Rich, moving prelude to Easter by choir and orchestra in ideal setting

AS a suitable setting for reflections on the Easter story, Dorchester Abbey would be hard to beat.

Benson Choral Society and West Forest Sinfonia were massed in front of the towering east window, sombrely clad in black, ready to start with a performance of Richard Blackford’s Pietà.

This dramatic, highly-charged music is extraordinary.

Together with some of the words of the Stabat Mater and poetry by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, it focuses on the agony of Christ’s mother in response to her son’s
crucifixion.

Through the intense poignancy and building tension of his piece, Blackford gives voice to any parent who has lost a child.

Akhmatova’s son was arrested and held by Stalin’s KGB and these poems were inspired by the devastation she felt. By the close of the performance, the atmosphere of grief was almost palpable in the abbey, although we were simultaneously uplifted by the magnificence of the music.

The choral society and the orchestra, conducted by Jonathon Cole-Swinard and led by Jeremy Boughton, gave a sensitive and confident performance, enhanced by three excellent soloists: Huw Wiggins on soprano saxophone, which underlined Mary’s utter desolation, Victoria Simmonds whose powerful mezzo-soprano voice enveloped the abbey with its beauty and power, and Stephen Gadd, a baritone of rich intensity.

The second half of the concert, Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, gave a comforting and peaceful vision of heaven after the despairing turbulence of the first.

The familiarity of the melodies was soothing and beatific, with Simmonds’s Pie Jesu soaring to the roofs of this ancient church. The choir’s interaction with Gadd in Libera Me was full of drama and the closing In paradisum reassured the listener that all would be well.

We had been taken on a wonderful journey this evening. The programme was carefully balanced and the performance must have been the outcome of some intense rehearsal of challenging pieces.

It was an event that will stay with me, particularly the Pietà, in the power of its message of universal suffering and endurance, and in its exquisitely observed expression of anguish at parental loss and suffering.

The whole ensemble should be greatly congratulated for presenting this rich and moving prelude to Easter.

Jane Redley