Page 226 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

16 October 2019

FIRST NIGHT | CONCERT

The Sixteen review — poised and passionate performance

Barbican

Rebecca Franks
October 16 2019, 12:01am, The Times

Soprano Mary Bevan and the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Harry ChristopherMARK ALLAN
★★★★★
It starts with a breath. An inhale and an exhale, the sound of air. The audience stills, listening attentively. A
patter of keys on wind instruments joins the breathing, then a tapping on wood. Something is coming to life.
A word emerges: ruah, Hebrew for breath, and for wind. This is the elemental start of James
MacMillan’s Le Grand Inconnu, his choral Fifth Symphony, which contemplates the Holy Spirit. The three
movements, one each for breath, water and fire, teem with ideas, yet these never dilute the overall message.
It’s striking how directly this music speaks, how movingly it explores its subject.

Five stars, then, for a piece that I would like to hear again and again. I’m certain I would find new things
in it each time. A round of applause, too, for Harry Christophers, the Sixteen and its younger sibling,
Genesis Sixteen, joined here by the Britten Sinfonia, for their poised and passionate performance at this
London premiere. The choral sound blazed at the climaxes, the orchestral colours were from a vivid
paintbox. MacMillan mentions the weight of Beethoven and the model of Mahler, but, if a symphonic
forefather is needed, I would point to Bruckner, whose sectional designs also balance ecstatic build-ups with
contemplative expanses.

Inspired by apparitions and a miracle from more than a century ago, The Sun Danced was written by
MacMillan for the Shrine of Fatima in Portugal. Crazed dances are juxtaposed with visions of extraordinary
peace and consolation in this continuous one-movement work for choir and orchestra, which blends the
devotional and dramatic to great effect. At its heart is a soprano soloist, Mary Bevan, who sings the words of
Mary to the awed crowds. War and fear pass through, but this is music that offers hope and joy. Part’s
hypnotic Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten and Britten’s paean to music, the Hymn to St Cecilia, were
ideal partners.

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