Jonathan Sells on his disc of Bruckner & Gesualdo with the Monteverdi Choir

Jonathan Sells (Picture: Paul Marc Mitchell)

In April, the Monteverdi Choir launched a disc of motets by Bruckner and Gesualdo performed by Jonathan Sells on the Soli Deo Gloria label. Recorded stay in live performance in October final 12 months, this launch marks the Monteverdi Choir’s sixtieth birthday and the two hundredth anniversary of Bruckner’s delivery and represents Jonathan’s first disc with the choir. Jonathan is probably greatest often known as the creative director of Solomon’s Knot, the conductor-less ensemble identified for singing the whole lot from reminiscence. As a singer, Jonathan was additionally a member of the Monteverdi Choir, however extra lately has been conducting them and has now been appointed Choir Director.

The brand new disc interweaves sacred motets by Bruckner and Gesualdo in a programme that begins with Palestrina’s Stabat Mater and contains Lotti’s Crucifixus a 8. Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) whose motets are influenced by the Cecilian motion for church music reform, and Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), whose sacred music is notoriously intense and chromatic, may not appear apparent disc fellows, however Jonathan makes an actual case for the pairing.

For him, each composers’ music triggers comparable issues and the programme grew to become a dialog between similarities and variations. Amongst their similarities he contains that each wrote motets for the Catholic Church, utilizing comparable texts and the motets on the disc give attention to the cross, the Crucifixion and Mary. Jonathan finds that each composers have what he calls an expressionist method to the harmonic language.

Gesualdo was working at a time when daring harmonic experiments had been taking place, the foundations had been unfastened and the boundaries of the harmonic language had been being explored. If we take a very long time body, then for Wagner comparable issues had been taking place, with him stretching the boundaries of concord. And Jonathan feels that this harmonic expressionism speaks throughout the centuries. For him, in case you take heed to the disc together with your psychological eyes closed, you then may not know the place in time the items come from and the extra works, by Palestrina and Lotti, serve to fill out that image. Palestrina’s music was the inspiration for the Nineteenth-century Cecilian Motion, and this impressed the purity and ease in Bruckner’s music. Jonathan admits that lots is happening within the programme, however he hopes that point and area are short-circuited so we pay attention to every work by itself deserves and draw similarities the place we’d not intuitively see them.

Jonathan Sells & the Monteverdi Choir in Bruckner on the Outdated Royal Naval School Chapel, 2024 (Picture: Paul Marc Mitchell

The disc opens with Palestrina’s Stabat Mater in an version by Richard Wagner. Once I ask Jonathan if the listener will discover Wagner’s modifications, he smiles and admits that the quick reply isn’t any. What Wagner did was a type of choral orchestration, deciding some passages had been solo and a few tutti. He makes use of Palestrina’s double choir, however then creates an extra semi-chorus in addition to solos. That is his largest intervention, however there may be a number of articulation and a wide range of totally different accents, plus the addition of extremes of dynamics (each very loud and really delicate), with sudden diminuendos and crescendos. What Wagner was doing was attempting to keep away from a bland efficiency, and to verify individuals carried out the work in what he noticed as the best means, with a view to highlighting the textual content, and underlining phrases. Once more, Jonathan sees this as very expressionist.

While Bruckner was obsessive about Richard Wagner, however Palestrina was held up because the sine qua non of choral music. For the Cecilian Motion, this was the way in which individuals needs to be writing choral music. For Jonathan, Bruckner’s choral music oscillates between Palestrina and the post-Tristan Wagner (ie Wagner at his most tormented and one million miles from Palestrina). Although identified for his polyphony, Palestrina’s Stabat Mater is in truth not very polyphonic however makes use of a number of block chordal writing. That is one thing Bruckner makes use of, his motets steadily have a choral homophonic assertion at their opening, one thing that Jonathan feels has made the motets very emblematic with choral singers. 

This leads him to clarify that the album can be a dialog between stark homophony and polyphony. Bruckner tends to start out his motets with block homophony after which transfer on to polyphony. Whereas Gesualdo does the alternative, he begins with a single line, utilizing imitation to create polyphony after which issues cease. He makes use of a chordal entry on stunning harmonies for rhetorical impact, thus creating the alternative of Bruckner’s results.

The disc was made with fairly a big choir (some 37 singers) and Jonathan feels that you will need to level out that the entire programme is wanting on the earlier music (Gesualdo, Lotti, Palestrina) by means of the Nineteenth century body. It could be attainable to carry out the Gesualdo motets with simply 5 singers, however Jonathan needed to listen to them by means of a Nineteenth-century lens, including an additional layer of historic complication.

The recording was made stay at a live performance within the Outdated Royal Naval School Chapel in Greenwich. Jonathan likes stay recordings in the best context and he factors out that stay recording displays the way in which Solomon’s Knot performs, inherently stay and dangerous. With the Monteverdi Choir, the impetus for the stay recording was partly sensible, although making the album in a single live performance day is a problem. The profit, as Jonathan sees it, is that you just get a really particular impression, the recording displays the chapel in Greenwich. They gave the identical programme in Greenwich and at Ely Cathedral, and the stay performances in every had been utterly totally different, reflecting the variations between the chapel and the cathedral. For Jonathan, you will need to take heed to the constructing and play to it.

Additionally, you possibly can by no means recreate that stay expertise within the studio. For the Monteverdi Choir, that is vital because the choir’s performances should not about crystalline perfection, with zero vibrato and shut miking, they don’t seem to be attempting to create a rarefied manufacturing which requires a studio atmosphere. As an alternative, the Monteverdi Choir is way more coronary heart on sleeve with huge colors and choral virtuosity, triggering individuals’s feelings within the listening room. This kind of efficiency is mirrored higher in a stay recording.

Jonathan Sells rehearsing the Monteverdi Choir in June 2024 at St Martin-in-the-Fields (Picture: Frances Marshall)

That Jonathan sang with the Monteverdi Choir for almost ten years is a assist psychologically relating to conducting them because it means he conjures up the belief of the singers and gamers. In reality, singing within the Monteverdi Choir was an vital a part of his coaching and improvement. As a conductor, he does not have a pre-set concept that he desires to impose on them; the choir has qualities that he extremely prizes. Shifting from singer to conductor was comparatively straightforward as there was a transparent divide as he has not sung with them since 2018.

He has labored with Solomon’s Knot for over 15 years, and this has helped put together him for his Monteverdi Choir function. For Solomon’s Knot he has at all times ready the music and the interpretation as a conductor would, however rehearsing from the within (Jonathan sings bass with the ensemble) letting the efficiency run free. Conducting the Monteverdi Choir is one thing new, he now has his again to the viewers for a begin! However he has a gifted group of colleagues and it’s a thrill to really feel their belief and perception in what he’s doing. He feels very lucky.

He’s now Choir Director for the Monteverdi Choir. Which means that he conceives his personal initiatives with the choir, however he’s additionally liable for the choir normally. The Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras (MCO) is shifting ahead with a number of totally different conductors, every with their very own totally different stream of labor together with Christophe Rousset in French Baroque and oratorio, Masaaki Suzuki in Bach, Peter Whelan in Handel’s oratorios and Bach’s Passions, and Jakob Lehmann in traditionally knowledgeable Rossini.

Jonathan prepares the choir for every of those, selecting the singers for the repertoire, rehearsing the choir and planning in session with the MCO staff together with creative marketing consultant James Halliday. His key job is to keep up the choir’s profile, high quality and persona throughout totally different repertoire and with totally different conductors.

The choir has two appearances at this 12 months’s Edinburgh Worldwide Pageant. Jonathan will likely be making ready them for his or her efficiency of John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, the mammoth eight-hour vigil which opens the competition on 2 August [further details] the place the choir will likely be joined by the Edinburgh Pageant Refrain, the Nationwide Youth Choir of Scotland, NYCOS Chamber Choir and the Royal Scottish Nationwide Orchestra, performed by Sofi Jeannin.