The National Chamber Choir's lunchtime concert last Thursday at the National Gallery fell neatly into two halves. The first consisted of 20th-century pieces, of the kind designed for the display of choral sonority and virtuosity, some with piano accompaniment. The second was made up of opera choruses by Handel, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Verdi. Between these groups David Brophy gave a clean though oddly lugubrious performance of Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude Op. 28 No. 15.
In the opening half, the singing had a certainty and subtlety which was engaging in its own right, and which rose above the obviousness of most of the music. The vocal colour in Leon Bailey's A Shanty Sequence (free arrangements of sea shanties) was impressive. In the irregular rhythms of Paul Halley's The Maypole, the NCC and conductor Colin Mawby produced a rhythmic deftness which captured the music's studied rusticism.
There was good singing in the opera choruses too, especially in the Chorus of Enchanted Islands from Handel's Alcina and the Triumphal Scene from Verdi's Aida. But David Brophy's solid pianoplaying could not compensate for the absence of orchestral colour. It was the first half which saw the consistently impressive, authentic music-making which one would hope for from a National Chamber Choir.