National Chamber Choir/Antunes, National Gallery, DublinThe third concert in the National Chamber Choir's Audible Landscapesseries contrasted the music of Russia and Brazil, writes Martin Adams
Tchaikovsky - Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (exc). Rachmaninov - Sacred Concerto. Schnittke - Psalms of Repentance (exc). Villa-Lobos - O salutaris hostia. Canide-Ioune. Duas lendas amerindias. Cardoso - Os Atabaques de Pombagira. Marlos Nobre - Agô Loña.
Because the works were placed in two adjacent groups, the contrasts of style and expression were all the more astonishing.
The concert began with three movements from Tchaikovsky's pioneering conflation of Russian single-line chant and western polyphony, the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (1878). This was followed by Rachmaninov's Sacred concerto (1893) which, although not designed as a liturgical piece, is inconceivable without the Tchaikovsky.
Likewise, although Schnittke's Psalms of Repentance (1988) were designed for the concert hall, their religious inspiration and atmosphere is unmistakable. Written after the composer moved to the west and became a Catholic, their intense, almost tortured polyphony remains obviously Russian in technique and sensibility.
Even though we were warned, the contrast between the Russian music and the Villa-Lobos O salutaris hostia proved startling. While the Russian music breaths the rich ceremonies of the Slavonic church, Villa-Lobos setting of a sacred text calls for what the choir's director, Celso Antunes described as "the nightclub sound".
That's what it got. One of the most striking aspects of all the works by this composer was the music's sensitivity to meaning, whether in this devotional piece or in the narrative tales of the Duas lendas amerindias (1952).
That combination of religion and earthiness reached a peak in works by Lindembergue Cardoso and Marlos Nobre. I was especially impressed by the flair of the latter's Agô Loña.
One of this concert's chief rewards was hearing an Irish choir sing Russian music so idiomatically, including the style's distinctive colour and staggered breathing. That included Eugene Ginty's sonorous and deep-toned singing of the Schnittke's opening tenor solo, which sounded as Russian as caviar.
