Lammermuir Festival: Sansara II - Byrd at Nunraw Abbey
Nunraw Abbey - 16/09/22
Nunraw lies in deepest East Lothian, a hinterland I’ve never explored. Driving there along winding lanes we’re in a line of traffic, all heading for the concert. Nunraw Abbey is more than an abbey, it’s a whole colony devoted to monastic pursuits. The performance is in a room with few religious trappings, more like a gym or a school assembly hall than a sacred site. In front of us plain panelling and a low-key relief of a religious figure. The music we are to hear is all Catholic. With one exception all the texts are in Latin.
Programmes are in short supply so the musical director, Tom Herring, gives us a comment before each group of songs, a move which I welcome, even though I have a programme. My neighbour, himself a choral singer, agrees that our front seats are best for the drama of the event, but the back is better for acoustics.
As a Catholic under a Protestant Queen, Byrd chose texts full of suffering. Tom tells us the music expresses much of that pain; to me it is simply glorious; even as a non-believer I find myself connecting to the spirituality, the hope of salvation. Among the nine singers seldom do two sing the same line. In that it is like a string quartet, a conversation where each voice has something unique to say. Individual singers sometimes emerge for a moment from the woven fabric but mainly we hear the complex interactions between them.
At first, I feel the room is too plain and down to earth for this religious music, but then I find it works. There are no distractions: music, singers, listeners, that’s all. The texts, mostly from the Bible, speak subtly of Catholic oppression, full of ‘libera nos’, ‘the torment of death shall not touch them’, ‘do not forsake us in the evil time’. The whole collection speaks from the heart of the Reformation conflict. One book of Byrd’s compositions was published in 1605, the very year of the Gunpowder Plot. Yet strangely Byrd, who was fined for turning his back to the Church of England, was a royally appointed musician at Elizabeth’s court.
While Tom keeps his right hand free to mark the rhythm, the other singers seldom look directly at him. But there are peripheral glances among all the members, taking visual as well as aural cues from one another. Clearly rehearsal has taken the group beyond the need for conventional conducting. And all move gently with the music, like blades of grass in a gentle wind.
Last but one is a piece by Tallis, another Catholic composer in Elizabeth’s England. Equally beautiful, its musical style is recognisably different, a more choral effect with voices working together.
For the last few pieces, the grouping of the singers is shuffled around. Presumably, this helps them to coordinate. But for us listeners it is still the same glorious web: expert interlocking of exquisite voices in a sound that takes us beyond our everyday selves.
