Concert Review: Viva Voce at St Patrick's Cathedral

Matt Landreth (left), soloist with the Viva Voce choir, rehearsing with conductor John Rosser. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Viva Voce's full-scale French concert on Saturday may have been titled Denial Decision Deliverance but conductor John Rosser warned a capacity audience that decisions would come first - with Charpentier's The Judgment of Solomon.

Charpentier's response to the dilemma of the Old Testament monarch is a generously proportioned miniature oratorio and Rosser did full justice to its richly energised fusion of French and Italian styles.

Extended paragraphs of English translation in the printed programme may not have always clarified proceedings, but the choir offered a fine line in jubilation, particularly in the celebratory final chorus.

Andrew Glover's Solomon introduced himself with regal assurance but, by the end, after some passing vocal strain, had made curiously little of Solomon's final pronouncement.

The outstanding soloist was Emma Roxburgh, whose Real Mother was a living, breathing woman, even at the remove of three centuries. Here is a singer who knows how to illuminate a text in song, most beautifully in duet with David Garner's cello. The Denial of St Peter, a more compact score, was restricted to continuo accompaniment, with the exemplary James Tibbles on organ and harpsichord.

If able soloists did not always lift Charpentier's characters from the page, Rosser's dramatic conception did not err.

The choir impressed with superb dynamic control and a profusion of airy cadential ornamentations.

After interval, Faure's Requiem took on a new glow in the cathedral spaces. From the sumptuous six-part harmonies of the Introit to the ethereal beauties of the final In Paradisum, which composer Charles Koechlin placed on a par with Fra Angelico's frescoes, the choir excelled itself. The contrapuntal textures of the Offertoire were strong and confident.

Baritone soloist Matt Landreth seemed more relaxed than he had been in Charpentier, and Mitchell Hageman offered an nicely understated Pie Jesu.

Again, it was Rosser's directorial skill, combined with the intimacy of the venue, which revealed the spiritual inner core of this piece, with the flowing viola lines being a particular joy.

An encore of Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine was introduced eloquently by its conductor but did not quite catch the French writer's "fire of mighty grace", a quality effortlessly achieved in the Requiem.