A Cappella News

The Herald (Scotland):

If you were impressed by the National Youth Choir of Scotland's contribution to the BBC's Last Night of the Proms from Glasgow Green, the important news is that you heard not a scintilla of the capabilities of Christopher Bell's young charges.

The bad news is that you have also missed your opportunity, as this was the last concert by the current line-up. The NYCoS method being the highly efficient machine it has become, I doubt there is a better-drilled choir of this size in the country, so the Henry Wood arrangement of the Skye Boat Song, which they reprised here, was a piece of cake. Stuart Hope's tricky treatment of O Whistle And I'll Come Tae Ye was the meatiest of a trio of Scots songs, but these were just the tiramisu after the piatti principali. Bernstein, Faure, Rachmaninov and Kodaly's rarely heard Missa Brevis – the "unfeasibly high" soprano part despatched with aplomb, and range to spare I'd guess, by the girls in this outfit – were the published attractions, but it was a late addition to the programme that was the sensation.

Five Latin hymns from the Gloria Patri by Estonian composer Urmas Sisask (nope, me neither) were a building delight, the staccato Benedicamus followed by the wordless, oscillating Oremus, and then a sensational finale, Confitemini Domino, more recognisably in the Baltic choral tradition and featuring call and response between a small choir within the ranks and the rest of the singers.

Posted by acapnews at September 15, 2005 10:33 PM