Joby Talbot’s ‘Path of Miracles’

St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh - 09/11/24

Calton Consort – cond. Rory Wilson; Lisa McDonald – artistic director

Composer Joby Talbot’s extraordinarily beautiful choral work, ‘Path of Miracles’, takes its inspiration and multilingual texts from the world-famous network of pilgrimage routes on the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James, culminating in Galicia, north-western Spain.

It has achieved considerable artistic reach since it was first commissioned for Nigel Short’s acclaimed vocal group, Tenebrae, in 2005. Most recently it was a central feature of the Lammermuir Festival in September this year, being dramatically performed in the Concorde Hangar at the National Museum of Flight, just south of the village of East Fortune.

A largely unaccompanied choral work (there are bells at the beginning and near the end, plus some short organ prompts) the hour long, multi-part piece requires a vaulting acoustic, careful choreography, considerable coordination and good vocal resonance across a large space to really work. The central choir in St Giles Cathedral provided a fine setting for an excellent, well received performance of this arresting modern choral masterwork by the Calton Consort.

Edinburgh’s 38-strong leading chamber consort, ably marshalled by music director Rory Wilson and theatre director Lisa McDonald, did themselves proud. From the opening drone to the final fading notes, the 17-part ‘Path of Miracles’ proved an absorbing aesthetic treat, delivered with feeling and precision.

Musically it combines modern choral technique, contrapuntal touches, some well-layered post-minimalist repetition, and the occasional element of chromaticism with plentiful references towards earlier centuries of church music and hints of plainchant. The overall effect is transcendental, blending devotion and moments of joy with pain, suffering and questing. Just as an extended pilgrimage will.

The soprano, alto, tenor and bass sections of the Calton Consort were well divided and elided, as the piece required. Dressed in pilgrimage attire (including some understandably none-too-full rucksacks), the singers moved the music within and across the audience, seated in a number of blocks facing each other. The whole was framed by part-illuminated pillars and arches in subtly changing footlight colours.

The work itself is divided into four movements. The first, Roncesvalles (named after a village in the Pyrenees), begins with a low drone, evoking the Bunun people's eight-part sacred song, the pasibutbut. This rises in pitch to climax in the prayer of Santiago from the Codex Compostellus, the principle witness to the 12th century Liber Sancti Jacobi (Book of Saint James).

Six languages – English, Spanish, Basque, French, German, Greek and Latin – are used to narrate the story of St James throughout the piece, representing the diversity of pilgrims from many nations and lands moving together, in groups, towards the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

The second movement, Burgos (named after a city in the autonomous community of Castile and León), is concerned with the pain, challenge and physical blisters endured as part of the pilgrimage. León, the third, focuses on streaming sunlight, the beauty of the stained glass, and various miracles which encourage the pilgrims on their way, despite discouragements.

The final movement, Santiago, returns to material from the first, both echoing and developing its theme. It employs a part adapted directly from ‘Carmina Burana’ (Carla Orff), referencing dramatic and poetic texts from the 11th and 12th centuries. The Santiago hymn celebrates the grandeur of the cathedral, and then returns to conclude the piece in controlled ecstasy.

Joby Talbot is a composer with a wide musical palette; one he has adapted to a wide range of purpose – including film and television scores, works for contemporary dance and ballet, a chamber symphony, and an opera. ‘Path of Miracles’ is one of his greatest achievements to date. It deserves a wide audience (this one was encouragingly mixed in age and profile), as does the Calton Consort, an undoubted jewel in Edinburgh’s diverse musical crown.