Madrigal - Faure Dancing in Spring - Melanie Brown Un soir de neige - Poulenc Piano Sonata No. 2 (excs) - Rachmaninov Mass for Five Voices - Berkeley Trois chansons - Ravel
Listening to musicians grapple with demanding music can be exhilarating if the struggle rests on certainty in technique and interpretation. During the National Chamber Choir's concert at the National Gallery last Thursday evening, such certainty was more evident in David McNulty's fine-toned playing of the second and third movements of Rachmaninov's Piano Sonata No. 2 than in the more difficult choral music.
The choral equivalent of Rachmaninov's virtuosity was Ravel's Trois chansons. They made an impact through commitment and verve. But the effect of the third chanson was generalised - a high-intensity gabble rather than a surefooted and subtle display of musical and textual complexity.
A different kind of certainty was needed in Berkeley's Mass for Five Voices. Its wayward yet muscular counterpoint calls for a surer sense of direction in each part and for a more focused expression.
I found myself thinking - not for the first time - that Colin Mawby's conducting does not always facilitate an over-view. Like many choral conductors, he seems mainly concerned with the gestural effect obtainable from tone and volume, at the level of the phrase and the sub-phrase.
Despite the attractions of a fruity-toned performance of Faure's Madrigal and a considered account of Poulenc's Un soir de neige - the latter including some better French diction than the rest of the concert - the strongest music making from the choir tended to come when detailed intervention was not possible. This was especially noticeable in Melanie Brown's conservative and crafted Dancing in Spring (1998) and in the faster parts of the Gloria from Berkeley's Mass.