THE Dublin Choral Foundation was established earlier this year "to promote the development of choirs of excellence and to provide a musical education for children hitherto only available in the cathedral choral tradition".
With Ite O'Donovan as director, two choirs have been established. The Lassus Scholars are described as "a semi-professional chamber choir", and Piccolo Lasso is a junior section catering for young singers aged between eight and 16.
The two groups appeared before the public for the first time at the National Concert Hall on Saturday in a programme which abounded in arrangements, but also included some motets by Lassus and had Mozart's Coronation Mass as its centrepiece for this, the two choirs were joined by the DIT Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra and soloists Orla Boylan (soprano), Imelda Drumm (mezzo soprano), John Scott (tenor) and Jeffrey Ledwidge (bass).
The aims of the new foundation and its two choirs are laudable, particularly so in a State where educational provision for music in the Primary and Secondary sectors is so derisorily inadequate. The standards that have been reached in the twice weekly training sessions since last September are, sadly, less impressive.
These are two choirs whose enthusiasm was evidenced through a sense of rhythm that felt too choppy, and whose high-notes-are-difficult awareness led to a style of singing which inclined all too much towards flatness of intonation and a downward drift of pitch.
Forget Mozart and Lassus, the heart of Saturday's music-making throbbed most convincingly in the closing Christmas carols, where, also, the technical polish of the singing easily surpassed all that had gone before.
