ROYAL MALE CHOIR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26442, 22 April 1947, Page 11

ROYAL MALE CHOIR

AN ENJOYABLE PROGRAMME

A male choir, by its very nature, lacks the contrasting and complementary tonal colour that may be provided by the inclusion of female voices and is hence apt to prove somewhat monotonous in tone during a protracted concert. That the Royal Dunedin Male Choir was last evening able to present a long and enjoyable programme without any such monotony becoming apparent is due mainly to the smoothness and diversity of tone achieved by the choir itself and also to the interspersal of solo items. These were provided mainly by guest artists; Alison Cordery, soprano, and Raymond Windsor, pianist. The conductor, Mr Ernest Drake, had the choir well under control and crisp singing, together with clear enunciation, characterised the choral items. Following the singing of the New Zealand National Anthem, the choir gave a stirring rendering of Handel’s “ Sound an Alarm,” the introductory recitative being sung by Mr Lionel Powell. Tone in the high registers was somewhat forced in this item but, the choir once into its stride, this fault was not’.again noticeable. In a bracket of three negro spirituals the choir, in conjunction with the soloist, Mr Geoffrey De Lautoiir, performed remarkably well. This was especially so in the first two, “ Nobody Knows de Trouble I See ” and “Go Down, Moses,” both arranged by Granville Bantock. The choir’s pianissimo tone was a delight, and the essential poignancy of the songs was well expressed On an equally high plane was the singing of “And Now 'Tis Time to Go,” arranged from Bach’s “ Peasant Cantata," ip which the contrapuntal nature of the piece was well brought out by the choir's precise singing. In the second half of the programme the most successful choral items were “Dance. My Comrades.” enjoyed as much by the choir as the audience, and Mendelssohn's “God is a Spirit." During the concert Alison Cordery sang two groups of four songs, her best items being Richard Strauss’s “ Devotion ” and Brahms’s “ Nergebliches Standchen.” the latter being sung delightfully. Raymond Windsor contributed four items, the main works being Brahmses “ Rhapsody in B Minor ” and Chopin s “Scherzo No. 2 m B Flat Minor.” Mr Windsor is a fluent and masterly pianist and in spite of the limitations of the Town Hall instrument, his overcoming of the technical difficulties of his items left little to be desired.. F. P.