Friday 10 July 2015

Manchester Evening News review 10 July 2015


MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL - RICHTER/PÄRT 

Whitworth Art Gallery

 

GETTING German artist Gerhard Richter and Estonia-born composer Arvo Pärt together for a joint artwork wasn’t quite unique to the Manchester International Festival, but what’s on offer at the Whitworth for 11 continuous days is still a unique creation – and a remarkable one.

It’s both an art exhibition and a performance event. It’s also something derived from the possibilities of a space – one of the new galleries at the Whitworth which has the live acoustic properties of a tall ‘shoebox’ shape, and the visual ones of a room with a full-length window to the park beyond.

That makes particular sense of one side of the exhibition display, Richter’s Double Grey, four divided rectangles of enamelled grey on glass – different shades of grey. They reflect the rest of the room in subtly varying ways.

The other side is the ‘B’ version of Richter’s Birkenau, photo-versions of four large abstract paintings inspired by photographs taken by a prisoner of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944.

Both these works are dedicated to Arvo Pärt, and he has repaid the compliment in the composition of Drei Hirtenkinder Aus Fátima, a miniature a-capella piece for choir which is being sung at selected times throughout the exhibition, in the gallery itself, by the Estonian vocal group Vox Clamantis.

It’s a striking juxtaposition, with the reference of the music’s title being to the peasant children of Fátima who, in 1917, heard a message from the Virgin Mary that included prophecy of the Second World War.

Pärt’s chant-like setting of the words from Psalm 8, ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast ordained strength’, encompasses an intense insistence on the miracle of innocence triumphant, with exultant alleluias.

The artist-composer collaboration was brought about by MIF’s boss, Alex Poots, and its artistic adviser, Hans Ulrich Obrist, who introduced the two 1930s-born creative geniuses to each other. Richter’s work often relates to music … he admires Pärt’s compositions … and the two hit it off. At the formal opening both were there, along with Poots, Obrist, Whitworth director Maria Balshaw, and other luminaries including theatre and opera director Peter Sellars – himself a contributor to MIF last time round.

The singing by Vox Clamantis, conducted by Jaan-Eik Tulve, was impeccably pure and beautiful – and subtly different each time. They enter the gallery incognito, looking just like other members of the viewing public (the staging is by Royal Exchange chief Sarah Frankom) … then suddenly the singing starts. Some of them change position each time, and the music works in different tempos and textures.

The extra aspect to all this is that after Vox Clamantis have done their duty singing Drei Hirtenkinder Aus Fátima over three days, some of our own north west vocal groups take over – Rochdale Youth Choir, Oldham Youth Choir, Manchester Chamber Choir, Ordsall A Capella Singers, the Sacred Sounds Women’s Choir, the King Edward Musical Society, Manchester Singers, Wigan Youth Choir, Siemens Choir & Friends, and the William Byrd Singers.

The piece is less than a minute long, but if the others emulate the Estonians’ work rate and perform it around five times in a 15-minute set in each half-hour, I reckon it will have been done over 670 times by the end of next week.

 

****

Until July 19.

 

Robert Beale

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