TENEBRAE: PATH OF MIRACLES AT KINGS COLLEGE CHAPEL
Tenebrae
From deep inside the darkened Chapel, we heard voices. Or were they? Low growling resonant, unlike any human sounds. Beyond the massive mahogany rood screen, we sat amazed. This was the start of Path of Miracles by Joby Talbot, a vocal composition so unusual it was hard to predict just what would come next. - as if some chorus from primeval times had resurrected in the ancient depths of this 800-year-old building. Tenebrae was the instrument, a collection of singers renowned for their dramatic productions, directed with subtle skill by the genius of Nigel Short
For this spine-chilling opener (the programme tells us) they use a vocal effect based on the Bunun aboriginal ‘Pasiputput’ from of all places Taiwan, certainly it sounded with its random chords like some message from a long-gone civilisation. Tenebrae then processed into the light.
It was all an introduction to the famous path to Santiago. In four parts, the ancient stopping places now resplendent with magnificent cathedrals, Roncesvalles, Burgos, Léon and finally triumphantly, Santiago are the staging posts as it picks its way through the pilgrims ‘route. It is a profoundly spiritual work, the libretto a complex jigsaw of past and present written by Gabriel Crouch. The music follows the difficult path to the resting place of St. James, legendarily executed in Jerusalem after his mission to the Iberian Peninsula to which he was returned – in a stone rudderless boat. The music, wondrously other worldly, takes listeners into another realm of history. As it followed the tough road to the shrine, the choir evoked the stories of catastrophes and of miracles the pilgrims recorded over the centuries. Joby Talbot (b.1971 but he could have emerged from the mists of the past in this work) drew on a 15th century Basque Galician text the Codex Calixtinus. The first part was indeed dark and often full of dread for the dangers ahead. But it was all worthwhile when the wonderful singers sang their Santiago hymns of joy. Uninhibited, seemingly unscripted (not of course) the pilgrims let rip. But they must press on to Finisterre mysteriously, for the final consummation.
“We have walked out of our lives.
To come to where the walls of heaven
Are thin as a curtain “
King’s College Chapel must be an ideal place for this remarkable performance. Making music in its medieval majesty can be awkward. For Tenebrae’s theatrical rendition of Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, it was perfect.
The voices together were more than a choir. They seemed to rise from some unknown place. And as they processed around King’s Chapel we were caught in another time and a culture deep in our human history where the spirit held sway and lives lead a path beyond the fragile mortality of the present. Tenebrae ‘devastatingly beautiful’ took us there.
