Tower Voices New Zealand at St Michael's Church

Karen Grylls

The 27 singers enter, followed by conductor Karen Grylls and, without a word of introduction, they carry us away to heaven itself with Corona aurea, a motet by the Renaissance composer Peter Phillips.

Tower Voices New Zealand are on the eve of a European Tour that will see them taking part in the highly regarded Marktoberdorf Chamber Choir Competition, and this is a taste of some of the music that they will be taking with them.

Apart from some limp Shakespeare settings by William Mathias, with rattling piano accompaniment, the choices show class.

Gesualdo's Dolcissima mia vita has its ear-teasing harmonies pinned to perfection, and the singers account for all the considerable detail in Brahms' Wenn wir in hochsten noten sein.

As the final chord of the Brahms dies away, Grylls' arms linger momentarily in the air as if trying to contain the many wonderful notes that she has drawn from the choir.

Poulenc's Un soir de neige reveals the singers' vocalism at its most lustrous. These four snowscapes were written during a bleak 1944 Christmas in occupied France and show the French composer's ability to merge the chaste and the passionate with a dash of irony - a timely piece when too many forget or are unaware of man's inhumanities to his fellow man.

Tower Voices also remind us that they will be promoting our own composers on their tour.

David Hamilton's Veni, Sancte Spiritus spins complex textures around St Michael's ample acoustics, showcases a sturdy tenor section and takes its leave with resounding alleluias.

New to me are Anthony Ritchie's Widows Songs, settings of three Cilla McQueen poems on grief.

The composer finds just the right tone for these exquisitely observed minutiae of life, with tenors and basses evoking the chill of winter winds on either side of the cycle.

David Griffiths' three James K. Baxter settings of Lie, deep my love show once again that Griffiths is without peer in this field. Sumptuously voiced by composer and singers alike, laid out over eight parts, this is music to lose yourself in as you contemplate the poet's singular visions of the ever-changing and ever-challenging cycle of life.

Review

*Who: Tower Voices New Zealand
*Where: St Michael's Church