Page 201 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

It is certainly music of astonishing beauty and clarity, and it was impeccably performed under the baton of Harry
Christophers (pictured above) with The Sixteen, Genesis Sixteen (effectively a boot camp for aspiring choristers), and the
Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The symphony is broadly elegiac in tone, falling into three movements: "Ruah" (Hebrew for
breath), "Zao" (Greek for living water) and "Igne vel Igne" (Latin for fire or fire). The texts come from the Bible, St John of the
Cross, and the great creation hymn Veni Creator Spiritus by Rabanus Maurus (famously used in Mahler’s 8th symphony).
The symphony begins imperceptibly with the sound of breathing – albeit interrupted by the clattering of a seat in the upper
circle. To me, this conjured the vision of an immense seascape, into which pebbly interjections from the brass brought a
feeling of increasing agitation, culminating in a grandiloquent choral setting of the word Ruah. Rhythmically simple, but
harmonically dense with microtonal chromaticism, this first passionate outpouring with full orchestra, not unlike "Daybreak"
from Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, sets the tone for the entire symphony – its melodic breadth and confidence mirrored in
the movements to come.

MacMillan has a Mahlerian capriciousness with his use of text – jumbling and jigsawing words from multiple sources and
languages to create a seamless flow. But his choral writing is radiant and even if its influences are never far beneath the
surface its originality is indisputable. On the word "spiritus", for example, bass voices hold a deep pedal note while the upper
voices drift towards that melodic serenity we associate with Hildegard of Bingen. Later in the second movement, a 20-part
polyphonic setting of "In novissimo autem" (from John in the Vulgate bible) is an exquisitely beautiful piece of a
cappellawriting that will almost certainly be picked up by sophisticated choirs seeing to broaden their range.

In the third movement the same applies to arguably an even more gorgeous setting of "O living flame of love" (St John of the
Cross), whose only disappointment was that it was not repeated when the words return at the very end of the symphony.

As befits a choral symphony, it is the chorus (pictured above) that steals this show; whether on their own, or accompanied,
as in the gracious setting of "The wind blows" (John), The Sixteen and their cohorts sounded magnificent. I have made no
mention of the four superb soloists drawn from the choir who come forward in the second movement for melismatic and
romantic settings of watery words, and little mention of the virtuosic orchestra, a fitting and textural counterpoint to the lavish
choral writing. All in all a wonderful piece that I hope to hear again.

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