Singing St Nicolas
Andrew Fardell conducting Archie Inns and the Waltham Singers in St Nicolas I was privately glad when the car CD malfunctioned, meaning that we couldn’t listen again to Benjamin Britten’s St Nicolas performed by the choir of King’s College and Stephen Cleobury, as we set out on another lengthy car journey. We’d already listened up and down the A1 to Yorkshire and it was leaving me cold. Parts of it worked well – the beautiful opening for the first violin, for instance – but the long reflective tenor arias just sounded a bit blah blah. No reflection on the performers, or indeed the composer. St Nicolas was never meant to be listened to whilst keeping an eye on speed limits and looking for the next left hand turning. Some music can cope with this treatment but not St Nicolas . I couldn’t hear the words and that matters a great deal in this piece, especially when Bishop Nicolas is thinking aloud. Without the central narrative holding the movements together the experience felt disjointed...