JAMES GILCHRIST SINGS, JEREMY THURLOW PLAYS AT ST. BOTOLPH'S
James Gilchrist
Little wonder James Gilchrist is as internationally famous as he is. In a cycle of songs he inhabits every one of them. His beautiful tenor voice has such a range of expression. In fact it’s hard to believe after the performance in the lovely ancient church of St. Botolph, patron saint of pilgrims, that you have travelled quite as far as you have with just one singer - Gilchrist has so many personae, he creates the distinct impression of a much larger cast of characters. Could all those men in his repertoire, from the desperate Scottish hunter to the divinely in love, be just him? One singer?
His accompianist Jeremy Thurlow is a perfect match for this artist. In fact although James Gilchrist has toured the world with his songs, he decided to name Thurlow as Master of the Piano - mainly for his command of his complex interpretation of Fauré’s settings of the nine part sequence. La bonne chanson by poet Paul Verlaine. Many pianists, he told us, had found the task anything but joyous, but Thurlow made the very most of a sublime piece - his lovely playing enhanced these songs of love joy and sublime contentment in the presence of nature .
The concert began with George Butterworth’s music for A.E. Houseman’s ‘ A Shropshire Lad’. Often performed these songs are sad enough but James Gilchrist made them dramatically heartbreaking. And sometimes more than that. As the narrator questions the ghost of his friend killed in battle in ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ the dead man’s questions become so exigent, his friend becomes defensive - and aggressive. He loves another man’s sweetheart “never ask me whose”. Written before the first world war these songs are prescient. : ‘The Lads in their Hundreds’ who’ll never come home’ would become lads in their thousands and tens of thousands as we so tragically know. This insight of disaster emphasises the futility of the whole desperate war project. And it’s distanced from the often hard but lovely rural world they knew and would never return to. Yes we’ve heard this work before , but this time, we were in tears.
What made this concert unusual was the dèbut for three composers. Christopher Brown chose a theme by Rilke. It was a moment of epiphany for the poet . He is struck , almost literally from the ‘sky, air. light, a being’ and he feels it s grants him ‘honour and a task ’Like a bell sounded by a blow he hears his role self saying and singing what it knew . I can.’ But this poetic affirmation in the hands of Brown, becomes a massive endorsement of himself, of his ambition or create impulse. The music takes over for an almost rough I can. Very impressive.
Timothy Brown, all three composers were there in person, chose a strange haunting tale an Anonymous text from the sixteenth century called “ Wandering in this place’ it has the bleak threat of an unprotected heathland or moor - all the energy of music comes to amplify the feeling of dread.
Jeremy Thurlow
Jeremy Thurlow chose a poem by John Burnside, very much a modern man, he was once a computer programmer. Confiteor, the ‘I confess’ of the Catholic liturgy, makes us wonder what is on his conscience.. But the simple experience of a man who steps out of a snowy cabin to confront something he does not recognise “Dead of night, new snow, the larch woods filling slowly’ finds nothing . But on return to his golden lit porch he hears behind him ( the at my back’ is so clear in the the music) something of deep resonance - and terror. And the music underlines the claim “ As I live and breathe” rings out from the confusion of the vision. Chillng mysterious .
It was a such a varied concert, all master minded by James Gilchrist in his intense vital command, and beautiful playing by Jeremy Thurlow, it baulked the imagination. Part religious out of body terror, part life affirmation, it was a remarkable experience.
