'An evening with Bryn Terfel' was the byline for this concert in King's College Chapel, Cambridge on Monday evening and this charismatic artist did not disappoint. To an already eclectic programme he added two favourite Welsh songs, beautifully articulated over slightly syrupy arrangements by Chris Hazel, but it was in the Mendelssohn that Terfel was at his most thrilling best. 'Call him louder!' thundered the voice of the prophet and the massed choir of CUMS and King's College did not let him down, the whole Chapel echoing to their responses. This was exciting, visceral music making with Stephen Cleobury in admirable control of his large forces: keeping precision of line and clear articulation even as soloist, chorus and orchestra took us to fortissimo heights. No muddiness — just full-throated, well-controlled singing.
The Elijah excerpts were skillfully put together, running from number 9 to number 13 in Part One of the work (including Elijah's great aria Lord God of Abraham, delivered by Terfel with honeyed tone and total assurance of smooth melodic line), and then cutting to number 17, the solo and chorus that end Part One. Sung and played as the work was here, it is all the more surprising that Elijah has nowadays suffered such a marked decline in live performance (there was a day when performances of Elijah and of Handel's Messiah were pretty evenly matched). Terfel proved to be a persuasive advocate for the work, the darker elements of his lower vocal register providing a powerful contrast to the soft, high singing for which he has long been famous (not for nothing did he win the Lieder prize at Cardiff all those years back). But the support that he got from orchestra, conductor and choir was exemplary: roll on a complete performance of Elijah in the same venue!
The concert started with a delicate, slightly restrained performance of Mozart 29. The strings players listened to each other carefully and there was delightful interplay with the woodwind, but the performance did not really catch fire. Here the Chapel acoustic did the players no favours and the music making dipped very slightly as a result.
There was more Mozart in the second half, with a late concert aria Io ti lascio of disputed authorship (although to my ears it sounds exactly like an offcut from The Magic Flute), and the serene Ave verum corpus sung by King's College Choir. The meat of the second half was Faure<'s Requiem, however. This is a work often sung in King's College Chapel but seldom with forces as large and as varied as these. And with Mendelssohn's Elijah still ringing in our ears, metaphorically speaking, Cleobury had a big task to shape and structure the dynamics of this wistful, delicate masterpiece to bring the evening to a serene conclusion.
Faure's Requiem can be heard in several different guises, from small choir with organ accompaniment, to a version for small orchestra (not published until 1995!), to the full orchestration with mixed choir and organ that we heard. With Terfel taking the two bass solos and a chorister the Pie Jesu, the orchestral dynamic varied hugely: but Cleobury showed why he is so expert with an array of forces like these under his baton, judging to a nicety the overall shape, line and sonorities of the work. In Paradisum was taken, as Faure himself wanted, by boys' voices alone: the effect was magical, undone only slightly by a few errant harp arpeggios that gave some very strange chromatics to the musical line. But the performance overall was a fine one, nicely judged and well executed, with the Philharmonia producing some beautiful soft string playing at all the appropriate moments. As the last notes faded, there was something other than the magnificence of Terfel's voice in the air: a glimpse of paradise. It was a moving end to a fine concert.
Photo: Bryn Terfel
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