Welcome Joy– A Celebration of Women’s Voices
I Holst: Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow; G Holst: Two Eastern Pictures; Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda etc; Poston: An English Day-book; plus works by Judith Weir, Hilary Campbell, Olivia Sparkhall, Gemma McGregor and Sruthi Rajasekar
Corvus Consort/Freddie Crowley; Louise Thomson (harp)
Chandos CHSA 5350 82:21 mins
Clip: Ushas - Goddess of Dawn by Sruthi Rajasekar (Corvus Consort)
Corvus Consort under its founder-director Freddie Crowley is always full of fresh thinking. Here we have a collection of works spanning a century up to the present day, composed for female voices and solo harp.
Gustav Holst was a champion of this combination of forces, and three of his works provide a framework for ten compositions by women, introduced by his daughter Imogen Holst’s Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow, a setting of six Keats poems inspired by the poet’s love of Devon.
Like her father, Imogen Holst was a tireless advocate for women’s education, and these three-part works provide a textbook of musical styles, from jaunty folk ditties to elegiac ruminations on pastoral England.
Elizabeth Poston emerges as a composer of originality and substance, more avant garde than her well-known Christmas music might suggest. Commissioned for the Farnham Festival in 1966, her An English Day-book was intended to complement Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and showcases her powers as a brilliant miniaturist. The work unfolds in 11 vivid scenes from a day in the life of an English village, busy with clocks, bells, birds and bees, all brought to life around a meditative Interlude for solo harp.
Also featured in the collection are influential women composers of more recent times, including Judith Weir, Gemma McGregor, Olivia Sparkhall and Hilary Campbell, all contributing short commissions inspired by the 14th-century female mystic, Julian of Norwich. Sparkhall’s Lux Aeterna for double choir, makes simple but effective use of the spatial separation of the singers, setting the serene beauty of women’s voices in a spiritual dimension.
Gustav Holst’s intense study of Indian culture gave rise to several works for female voices on mythological themes. His Two Eastern Pictures are orientalist rhapsodies on spring and summer, while settings of hymns from the ancient Hindu Rig Veda refract Indian musical modalities through Holst’s distinctly European prism.
These exotic forays provide a springboard for two new works by Indian-American composer Shruthi Rajasekar, specially commissioned for the album. Corvus’s grasp of a more authentic classical Indian musical style in Ushās – Goddess of Dawn is impressive, with convincing pronunciation of the Sanskrit texts.
The 12 superb sopranos and altos of the Corvus Consort sing the complex, close-knit textures of these works with delicacy and pinpoint accuracy. Louise Thomson’s immaculate, virtuosic harp playing conjures scenes that take us from scented gardens to sun-baked landscapes and haunted moonlit forests. The vocal/instrumental balance is well-nigh perfect in Chandos’s clear, nuanced recording.
This dazzling collection has been put together with help of leading arts and education charity Multitude of Voyces, who have supported many of the commissions featured here. The musical palette may be restricted, but Crowley and his young singers have opened up a jewel-box of glinting, shimmering choral gems, shining anew. Ashutosh Khandekar
