Last Saturday I was delighted to attend the Sonoro 10th anniversary/Valentine’s concert. The evening was a programme of contemporary choral works exploring life, love and the human spirit in a programme entitled ‘Heart and Soul’, including two of Stephen Dodgson’s Four Poems of Mary Coleridge (for choir and flute – played by Katherine Bicknell) that feature on their recent all-Dodgson CD ‘Canticle of the Sun’ alongside works by Judith Weir, Cecilia McDowell, Will Todd, Gabriel Jackson, Bernard Hughes, co-director Michael Higgins and several other great contemporary British composers, as well as a choral arrangement of a Laura Mvula song and a nod further afield to Canada with Eleanor Daley’s beautiful Upon You Heart (setting much-loved ‘Song of Solomon’ text ‘Set me as a seal upon your heart’).
Neil Ferris, Katherine Bicknell and Sonoro perform two of Stephen Dodgson’s ‘Four Poems of Mary Coleridge’
Photos © Rebecca Cresta
Conductor Neil Ferris introduced Stephen Dodgson and the two pieces quite movingly, speaking of having known some of his instrumental work in his earlier days but the choral works being a real journey of discovery, and about Dodgson’s own background as composer, broadcaster and professor, and his importance within the musical fabric of British music. In performance, the first and third of the Mary Coleridge poems were warmly beguiling with an underlying seam of something rather more fretful and unsettled (most particularly in the flute in counterpart to the choir) – a quality that Dodgson achieved so brilliantly. Neil and I discussed them afterwards too. We’re both particular fans of this Coleridge set, although the concert with its positive themes steered rather clear of the two darker ones in the set, which I absolutely love and encourage you to listen to!
It was a lovely evening with a gently warm and buzzing atmosphere, and a full audience. And Sonoro were on excellent form – I often think of them as similar in richness and versatility to the BBC Singers. And the encore they indulged at the end – moving away from the British contemporary composer theme with the beautiful, simple ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’ from Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem – was pitch perfect.
Listen to ‘Canticle of Sun’ including Four Poems of Mary Coleridge >
