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| Jonathan Sells (Photo: Paul Marc Mitchell) |
In April, the Monteverdi Choir released a disc of motets by Bruckner and Gesualdo conducted by Jonathan Sells on the Soli Deo Gloria label. Recorded live in concert in October last year, this release marks the Monteverdi Choir’s 60th birthday and the 200th anniversary of Bruckner’s birth and represents Jonathan's first disc with the choir. Jonathan is perhaps best known as the artistic director of Solomon's Knot, the conductor-less ensemble known for singing everything from memory. As a singer, Jonathan was also a member of the Monteverdi Choir, but more recently has been conducting them and has now been appointed Choir Director.
The new disc interweaves sacred motets by Bruckner and Gesualdo in a programme that begins with Palestrina's Stabat Mater and includes Lotti's Crucifixus a 8. Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) whose motets are influenced by the Cecilian movement for church music reform, and Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), whose sacred music is notoriously intense and chromatic, might not seem obvious disc fellows, but Jonathan makes a real case for the pairing.
For him, both composers' music triggers similar things and the programme became a conversation between similarities and differences. Amongst their similarities he includes that both wrote motets for the Catholic Church, using similar texts and the motets on the disc focus on the cross, the Crucifixion and Mary. Jonathan finds that both composers have what he calls an expressionist approach to the harmonic language.
Gesualdo was working at a time when bold harmonic experiments were happening, the rules were loose and the limits of the harmonic language were being explored. If we take a long time frame, then for Wagner similar things were happening, with him stretching the limits of harmony. And Jonathan feels that this harmonic expressionism speaks across the centuries. For him, if you listen to the disc with your mental eyes closed, then you might not know where in time the pieces come from and the additional works, by Palestrina and Lotti, serve to fill out that picture. Palestrina's music was the inspiration for the 19th-century Cecilian Movement, and this inspired the purity and simplicity in Bruckner's music. Jonathan admits that a lot is going on in the programme, but he hopes that time and space are short-circuited so we listen to each work on its own merits and draw similarities where we might not intuitively see them.
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| Jonathan Sells & the Monteverdi Choir in Bruckner at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel, 2024 (Photo: Paul Marc Mitchell |
The disc opens with Palestrina's Stabat Mater in an edition by Richard Wagner. When I ask Jonathan if the listener will notice Wagner's changes, he smiles and admits that the short answer is no. What Wagner did was a form of choral orchestration, deciding some passages were solo and some tutti. He uses Palestrina's double choir, but then creates an additional semi-chorus as well as solos. This is his biggest intervention, but there is a lot of articulation and a variety of different accents, plus the addition of extremes of dynamics (both very loud and very soft), with sudden diminuendos and crescendos. What Wagner was doing was trying to avoid a bland performance, and to make sure people performed the work in what he saw as the right way, with a view to highlighting the text, and underlining words. Again, Jonathan sees this as very expressionist.
Whilst Bruckner was obsessed with Richard Wagner, but Palestrina was held up as the sine qua non of choral music. For the Cecilian Movement, this was the way people should 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 a million miles from Palestrina). Though known for his polyphony, Palestrina's Stabat Mater is in fact not very polyphonic but uses a lot of block chordal writing. This is something Bruckner uses, his motets frequently have a choral homophonic statement at their opening, something that Jonathan feels has made the motets very emblematic with choral singers.
This leads him to explain that the album is also a conversation between stark homophony and polyphony. Bruckner tends to start his motets with block homophony and then move on to polyphony. Whereas Gesualdo does the opposite, he starts with a single line, using imitation to create polyphony and then things stop. He uses a chordal entry on surprising harmonies for rhetorical effect, thus creating the opposite of Bruckner’s effects.
The disc was made with quite a large choir (some 37 singers) and Jonathan feels that it is important to point out that the whole programme is looking at the earlier music (Gesualdo, Lotti, Palestrina) through the 19th century frame. It would be possible to perform the Gesualdo motets with just five singers, but Jonathan wanted to hear them through a 19th-century lens, adding an extra layer of historical complication.
The recording was made live at a concert in the Old Royal Naval College Chapel in Greenwich. Jonathan likes live recordings in the right context and he points out that live recording reflects the way Solomon's Knot performs, inherently live and risky. With the Monteverdi Choir, the impetus for the live recording was partly practical, though making the album in one concert day is a challenge. The benefit, as Jonathan sees it, is that you get a very specific impression, the recording reflects the chapel in Greenwich. They gave the same programme in Greenwich and at Ely Cathedral, and the live performances in each were completely different, reflecting the differences between the chapel and the cathedral. For Jonathan, it is important to listen to the building and play to it.
Also, you can never recreate that live experience in the studio. For the Monteverdi Choir, this is important as the choir's performances are not about crystalline perfection, with zero vibrato and close miking, they are not trying to create a rarefied production which requires a studio environment. Instead, the Monteverdi Choir is much more heart on sleeve with big colours and choral virtuosity, triggering people's emotions in the listening room. This type of performance is reflected better in a live recording.
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| Jonathan Sells rehearsing the Monteverdi Choir in June 2024 at St Martin-in-the-Fields (Photo: Frances Marshall) |
That Jonathan sang with the Monteverdi Choir for nearly ten years is a help psychologically when it comes to conducting them as it means he inspires the trust of the singers and players. In fact, singing in the Monteverdi Choir was an important part of his training and development. As a conductor, he doesn't have a pre-set idea that he wants to impose on them; the choir has qualities that he highly prizes. Moving from singer to conductor was relatively easy as there was a clear divide as he has not sung with them since 2018.
He has worked with Solomon's Knot for over 15 years, and this has helped prepare him for his Monteverdi Choir role. For Solomon's Knot he has always prepared the music and the interpretation as a conductor would, but rehearsing from the inside (Jonathan sings bass with the ensemble) letting the performance run free. Conducting the Monteverdi Choir is something new, he now has his back to the audience for a start! But he has a talented group of colleagues and it is a thrill to feel their trust and belief in what he is doing. He feels very fortunate.
He is now Choir Director for the Monteverdi Choir. This means that he conceives his own projects with the choir, but he is also responsible for the choir in general. The Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras (MCO) is moving forward with several different conductors, each with their own different stream of work including 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 historically informed Rossini.
Jonathan prepares the choir for each of these, choosing the singers for the repertoire, rehearsing the choir and planning in consultation with the MCO team including artistic consultant James Halliday. His key job is to maintain the choir's profile, quality and personality across different repertoire and with different conductors.
The choir has two appearances at this year's Edinburgh International Festival. Jonathan will be preparing them for their performance of John Tavener's The Veil of the Temple, the mammoth eight-hour vigil which opens the festival on 2 August [further details] where the choir will be joined by the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, the National Youth Choir of Scotland, NYCOS Chamber Choir and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Sofi Jeannin.
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Elsewhere on this blog
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- Making connections between styles & eras: violinist Holly Harman & friends launch their album Ground - concert review
- Something of a revelation: forgotten songs by Robert Gund & William Grosz from Christian Immler & Helmut Deutsch - record review
- A genre finding its way: Maurice Greene's Jephtha reveals different English oratorio before Handel consolidate the form - record review
- More than novelty value: at Conway Hall, the Zoffany Ensemble explores substantial 19th century French works for nine instruments - concert review
- Creating a fun day out as well as broadening the mind: Jack Bazalgette on his first Cheltenham Music Festival as artistic director - interview
- From RVW's Sancta Civitas & Bliss' The Beatitudes to Reich's The Desert Music & Birtwistle's Earth Dances, plus 19 premieres: the BBC Proms 2025
- Fierce virtuosity & sheer delight: oboist Olivier Stankiewicz, soprano Lucy Crowe, violinist Maria Włoszczowska & friends in a captivating evening of Bach, Zelenka, Handel, Vivaldi - concert review
- Dramatic engagement: Francesco Corti directs Bach's St John Passion with the English Concert at Wigmore Hall on Good Friday - concert review
- Searching for possibilities: composer Noah Max on his four string quartets recently recorded by the Tippett Quartet on Toccata Classics - interview
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