November 6th 2011
| Review |
| Chris
Guy Memorial Concert |
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Ringwood Musical & Dramatic Society Choir Ringwood Parish Church, Ringwood ‘IT’S a bit of a shoehorn job, I’m afraid,’ said the man on the door, and Ringwood Parish Church was indeed packed for this unique concert. Why unique? RMDS having been founded in 1911, the Society’s choir was set to perform a centenary concert last June. Just a couple of weeks before the performance, their joint Musical Director, Chris Guy, died at the shockingly early age of 53. The event was cancelled and replaced by this concert, whose uniqueness lay in the fact that it was primarily a memorial to Chris but also fulfilled the original purpose of celebrating the Society’s centenary. Chris’s widow, Ivy Tan, who had shared the role of Musical Director with him, conducted, and the choir drew inspiration from the emotion of the evening to give an outstanding performance. They gave us an eclectic programme, ranging from Mozart to Lloyd Webber, from Puccini to the theme from ‘Rawhide’. It was a decision perhaps more courageous than wise to start with ‘O Fortuna’ from ‘Carmina Burana’ before the choir was warmed up, but the Kyrie from Mozart’s C Minor Mass gave them a chance to demonstrate their balance and their sensitive support for the soloist, Anita Rosser. The other highlight of the first half was the gorgeous voice of Society stalwart Poppy Garvey singing two arias from ‘Madame Butterfly’. Chris Guy had written specially for the Society’s centenary ‘Dance and Alleluias’, which he dedicated to ‘all members of RMDS, past, present and future’. It opened the second half and moved the choir’s singing onto a higher plane. The timing and the harmonies of the Alleluias were devilishly complex in places, but the choir rose magnificently to the challenge and if there was a spine-tingling moment above all others when one knew that they were singing in tribute to Chris, this was it. The demanding Choral Suite from Howard Shore’s music for ‘Lord of the Rings’ maintained the standard and produced choral singing of the very highest quality. The choir’s efforts were both accompanied by and interspersed with contributions from a brass ensemble made up of musical friends and former colleagues of Chris – he was principal percussionist of the BSO for eight years. Their pieces included Chris’s own composition, ‘Ten Five’, and the virtuosic ‘White Rabbit’ by Ron Goodwin. Even on such a special evening, there were inevitably things that were not perfect. Occasionally the soprano line was a little thin, while at times, especially in ‘O Fortuna’ and ‘Rawhide’, the singing was comprehensively drowned by the accompaniment. It was distracting that there was so much sitting down and standing up during the Shore Choral Suite: it is indeed a long piece, but a choir singing at this level should be able to stay on their feet throughout. These were minor blemishes, though, on a five-star performance. Thinking afterwards about what had made it so special, I concluded that I had rarely seen such a strong rapport between a conductor and a choir. One can only imagine what an evening of mixed emotions it must have been for Ivy Tan, but her control of the music was as superb as the choir’s reaction to her. At the end of the concert, she and her choir – and, surely, Chris Guy – were accorded a standing ovation, which is a rare tribute but on this occasion thoroughly deserved. In his introductory remarks, the genial MC, Richard Bennett, pointed out that we were celebrating ‘a remarkable centenary and a remarkable man’. The result was a remarkable concert.
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John Newth |