Choral Review: The Sixteen return to STL at the Cathedral Basilica

This past Thursday evening (October 17), for the second concert of its current season, Cathedral Concerts featured the British choral ensemble The Sixteen, in their long-overdue return to St. Louis and their first-ever appearance at the Cathedral Basilica, as well as the first stop on their fall 2024 USA tour.  In their previous visit to St. Louis, The Sixteen sang at the Church of St. Michael and St. George on Wydown Boulevard.  The Cathedral Basilica is obviously a very different space and acoustic, much larger and much more reverberant.  The Sixteen and their founding director, Harry Christophers, brought their program “The Deer’s Cry”, focused on choral works by William Byrd (~1540-1623) and Arvo Pärt (born 1935), with additional selections by Thomas Tallis (~1505-1585).  This program is encapsulated on their own eponymous album on the CORO label, with the notes in the Cathedral Basilica program booklet lightly edited from the album’s notes, and the selections in the concert presented in the same order as on the album.  Of course, it’s always a rare treat to hear a given ensemble live in three dimensions compared to a recording, especially when the ensemble is from overseas.  (And for anyone who finds this review, a look at the accompanying picture above indicates that, yes, The Sixteen contain 18 singers for this tour.) 

Taking, and flipping, a tradition from reviews of popular music shows that close the review with the set list, here is the ‘set list’ for this concert, without the encore (to be mentioned later);

Byrd:  ‘Diliges Dominum’ (‘You shall love the Lord’)

Byrd:  ‘Christe qui lux es et dies’ (‘O Christ, who are light and day’)

Pärt:  ‘The Deer’s Cry’

Byrd:  ‘Emendemus in melius’ (‘Let us change for the better’)

(The above three selections were performed as a set without in-between applause, per the artists’ request)

Pärt:  ‘The Woman with the Alabaster Box’

Byrd:  ‘Miserere mihi Domine’ (‘Have mercy on me, Lord’)

Byrd:  ‘Ad Dominum cum tribularer’ (‘When I was in distress [I called] on the Lord’)

(Intermission)

Tallis / Byrd:  ‘Miserere nostri’ (‘Have mercy on us’)

Tallis:  ‘When Jesus went’

Byrd:  ‘O lux beata Trinitas’ (‘O Trinity, blessed light’)

(The above three selections were also performed as a set without in-between applause)

Pärt:  ‘Nunc Dimittis’ (‘Now let [your servant] depart’)

Byrd:  ‘Laetentur coeli’ (‘Let the heavens rejoice’)

Byrd:  ‘Tribue Domine’ (‘Grant, Lord’)

The juxtaposition between Byrd, and Tallis, with Pärt made for a very wise contrast of sound and style.  There was always going to be a clear stylistic demarcation in this program, given the four centuries that separate the two Englishmen from the time of Queen Elizabeth I and the Estonian from the time of Queen Elizabeth II.  As one might expect, Byrd and Tallis provide a richer sound in their works, while Pärt tends towards leaner textures.  However, Byrd incorporated intricate technical feats of composition that still sound mellifluous on the ears, such as writing “Diliges Dominum” as a palindrome, where the music sounds the same forwards as backwards, but you don’t notice that in performance (I certainly didn’t).  Likewise, even though Pärt’s style can have some edges and is certainly totally of the 20th and 21st centuries, his works are not “atonal” or “harsh”. 

Given their long-standing acquaintance with this program, from their performances in the UK as part of their regular “Choral Pilgrimage” concerts along with recording the album, it’s no surprise that The Sixteen displayed rock-solid musicianship throughout the concert.  One indication of the overall confidence was that Mr. Christophers strode away from the conductor’s stand several times, to exhort his singers.  It was also notable that this concert showcased the music and the ensemble without frills, without spoken introductions from Mr. Christophers about the composers or the works.  The Sixteen and Mr. Christophers simply got on with it, no fuss or muss.  This extended to the encore, William Byrd’s ‘Vigilate’ (‘Keep watch’), presented unidentified (I checked afterwards), an energetic and high-spirited work whose text actually has a theme of warning, as it continues ‘nescitis enim quando dominus domus veniat’ (‘…for you do not know when the lord of the house will come’).  In a few selections, The Sixteen appeared to factor in the Cathedral Basilica’s prolonged reverberation time, particularly with the English-language works, which came through remarkably clearly.  At other times, in several of the Latin-text selections, the group seemed to throw such acoustic caution out the window.  On a few occasions, one could see individual members gazing up at the ceiling, as if in wonder, or to wonder, at what they walked into acoustically.

The crowd size numbered just a few hundred, which was a shame, as the quality of this concert merited a far bigger audience.  Interestingly, an out-of-town group represented a substantial percentage of the audience and somewhat showed up the locals, in a classical music twist on the much-vaunted St. Louis-Chicago historical rivalry.  Before the concert, a tour bus from a Chicago-based company was parked on Lindell Boulevard.  Inside, a group of ~40-50 young people was present.  This group, from that bus, was a chorus from Elmhurst University on a college recruitment tour.  Mr. Christophers graciously chatted with the Elmhurst University students during the intermission, to their delight.  After the concert, the Elmhurst students and their director, Sarah Jaewon Catt, rehearsed briefly in the west transept.  Mr. Christophers and several of The Sixteen’s singers observed the Elmhurst choir and applauded them after they finished.

The Sixteen are the first of three top-line British choral ensembles on the Cathedral Concerts calendar this season.  One hopes that The Sixteen will return, with less of a gap than from their previous visit, and to a larger audience that they so very much deserve.