Paul Carr’s Awakening

22 June 2024

A remarkable concert took place in Salisbury Cathedral last Saturday, when the Salisbury Musical Society was joined by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, plus the Cathedral Choristers, under the direction of David Halls. The primary purpose of this great gathering of musicians was to present the second performance of Awakening, a new work by Paul Carr which had received its first performance in the Lighthouse, Poole, a fortnight earlier with a different conductor and tenor soloist. The second half of the concert was entirely taken up by this notable new work 

The first half started with the unaccompanied choirs singing the hymn How shall I sing that majesty, set to a beautiful modal tune by Thomas Tallis, first published in 1567. The cohesion and clear diction of the 270 singers was impressive. It was a master-stroke to move on without any pause to Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on the same theme. The strings of the BSO played this haunting work beautifully, with its many iterations of the tune passing seamlessly between the large and small ensembles.  The combined choirs and full orchestra then performed Hubert Parry’s well-known anthem, Blest Pair of Sirens. David Halls chose just the right tempi to keep the huge number of singers in perfect coordination, and to produce enough volume to balance some grand Victorian splendour from the orchestra’s brass section. 

To introduce Awakening , it was very moving to hear a short introduction from Sir Terry Waite, who was held hostage in solitary confinement in Lebanon for 4 years. He spoke about how he protected his mind from deterioration by writing poetry to himself, and then by the way that music (once he was allowed a small radio) injected harmony to his soul and sustained his hope. 

Awakening is described as a spiritual choral work based around the history of Stonehenge. Setting 16 spiritual poems by Stephen Feltham, it portrays the cycle of hope experienced by humanity as it progresses through the unchanging celestial cycle exhibited by the equinoxes and solstices. It was clearly very appropriate and cleverly planned to hear this new work within a day or two of the Summer Solstice and so near to Stonehenge. It is not the place of this reviewer to analyse Feltham’s poetry – reactions probably range from inspiring to irritating, or some mixture of the two! But it was certainly helpful to read the poet’s own programme note about his book entitled Awakening, The Cycle of Hope. 

Before commenting on this performance of Awakening, it must be said that the acoustics of the Cathedral seemed to be even more resonant than usual at this concert. The initial welcome from the Cathedral’s Precentor was unintelligible (at least from the back rows of the audience), and there were times during the performance when the orchestra significantly overwhelmed the singers and tenor soloist. It was sometimes difficult to follow the text, and (with the help of a piano reduction of the full score) it was apparent that some orchestral detail was lost due to the prolonged resonance. The score frequently calls for fairly rapidly-moving accompaniments, deep bass notes, and repeated figurations which were blurred by the reverberation. But there were also passages of quiet beauty, together with possibly the loudest sounds ever heard in Salisbury Cathedral.  Paul Carr favours large climactic chords for especially significant words. Example were “I believe” (Spring Equinox), “Earth’s Wonders” (Summer Solstice),”Journey done” (Autumn Equinox), and “Go forth with Joy” (Winter Solstice). Most of these called for fff  from every singer, player, extensive percussion, organ and all. A particularly striking effect after some of these huge climaxes was to leave a single bell (or similar percussion sound) hanging in the air after everything else was silenced. The tenor soloist, John Findon, was excellent, but had to work hard in an often taxing high-lying range to be heard above the orchestra and chorus. For me personally, the most satisfying part of Awakening came in the very last section of the work. Here Paul Carr evokes an increasing feeling of hope and fulfilment by writing almost the whole Winter Solstice in C major, skilfully interweaving commentary from the tenor soloist and the Youth Choir (here the Cathedral Choristers singing beautifully).  In an inspired last page, the music gradually dies down to a pianissimo “Hope”.  

Throughout the evening David Halls conducted with absolute authority, controlling what must surely have been the largest number of performers ever assembled in the Cathedral. It is to his enormous credit that SMS was invited to share this great project with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. There must have been many hundreds of hours of administration and rehearsal behind this major and exciting event. 

 

Dr Richard Godfrey
Reviewer