Elder, Hallé Orchestra
and Halle Children’s Choir, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
’Tis the season for
big children’s choirs to show off their end-of-season projects, and the Hallé
Children’s Choir and Hallé Orchestra had something exceptional to present under
Sir Mark Elder’s baton on Sunday afternoon: the world premiere of Jonathan
Dove’s A Brief History of Creation.
Commissioned by the
Hallé for the children’s choir, it formed the second part of a concert that
began with Bizet’s L’Arlesienne Suite no.
1 and Britten’s The Young Person’s
Guide to the Orchestra, at the Bridgewater Hall.
There’s little doubt
that this will be a piece other accomplished children’s choirs allied with big
orchestras will want to sing: its greatest virtue being its immediate accessibility
in performance to listeners of all ages, especially younger ones.
It’s a substantial
piece, taking most of an hour, and requiring an orchestra with triple woodwind
and at least three percussionists, playing a battery of different instruments,
including a waterphone. The Hallé employed an extra waterphonist and instrument
(both examples were played with a bow), in the event.
The piece describes,
as the title suggests, the creation of the universe and then the world, taking
the story through millions of years of evolution to the birth of mankind. The
words are by Dove’s long-time collaborator, Alasdair Middleton, and tell of the
origins of life, the universe and everything on the basis of a thorough rummage
through the latest science.
So not so much a Representation
of Chaos at the start as a Big Bang – though there was a bit of pretty clear
quantum disorder immediately following it – and then we’re into fanfares and
eddying motifs as matter comes into being and the poem begins with ‘Starlight
…’
The story proceeds
with neo-Wagnerian sound effects to represent the depths of the earth and the
mighty beasts that ultimately inhabit it, and it’s a score alight with
glittering ideas … and not a few jokes. The Earth cools, for instance, under
‘Rain and rain: For the next few centuries; More of the same’, which is a very
Mancunian concept.
The 13 individual
sections are too many to describe in detail, but one that stood out – and might
even prove a detachable excerpt – is about the dinosaurs: ‘We’re dinosaurs and
we are dead; we on one another fed; not much went on in our head; a comet
killed us, so it’s said …’ It has a jazzy, stride-sort-of accompaniment, and
the choir had a lot of fun with it.
Then begins an
extensive bestiary from past and present, and it’s not long before we hear
about whales, which is where the waterphones come in. They make whalesong, of
course.
A Brief History of Creation is an enchanting piece, and from the
appearance of microphones around the stage it seems a published recording may
be in prospect.
The entertainment
value of the Hallé’s version of The Young
Person’s Guide, with up-to-date new narration by ex- Hallé horn player Tom
Redmond and already well known to their younger audiences, was equally high.
****
Robert Beale
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