Art. | Northern Lights | Thanet Chamber Choir | 23 March 2024 | Minster, Kent

I'd noticed the poster for the Northern Lights concert in several places. Northern Lights - so evocative and I recgnised Grieg among the composers, I knew Peer Gynt. The others were all new to me.

It was going to be held in St Mary the Virgin, the Parish Church in Minster, the next village down from me. I love listening to music in churches, those great soaring spaces seem perfect for sound.

I was in two minds, as you often are after a busy day, running around doing this and that. But I kept going, found a parking space and made my way to the Church. Inside, there was a good crowd of people filling the two central rows of pews, to the left, the interval drnks table with orange and apple juice.

Further down, the choir, dressed in black, waiting with their bound scores, watching the crowd find their seats and settle down. In front of me, a short queue: yes, that's twelve pounds, here's your programme, yes, sit any where.

I found a little nook about four rows back, if I had been braver, I would have gone for the vacant seat in the second row, I love an unobscured view of the singers and musicians. But I was comfy where I was, nestled against one of the ancient pillars.

Source Thanet Chamber Choir performing in St Mary's Church in Minster.

The programme was comprised of mainly Scandinavian composers and, I believe, one Estonian, some still living, others from long last, contemporaries of Bach. Each half of the programme had several sung pieces, some accompanied by organ or piano-organ, interspersed by organ pieces.

The Programme

• Underlige Aftenluffe: Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) - Danish
• Landkjenning: Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) - Norwegian
• Northern Lights: Ola Gjeilo (1978-) - Norwegian
• Passacaglia: Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) - Danish
• Immortal Bach: Knut Nystedt (1915-2014) - Norwegian
• The Deer's Cry: Arvo Part (1935-) - Estonian

Interval

• Magnificat: Arvo Part (1935-)
• Astri, mi Astri: Knut Nystedt (1915-2014) - Norwegian
• Second Eve: Ola Gjello (1978-) - Norwegian
• Anitra's Dance: Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) - Norwegian
• Four Shakespeare Songs: Jaakko Mantyjarvi (1963-) - Finnish

I made notes, as I do, on the programme about my responses to the music and the additional snippets that the conductor, Greg Tassell, the Director of Music for the Choir, told us in between pieces.

The one that struck me most was Magnificat (1989) by Arvo Part.

This introduced new and fascinating ideas to me:

Tintinnabulation is the most important aspect of Pärt's Magnificat. According to Pärt's biographer and friend Paul Hillier, the Magnificat "displays the tintinnabuli technique at its most supple and refined." Pärt also uses drones; a second-line G in the alto near the end of the piece, as well as the third-space C (on which the soprano solo line always stays) which provides a tonal center for the piece. Hillier says that "many pieces [by Pärt] tend through length and repetition to establish a sense of timelessness or a continual present; the use of drones (which are in a sense a continuous repetition) reinforces this effect."

Arvo Pärt's wife Nora has said of his music:
"The concept of tintinnabuli was born from a deeply rooted desire for an extremely reduced sound world which could not be measured, as it were, in kilometres, or even metres, but only in millimetres....By the end the listening attention is utterly focused. At the point after the music has faded away it is particularly remarkable to hear your breath, your heartbeat, the lighting or the air conditioning system, for example." Source

I had a lovely chat with the people sitting around me in the interval and waved to a friend I knew on the way out. The Choir members gathered in the pub afterwards, where I also enjoyed a glass of wine.

I'm glad I went: transcending mundane reality is always good.

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