Innocence
Works by Hildegard, Howard Skempton et al
Echo Vocal Ensemble/Sarah Latto
Resonus RES10346 54 mins
Clip: Echo Vocal Ensemble - He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Here is a deeply satisfying, centuries-spanning, thought-provoking debut album by the fine choir Echo Vocal Ensemble.
A title such as Innocence could lead in a hundred directions, but given that its spine is provided by extracts from Hildegard’s chant O Nobilissima Viriditas, there is also a strong element of the abbess’s elusive idea of greenness and spiritual health, with flowers, sleep and birth prominent in the texts.
Many tracks are only a couple of minutes long, and none is longer than the six minutes of Jean Mouton’s sublime Nesciens Mater, so the music flows effortlessly and the 22 selections can veer widely, from the world of English folk song (Michael Head’s ‘The Singer’, piercingly done) and a Scottish lullaby version of Lennon and McCartney’s classic ‘I’m only sleeping’.
I’m not convinced that the idea of improvising around such songs quite works, but it’s a valid experiment, and giving them the aura of the English choral sound draws them into a (doubtless illusory) continuous tradition stretching from Purcell right through to the highlight of the album for me, Howard Skempton’s luminous Yeats setting ‘He wishes for the cloths of heaven’, which is exquisitely done.
Anna Rocławska-Musiałczyk sets a Kashubian carol eloquently; the recording gives the choral sound an added resonance now favoured by many a cappella groups, slightly clouding the precision of Ravel’s Trois Chansons but enhancing Palestrina’s secular madrigal I Vaghi Fiori.
His flowery blooms ‘infuse the heart with sweetness’, but the hypnotic rhythms of Meredith Monk’s ‘Panda Chant II’ from The Games take us back to earthy ritual.
All this makes an alluring hour’s listening. Nicholas Kenyon