A PACKED crowd attended the recently reordered St Giles Cripplegate in the heart of the Barbican, in London, on Thursday evening of last week for the Lloyd’s Choir Spring Concert, featuring Mendelssohn’s Psalm 114 and Rossini’s Stabat Mater. These beloved works were to be performed alongside the much awaited world première of Lancastria by Jacques Cohen. Indeed, Cohen balanced three separate “hats” in this concert, being conductor of the Lloyd’s Choir, founder and conductor of the Cohen Ensemble (formerly the Isis Ensemble), and the composer of the new work commemorating the sinking of HMT Lancastria.
One could be forgiven for not knowing about the fate of the Lancastria. Extensive and insightful programme notes gave details of the sinking of the vessel by enemy bombers in June 1940 with the loss of between 4000 and 7000 service personnel and civilians. This was the worst British maritime disaster in history — a fact that was suppressed by Churchill at the time. For the Lloyd’s Choir, this disaster has a personal resonance. Their rehearsal venue of St Katharine Cree, Leadenhall Street, in the City, has a special memorial to mark this terrible wartime disaster.
Cohen’s work for choir and orchestra sets Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar”; a text that will be familiar to some through the unaccompanied settings by Joseph Barnby, C. H. H. Parry, and, more recently, Rani Arbo. Cohen’s setting is one of originality and immediacy of gesture. “Twilight” and “Evening bell” are introduced mimetically by the orchestra at the very start. His language is wiry and bold, but always accessible, despite the especially knotty brass writing. The ghost of Britten looms large over the work, but it never succumbs to pastiche or direct quotation. The choral writing is clever, in that the angularity is approached by step and mirrors the inherent drama of Tennyson’s text without discernible difficulty.
After the final iteration of the text “when I have crossed the bar”, a lone Scots piper played Flowers of the Forest from the back of the church as the orchestra swelled gradually to a true forte and then receded away to nothing underneath this beautiful and familiar tune. This accompanied lament felt like a kind of Requiem, and was hugely affecting. Mille Scott was the piper and coordinated brilliantly with the Cohen ensemble at the other end of the church.
The première of this evocative and sincere new work concluded the first half of the concert, which opened with the Mendelssohn. The Lloyd’s Choir is made up from people from across the financial sector in the City of London, and is not a professional choir in the traditional sense. Nothing more, however, could have been expected from this enthusiastic group of singers. Ensemble was unquestionably tight, with an especially bright and exciting blend of sopranos. Diction was clear throughout, with an impressive commitment to ending consonants. Cohen found musical line in everything, and an unhurried spaciousness was especially effective in quieter and unaccompanied moments across the programme.
The Rossini was especially fresh. The four young soloists were engaging and demonstrated admirable athleticism in the composer’s characteristically large and florid vocal writing. The Cohen ensemble anchored the whole thing together with impeccable playing of the highest standard. The rewards when both choir and ensemble are fully familiar with, and directed by, the same conductor were obvious to hear. I have rarely witnessed such cohesion and shared musical empathy between band and choir.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging display of music and of music-making, which brought together the best of amateur choral singing, the crucial platforming of young and up-and-coming vocal artistes, and some of the best chamber-orchestral playing I have heard in a long time. Lancastria was a fitting and moving tribute, which I cannot wait to hear again.
