius, sounding wonderful thanks to the refined vocal and melodic quality of the sopranos and tenors: cosy Anglican-influenced Stanford; Giles Swayne (whose rhythmic demands occasioned the only prominent lapses in the evening); John Tavener, with energy and contrast favoured over stasis and reflection; and Caitríona Ní Dhubhghaill, her short 2000 setting full of life.
The concert’s key juxtaposition, though, was Praetorius followed by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, with a beautiful, contemplative setting that brought together many aspects of the other five.
