Reviews
Recent Concerts
Qudduson: Holy Trinity, Sloane St, 23 July 2009
'Pure and ethereal': those are the words always trotted out to describe the ancient chant of the Christian faith, and the later many-voiced music that grew out of it. At Holy Trinity Church in Sloane Street in London last Thursday we had a startling reminder that this 'pure sound' is only our own, local conception of how God should be praised. In the Christian churches of the Middle East there's a very different tradition, even more ancient than ours. It's rooted in the sound of a single voice, singing in a way that sounds emphatically Eastern, closer to Koranic or synagogue chant than anything we're familiar with.
Thanks to a bold idea of Edward Wickham, director of that excellent vocal group The Clerks, we were able to hear both traditions side by side. He's brought together his own six-voice choir with three singers from different Eastern chant traditions. They performed five seamless sequences of music, each based on a theme, some joyful, some doleful, like the sequence for Holy Week.
It was a bold idea, but also a risky one, because conventional wisdom says these two traditions are like oil and water. It was certainly a shock when the unruffled, beautifully anonymous sound of the Western singers dropped away, and the impassioned often guttural sound of one of the Eastern singers took over. And there's no doubt the moods of Western music are easier for us to read. The deep tones and sinking harmonies of Giaches de Wert's 'Vox in Rama' clearly signified sadness, the 12th century 3-voice Alleluia of Perotin danced in an obviously joyful. Whereas the Eastern chants seemed at first to be all yearning and passionate in a similar way.
But the remarkable thing was how quickly one's ears became attuned to small differences. George Qas-Barsoum's rendition of Syriac chant was restrained compared to Adbul Salam Kheir's full-throated style - but it was full of microtonal inflections, which were just as affecting in their own way. Merit Ariane Stephanos sung chants from the Egyptian Coptic tradition, in a pliant, droopingly graceful voice. As the evening wore on the overlappings between the East and West traditions grew bolder, until eventually we heard an entire piece of Western polyphony from all six voices, with the three Arab voices floating ecstatically on top. The sheer sound was dizzying, and the metaphor it offered of things long-separated coming back together was moving too.
Ivan Hewett, The Daily Telegraph, 24 July 2009
Qudduson: Holy Trinity, Sloane St, 23 July 2009
A glorious fusion of vocal, cultural and religious fervour
Early Music Review, November 2009
Qudduson: Christ the Cornerstone, Milton Keynes, 22 July 2009
Brilliant programming remains one of The Clerks’ winning features ... ravishingly sung ... utterly uplifting and yet gloriously severe.
Church Times, 14 August 2009
In Memoria: Radio 3 Between the Ears December 20th 2008
“Radio 3 at its best, by turns freewheeling, precious, touching, aggravating and riveting. Renaissance motets and modern compositions alternate with liturgical readings, children's voices and a man's heartbreaking account of his wife's tragic death. Frequently beautiful, cumulatively moving - and fascinating radio”
Martin Hoyle, Financial Times
In Memoria Tour, May-November 2008
Forget concert halls, the Clerks are singing in a sewage works
The most damning word in the modern workplace is “inappropriate”. It's the euphemism used to cover everything from sexually harassing the managing director's pet gerbil to running off with the proceeds of the Derby sweepstake.
But in the arts, inappropriate is good! The incongruity that jolts us into looking at the world in a different way is one of the most potent weapons in the cultural armoury.
And there can be little dispute as to the most incongruous thing to hit the musical world this summer. The Clerks are an excellent singing group, specialising in medieval and Renaissance anthems. Their director, Edward Wickham, has put together an intriguing tour of music from the 15th and 16th centuries marking the transition from life to death. It includes Dufay's sublime Ave regina coelorum, which he wrote to be performed around his own deathbed, and various other wonderful laments from an age when death tended to come so unexpectedly that it was wise always to be prepared for it.
So far, however, so expected ... But it's where the Clerks are performing over the next two weekends that makes their project so eye-catching. Rather than going to cathedrals, they have chosen four venues where the acoustics are just as reverberant, but the ambience very different. A coalmine. A swimming pool. A sewage pumping station. And a waterworks ...
What fascinates me is the symbolism of the event. As Pevsner gasped when he first saw Bazalgette's sewage works, these huge Victorian edifices were the “cathedrals” of their day. They may be dead, in that they no longer play any part in our industrial life - what remains of it. But they are now rightly celebrated as the engineering marvels of their age. In that sense, they have been reborn. Where better, then, to hear music that so beautifully celebrates what its composers believed to be the rebirth of the soul?
So, it turns out, the project isn't really incongruous at all.
Richard Morrison in The Times, 24 May, 2008
Roman de Fauvel, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 17 Sept. 2006
Discovering unknown things is one of the chief pleasures of [the Early Music Weekend at the South Bank], and not just in music. I now know that the phrase "to curry favour" comes from a 14th-century satirical poem called the Roman de Fauvel, in which a horse is crowned king and surrounded by flatterers who stroke him with curry-combs.
This satirical poem was brought to life in a multi-media event in which music and images from the same manuscript were interwoven with a new poem by Ian Duhig. This cleverly evoked the rhythm and the mixture of coarse bawdiness and learning of the original, while throwing in some references to Iraq for good measure. Between the verses we heard musical commentaries, superbly performed by the Clerks' Group. This showed a new side of "early music" - less hung up on authenticity, unafraid to mingle with contemporary issues and the work of living artists.
The Daily Telegraph, 19 Sept. 2006
"A new interpretation of the early 14th century satirical poem, the Roman de Fauvel [was] enlivened by a comprehensive and frequently very entertaining and slick political satire by poet Ian Duhig [and] projected images from the highly decorated Paris version of the original manuscript.'
The Clerks' Group were on particularly fine form, both in solo and consort ... an excellent show."
Early Music Review, Dec. 2006
Recent Recordings
Don't Talk - Just Listen!
Signum SIGCD174
"bold and brilliant performances"
Gramophone Editors Choice, January 2010
Regis: Opera omnia MEW 0848-0849
"On this music the Clerks lavish maximum care." ****
The Sunday Times, May 24 2009
"Essential listening: Wonderful."
Gramophone Editor's Choice, July 2009
"Truly impressive performances ... brilliant advocacy for a good, if little known, composer." *****
BBC Music Magazine, September 2009
Archive Concerts
Henry Wood Promenade Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, 5 September 2003
"One of the season's most memorable Proms."
The Times
"A compelling concert"
The Guardian
"Stunning.... [they] sang with great character and presence, seemingly for the sheer communal joy. And achievement it was, balanced in sound, supple in line, and not abashed about matters such as dynamics and timbral contrast. Purity was there in transparent textures, unwavering pitch and effortless blend, but the range of individual expressive freedom was huge."
Los Angeles Times
"Here is singing of stylistic assurance and tonal beauty that seduces the ear...Thrilling...Inspired...The Clerks' Group...have risen to the summit of the a cappella art."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Wigmore Hall, 30 April 2000
"This flexible ensemble … gave marvellously refined and expressive performances … an admirable example of a programme offering both unity and diversity."
The Times, 5 June 2000
Archive Recordings
In Memoria CD GAU 362
Performances are, as to be expected, both supple and precise; the tasteful use of dynamics to reinforce changes in texture are also impressive (Dufay's Ave regina coelorum is exemplary in this respect, as is the 'Credo' of the anonymous English Mass). There's also a luminous darkness, if that makes sense, in the performance of works like Mort tu as navré … and Josquin's Absolve quaesumus, as well as a clean transparency in Obrecht's Mille quingentis. All in all, 'In Memoria' is not the sombre experience you'd expect, but strangely uplifting.
International Record Review, April 2007
The Essential Ockeghem CD GAU 357
"Supreme performances … enunciated with the clarity of crystal."
Choir and Organ, May/June 2007
"This collection sees The Clerks' Group tackle some of [Ockeghem's] finest compositions with stunning results."
The Daily Express, 22 Dec. 2006
Brumel Missa Pro defunctis / La Rue Missa Pro defunctis CD GAU352
"La Rue at his best, and The Clerks' Group not very far off theirs"
Gramophone, Feb. 2006
"Yet another magnificent disc from The Clerks' Group"
International Record Review, Jan. 2006
"..a highly expressive and thoroughly convincing interpretation of these two fine Requiem settings, in which Edward Wickham brings to bear all his considerable practical experience of the music of this period"
Early Music Review, March 2006
Johannes Tinctoris Cypres CYP3608
"Tinctoris has never had it so good, and nor have we - wonderfully concentrated singing which really draws you in"
International Record Review
Josquin Des Prez, Missa Faisant regretz and motets ASV/Gaudeamus CD GAU 302
"The Clerks' Group [is] perfectly balanced and tuned ... It is a demonstration of how the background knowledge of the the performers feeds into the performance, since they are singing here from facsimiles of an original source ... and their lines flow and intermingle in an unusually free manner ... confident, crystal-clear voices ..."
BBC Music Magazine: Five Stars
"Past experience and present excellence contribute to the unqualified success of The Clerks' second Josquin release."
Classic FM Magazine
Dufay - Sacred Music from Bologna Q15 Signum SIGCD023
"an absorbing and revealing collection, and everything is delivered with tonal beauty and scholarly stylishness"
The Guardian
"The singing of the The Clerks' Group is exemplary, full-bodied but superbly disciplined. Their voices are strongly characterized, which allows us easily to follow the composer's often florid and intricate writing."
International Record Review
"… all delivered with an unaffected beauty and balance that makes you close your eyes and wish the CD would never end."
The Times
Ockeghem Requiem CD GAU 168
"These are crisp, clever, truly imaginative performances, delivered with a confidence bordering on arrogance ... why mince words? This is superb."
Gramophone
Ockeghem Missa L'homme armé etc. CD GAU 204
"Only singers of the stature of The Clerks' Group could begin to make sense of this very special kind of music … Now, at last, Ockeghem makes sense."
BBC Music Magazine, Aug. 2000
Josquin Missa Fortuna desperata etc. CD GAU 220
"Sacred [the music] may be, but it is also highly sensual, as The Clerks' Group's fine singing - poised, clear and shapely in its phrasing - attests. This is music that deserves as much attention as we accord the great visual icons of Renaissance art."
The Sunday Times
"Lovers of polyphony owe Edward Wickham and his singers a great debt of gratitude."
Gramophone
