Mirabilé

The impressively re-furnished Long Gallery at Nottingham Castle was the venue last night for a prestigious recital by Upper-voice Ensemble Mirabilé, under the precise but impassioned direction of Conductor Anthony Rose.

Mirabilé delighted a capacity audience with a forward-looking and aspirational programme of delightfully varied choral music.

Romantic composers were well-represented, in the persons of Schubert, Brahms and Rheinberger, but the evening belonged to the contemporary sound-world of Paulus, Wilberg, Ritter, Ešenvalds and the American master-choralist Eric Whitacre.

Mirabilé has a trademark sound of deep romantic warmth. The singers were on home territory with the lush sonorities of the Romantics, but the beating heart of the programme was disclosed to us in the group of songs just before the interval, songs of loss, longing and separation, culminating in Wilberg’s fully-realised and soulful arrangement of the folk-song ‘Shenandoah’ - the wide Missouri, indeed.

Any lingering fear that the upper-voice format would lead to a monochrome performance was quickly dispelled, as the choral composers on show displayed great ingenuity in the selection and blending of the available sonorities of Soprano, Mezzo-soprano and Contralto, both in ensemble and as solos. Tone qualities ranged from the sumptuous (Rheinberger and Brahms) to effortless lyricism (Schubert) and stylish, sassy jazz vocals (Rutter). Add this to Mirabilé’s technical and you had a choral experience to savour; balance, blend and intonation were flawless throughout, even in long a Capella sections - no mean achievement (Ešenvald’s ‘Only in Sleep’),

Mirabilé is blessed with two young soprano soloists at the top of their game, in terms of vocal freshness and characterisation. Hannah Ruth MacDonald showed both power and drama, making the whole Gallery ring to its rafters. She delivered teasing subtlety in a charming Neapolitan song by Donizetti, but, in contrast, understated character and lyricism in Brahms’ ‘An die Nachtigall’.

Samantha Joy Taylor gave us a music-theatre masterclass in Weill’s ‘What good would the moon be’ - Broadway on a stick! - and then took us soaring skywards on an unforgettable flight through the moonlit landscape of Schumann’s ‘Mondnacht’.

Ally Levell had one short solo and impressed with her effortless clarity, leaving us wanting more.

The addition of the fiery but expressive violin timbres of Clare Bhabra and Elisabeth Slater gave refreshing tonal contrast to the voices, from the heart-tugging melancholy of Whitacre’s ‘Five Hebrew Love Songs’ to the symphonic expansiveness of two Elgar part-songs. (One suspects that Elgar enjoyed writing the violin parts as much, if not more, than than the vocal parts!) Bhabra excelled in her show-stopper solo, Kreisler’s gutsy post-baroque crowd-pleaser, the ‘Praeludium and Allegro’.

Susan Foster’s piano, so much more than mere accompaniment, extracted both poetry and drama from the scores, making their fiendish intricacies and complexities seem child’s play. Conductor Anthony Rose joined her to form a most effective piano duet for ‘Shenandoah’ - yet another pitch-perfect splash of tonal variety.

It takes years of intensive collaboration to build the mutual understanding needed to produce work of this quality, and Mirabilé, under Musical Director Rose, has certainly put in the hard miles. He is clearly the guiding light behind this remarkable group of singers. His style is economical and undemonstrative, but always laser-focussed, enabling all his singers to find, and glory in, their self-expression. Their faces tell all.

We have much to be proud of in our lovely City of Nottingham. On this occasion, the gracious architecture of the Long Gallery, with its so-intelligently re-imagined art curation, and our own musical ambassadors Mirabilé richly deserved each other.