Nottingham Choral Trust Chorus and Concert Orchestra | Elgar and Vaughan Williams

Albert Hall, Nottingham
Saturday 3 February 2007
Peter Palmer

Impressive in all areas

There are Elgar works widely acknowledged as inspired, and others on which the jury is still out. Music Makers , his last choral piece has both critics and admirers. Some say the scoring is too heavy for the subject: the power of the musicians as seers. Certainly, like so much later Elgar, it’s steeped in a wholly personal nostalgia.

Here, the momentum was preserved very deftly. Under Angela Kay’s animated guidance there was tumult and repose, sentiment and reflection. The point at which the choir first joined with the touching ex-Cantamus soloist Sarah Lilley sounded deeply impressive.

Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music was aired in its choral version. The piece draws on Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice . The Bard promises “sweet harmony” and that is what Angela Kay’s large forces achieved. The soft dynamics were reproduced as unerringly as the sopranos’ silvery top notes. Isobel Bounford led a sympathetic instrumental ensemble.