Bournemouth Bach Choir, Christchurch Priory (From Dorset Echo)

Bournemouth Bach Choir, Christchurch Priory

8:20am Monday 21st June 2010 in Music Reviews By Mike Marsh

The Armed Man, Karl Jenkins’ multilingual masterpiece emerged from the millennium celebrations and is a pointed and poignant castigation of warmongers.

Punching well above their weight the Bournemouth Bach Choir took to the choral challenges with absolute conviction both in the commanding powerhouse choruses and with commendable serenity to passages requiring softly graded singing. Their performance of the Sanctus was outstandingly mellifluous, their cries of battle anguished.

Directed by Tim Hooper with pertinent military precision the orchestral contribution made a spectacular impression; the advance guard of drums paraded own the aisle giving a formidable sense of occasion and elsewhere it was easy to imagine warriors in clanking heavy armour with trumpets and percussion booming. Chris Dowie underpinned this spectacular work from the organ.

Soloists Sara Burns, Catherine Backhouse, Timothy Gibson and Daniel Rudge lent touching sensitivity to Angry Flames and the muezzin Majid Yasin offered a spellbinding Call to Prayers; not what you’d expect in the Priory, but that is the beauty of Jenkins’ concept for A Mass for Peace.

Complementing the programme was Bernstein’s brilliant Chichester Psalms with an immaculate solo from treble chorister Daniel Bell, also featuring harpist Julia Webb.