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Reviews

January 2010 - Sing Joyfully (CD)
“Comments by composer, Joseph Horovitz”
"Splendid singing, fine tempi, enterprising repertoire - what more could anyone wish for?"

December 2009 - Christmas Pudding (Concert) - Michael White
“One of my pin-up choirs”
The Joyful Company of Singers is one of my pin-up choirs, and certainly among the best of its kind in the country.  It was giving a seasonal music-with-readings package at St Paul’s Covent Garden, which is a physically comfortable space but not acoustically - the sound too spongy and unfocused, without resonance to mask imperfections.  As a result, the JCS did not come across so vibrantly and seemed stretched by some of the music - which included pitch-challenging contemporary repertoire by composers like Roderick Williams and Jonathan Harvey.  But at least the choir does face these challenges.  And, in fairness, some of the singing had real sit-up-and-listen strength: a wonderfully impactful “Nova! Nova!” by Bob Chilcott that gave full value to those exclamation marks and some clever arrangements of old favourites by founder-conductor Peter Broadbent.

April 2009 - Vaughan Williams Christmas Music (CD) - Gramophone Magazine
“Choral rarities engagingly resuscitated on the RVW Society’s own label”
The release schedule of Albion Records (the recording arm of the RVW Society) shows no sign of slackening. The programme spans nearly six decades and showcases a handful of accomplished offerings from VWs second stint at the RCM under the tutelage of Parry: richly worked madrigals like Come away, Death and Ring out your Mis, as well as numerous English, Scottish and (as in the case of the haunting Mannin Veen) Manx folksong settings. The captivating Linden Lea is heard in Arthur Somervell's 1929 arrangement. Baritone Orjan Hartveit and pianist Alistair Young contribute freshly in "The Mermaid" and "The Turtle Dove" (the latter one of VWs loveliest reworkings, of a folksong he transcribed in 1907 from a pub landlord in Rusper, West Sussex). The noble main tide for the 1940 film 49th Parallel transcribes most effectively into the choral medium in its alternative guise of The New Commonwealth, and proceedings conclude with Sun, Moon, Stars and Man, a cycle of four unison songs to words by Ursula Vaughan Williams arranged from the still underrated cantata The Sons of Light, which VW wrote for The Schools' Music Association in 1951. The performances from Broadbent's hard-working group make an eminently appealing hour's worth of off-the beaten- track VW, very nicely masterminded by producer/engineer Michael Ponder, and featuring some extensive and helpful annotation by Stephen Connock.

November 2008 - Tavener Requiem (Concert) - Evening Standard
“Tavener wants words to matter”
No one could accuse John Tavener of shirking the big issues. His Requiem stares death in the face while also attempting a synthesis of some of the world's great religions. The Christian requiem text sits alongside the Koran, Sufi mystic poetry and the Hindu Upanishads, the whole made to cohere by the force of Tavener's conviction.  There are moments of soupy sentimentality, and, at times, the 40-minute piece resembles an assemblage from earlier works, but that is Tavener's way. In any case the cumulative power sweeps most objections aside. Although the Requiem achieves its own serenity, Tavener's God seems not to offer solace; instead he inspires fear.   The Requiem was premiered in Liverpool Cathedral last February. Cadogan Hall may be less imposing but it has its own mystic theatricality, which conductor Richard Hickox exploited. Tavener's writing for voices, including the Joyful Company of Singers, was equally communicative. He wants the words to matter and, by and large, they did. Thomas's sweet and pure soprano soared heavenwards and if Kennedy's light tenor was sometimes lost in the maelstrom generated by the City of London Sinfonia, that might embody Tavener's view of the fate that awaits the individual ego.