Dr Richard L Tang Yuk

On Sat­ur­day, April 2, Mae­stro Michael Hudlin treat­ed us to an evening of choral mu­sic with steel­pan at Queen’s Hall, Port-of-Spain. Many con­cert-go­ers were hap­py to be back at­tend­ing a live con­cert af­ter two years of no per­for­mances.

The choir of 10 singers fea­tured some well-known names in the clas­si­cal mu­sic com­mu­ni­ty. The 6-mem­ber Ly­di­an Steel en­sem­ble ac­com­pa­nied on sev­er­al pieces.

Con­duc­tor Michael Hudlin is a strong leader, his con­duct­ing tech­nique is very good, and he knows what he wants. Gen­er­al­ly, the choir did a good job with the whole pro­gramme which ranged from con­tem­po­rary clas­si­cal a cap­pel­la works through un­usu­al arrange­ments of spir­i­tu­als to a glo­ri­ous Han­del baroque can­ta­ta. I must thank Mr Hudlin for in­tro­duc­ing me to the set­ting of Psalm 22, ‘Eli, Eli Lama Sabachthani’ (My God, why hast thou for­sak­en me?) by Hun­gar­i­an com­pos­er La­jos Bár­dos. The mu­sic is rem­i­nis­cent of the styles of Zoltan Kodá­ly (Hun­gar­i­an) and Fran­cis Poulenc (French).

At cer­tain points in the con­cert, one could ad­mire the de­tail of dic­tion and the in­ci­sive rhyth­mic dri­ve, and re­peat­ed­ly, the ob­vi­ous depth of vo­cal tal­ent as­sem­bled for this event.

Sev­er­al of the singers per­formed so­los or duets. Of note was the duet Ride Up In The Char­i­ot arranged by J Rose­mond John­son and per­formed by Saman­tha Stanis­laus and Ja­nine Charles-Far­ray, ac­com­pa­nied by Jes­sel Mur­ray on the key­board. This was the most pol­ished work on the pro­gramme in its ex­e­cu­tion and per­for­mance craft.

Mur­ray’s ac­com­pa­ni­ment on the key­board through­out was im­pres­sive in its nu­anced phras­ing and sen­si­tiv­i­ty to tonal colour. It is rare to hear mu­si­cal­i­ty at this lev­el.

The pro­gramme’s sig­na­ture work was Han­del’s set­ting of Psalm 110, Dix­it Domi­nus, one of the most chal­leng­ing in the choral reper­to­ry. Ex­e­cut­ing some­thing as dif­fi­cult as Dix­it Domi­nus was a feat of tech­nique and en­durance. De­spite a cou­ple mo­ments of in­se­cu­ri­ty in the ac­com­pa­ny­ing steel en­sem­ble, Mae­stro Hudlin is to be com­mend­ed for pro­gram­ming it, as chal­leng­ing our mu­si­cians is the on­ly way to im­prove their skills.

I will now of­fer some crit­i­cal feed­back in the spir­it of guid­ing our tal­ent­ed younger gen­er­a­tion on the path to ex­cel­lence, es­pe­cial­ly since the pro­gram was ti­tled ‘The pur­suit of great­ness’ and Mr Hudlin, in his pro­gramme notes, says, “We are to then be hon­est with our­selves and dis­cern how we can do bet­ter.”

The is­sue that con­cerned me the most was the am­pli­fi­ca­tion of the singers and in­stru­men­tal­ists with an elec­tron­i­cal­ly su­per­im­posed ar­ti­fi­cial re­ver­ber­a­tion. Now, be­fore you call me a purist, let me of­fer a few rea­sons why this is un­de­sir­able.

When you am­pli­fy your choir and in­stru­men­tal­ists you are re­lin­quish­ing artis­tic con­trol of the prod­uct. As ev­i­denced when at one point the so­pra­nos be­gan at the req­ui­site pi­ano dy­nam­ic, but the sound op­er­a­tor judg­ing this to be too soft, set the lev­el high­er. When the so­pra­nos then ef­fect­ed a crescen­do in the mu­sic, the cli­max of the phrase was too loud to the point of dis­tor­tion. The sound en­gi­neer does not know the score as well as the mu­si­cians per­form­ing, s/he prob­a­bly on­ly heard it twice. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, how are sen­si­tive mu­si­cians able to de­vel­op their craft of in­ter­act­ing and re­spond­ing to a di­a­logue be­tween sec­tions in the tex­ture when some­one who does not know the score is ma­nip­u­lat­ing the lev­els? Clas­si­cal mu­sic has a much wider spec­trum of dy­nam­ics than con­tem­po­rary or pop­u­lar mu­sic. This dy­nam­ic spec­trum is a quin­tes­sen­tial part of the art and mu­si­cians are trained to con­trol it them­selves. By am­pli­fy­ing you are al­so con­tribut­ing to the de­sen­si­ti­sa­tion of the au­di­ence’s lis­ten­ing abil­i­ty.

Fel­low mu­si­cians, can we please, please not mic clas­si­cal mu­sic con­certs!

Clas­si­cal mu­sic is acoustic sound, and mic’ing re­moves all the nat­u­ral­ly oc­cur­ring har­mon­ic over­tones which is what pro­vides an en­sem­ble with its char­ac­ter­is­tic acousti­cal ha­lo. When we speak of the ‘tone’ of a choir, to a large ex­tent these nat­u­ral­ly oc­cur­ring har­mon­ics en­hance the tone. Re­mem­ber as well that mic’ing am­pli­fies every­thing, the good and the not so good. Every glitch will be glar­ing­ly am­pli­fied.

How­ev­er, I was pleased that there was a very good au­di­ence, and that so many, both au­di­ence and per­form­ers, were able to ex­pe­ri­ence some so­phis­ti­cat­ed works of mu­sic. I ful­ly sup­port Mae­stro Hudlin in his en­deav­ours and look for­ward to the next event. On­ward and up­ward!

Richard L Tand Yuk is the for­mer ex­ec­u­tive & artis­tic di­rec­tor, The Prince­ton Fes­ti­val,

for­mer di­rec­tor of Choral Mu­sic, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty,

for­mer choral con­duct­ing fac­ul­ty, In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty

For­mer Mu­sic fac­ul­ty, West­min­ster Con­ser­va­to­ry, Prince­ton