THE National Chamber Choir's concert at the National Gallery last Thursday evening offered further evidence of progress made since the choir became a full time ensemble last year. The programme of choral music, with and without piano, ranged from Sweelinck's Laudate Dominum to Kevin O'Connell's vigorous setting of Psalm 150, which dates from 1992 and received one of the best performances in the concert. Also, Fergal Caulfield played piano music by Schoenberg, which went neatly, and by Brahms and Berio, which was marred by a noisy pedal action.
The NCC recently appointed Melanie Brown as apprentice composer and David Brophy as apprentice conductor. Brophy conducted Bruckner's Os justi, and his large, elastic phrasing was in many ways more persuasive than the pointed approach taken by Colin Mawby (who conducted the rest of the concert) to the same composer's Christus factus est and Locus iste.
I would have welcomed a warmer, more muscular style in some of the music, one less concerned with the finesse of the moment than with ample shaping. This applied especially to Haydn's accompanied part song Abendlied zu Gott and to Rheinberger's Die Nacht. Yet the subtle tone in these pieces and in Colin Mawby's Prayer of Forgiveness exemplified just how far the NCC has come lately.
This concert also reinforced the recent impression that the choir's weak link is the soprano section, which, once it gets at all high in volume or pitch, has a persistent, hard edge. The sound grates and it compares poorly with the blend within and between the other sections.