Holmbury St Mary church on a freezing-cold December evening was the setting for this year’s Christmas concert from Holmbury Choral, conducted for the first time in concert by Cole Bendall. In something of a departure from Christmas concerts in recent years, the programme was into two parts, with audience participation limited to the second part towards the end of the programme. This gave the choir the opportunity to perform a more substantial work than usual: five of the first six movements from Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, including the best-known movement, Bogoroditse Devo. These five movements, sung in Church Slavonic, provided a considerable challenge to the singers, who had to get to grips with both the language and Rachmaninoff’s complex arrangement of Orthodox plainchant, divided into six or more parts in places. One of the movements requires the 2nd basses to descend to a low B-flat more than two octaves below middle-C, something that Rachmaninoff’s friends said would be beyond the resources of most choirs. Fortunately, the Holmbury Choral basses didn’t let the choir down!
This could be regarded as a daring – even risky – choice by Cole for his first Christmas concert, but it proved to be an inspired choice nevertheless. The choir may have felt slightly over-awed by the Church Slavonic, leading to the text become slightly indistinct in places; and the choir was missing some key voices due to illness, including two tenors, so the sound was more subdued than it might otherwise have been. But if anything this all contributed an ethereal quality to the performance that suited the atmosphere of the music and the occasion, and it was very warmly received by the audience. The overall effect was in no small way assisted by the sensitive accompaniment of Suzy Ruffles on the piano and fine solos in two of the movements from mezzo soprano Lauren Macleod (a talent to watch!).
The intensity of the Rachmaninoff was leavened with convincing performances of carols by three contemporary women composers, Errollyn Wallen, Sally Beamish and Olivia Sparkhall, as well as more traditional carols by Praetorius, Tchaikovsky, Amy Beach, Harold Darke and John Rutter. The concert was well supported, largely filling the Nave of the church, and Cole’s skill at building rapport with his audience was demonstrated to great effect in Jingle Bells and The twelve days of Christmas. Cole has made a great start with Holmbury Choral and we look forward with anticipation to future performances with him at the helm.