For anyone afraid to dream, there’s Elora, a town an hour’s drive outside Toronto that’s so small it doesn’t even get its population counted separately anymore. But it has a 22-voice professional church choir that tours and puts out an excellent new album every couple of years.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
The Choir of St John’s, Elora, director Noel Edison and organist Michael Bloss are at it again, with a new Naxos release titled Psalms and Motets for Reflection, a fine collection of Anglican music that is worth the attention of even the most adamant non-believer.
The core of the album is made up of Psalms sung in Anglican Chant, a form of flexible, harmonized and accompanied singing that’s peculiar to the Church of England.
When done well — as it is here — there is a wonderfully elastic yet predictable cadence to the singing that is as conducive to relaxing a tortured soul as a tall glass of cool lemonade, a long straw and a shady hammock.
To keep the album from being a musical museum-piece demonstration of music that metaphorically rocks our cradle, Edison has interspersed the psalms with unaccompanied settings of sacred texts, known as motets.
We get a mesmerising The Lamb, a 1982 motet by the venerable English composer John Tavener. Slightly older are Francis Poulenc’s rich “Vinea mea electa” and “Timor et Tremor” from the late 1930s.
There’s a gorgeous accompanied re-setting of the hymn “Christ, whose glory fills the skies” from 2005 by Australian composer Paul Halley.
The choir is beautifully balanced and Bloss does a fine job in colouring the organ accompaniments. Edison does sometimes choose very slow tempi, particularly for a Te Deum setting by Charles Villiers Stanford, making it sound awfully ponderous.
The overall audio quality is warm, soft-edged and clear.
Turn down the lights, switch off the mobile devices, and enjoy.
As for how this ordinary parish church in a tiny town buildt a choir like this, it’s all about ingenuity. There are several universities within commuting distance and Edison is able give the choristers work during the summer Elora Festival as well as in the professional core of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
You can get all the details on this album here.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
