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Workshop coordinator Carol Robinson of Dartington Community Choir offers her reflections on the group's annual concert at Buckfast Abbey, south Devon.
There are times when a concert offers so much more than performance because the power of the music touches hearts and minds, and captures the mood of the times. On 26 February 2022, Dartington Community Choir's Choral Workshop concert at Buckfast Abbey was one such experience – when the workshop choir, cellist Barbara Degener, and David Davies, the Abbey's organist, came together to present a programme of sublime music dedicated to the people of Ukraine.
In his introductory remarks, the guest conductor, James Davey, explained that over two years ago he had chosen this programme for the DCC workshop, planned for 2021 but postponed due to lockdown. Little could he have known then how appropriate, and meaningful, this programme would prove to be, for the centrepiece of the concert was Tavener's Svyati.
This beautiful and moving piece uses a text from the Orthodox funeral liturgy and is sung in Church Slavonic as a dialogue between choir and cello. It was first performed at the Cricklade Music Festival in 1995, by the Kyiv Chamber Choir with Steven Isserlis (cello), and directed by the celebrated Ukrainian conductor Mykola Gobdych.
The choir in full voice
As the plaintive notes of a distant cello echoed across the stillness of the abbey, the solemn and poignant significance of this music was then given further resonance by the choir. At the close of the piece, the moments of silence which followed reflected the powerful emotional impact of this outstanding music.
The choir had risen impressively to the challenge of learning and performing a demanding programme in one day. Under James' expert direction, they sang with mastery and feeling, and with the satisfaction of clearly communicating with their audience.
Barbara Degener's accomplished cello interludes completed a wonderful concert. This was a truly memorable evening at the end of an immensely rewarding day.
Read choir member Helen Boyles' poem, inspired by the whole day and Tavener's Svyati in particular.
