Isura Madrigal Choir provides goosebumps in the church
Created: 01/10/2023, 06:00
By: Volker Camehn
Harmonious, atmospheric, sometimes meditative: The Isura Madrigal Choir gave a concert in the Beuerberg Church of St. Peter and Paul.
© Hermsdorf-Hiss
It was an opulent Christmas cycle: the Geretsrieder Isura Madrigal Choir caused cozy goosebumps in the Church of St. Peter and Paul.
Geretsried/Beuerberg – On a hard pew and at what feels like a fresh temperature: anyone who was presented with a winter jacket and wool hat at Christmas had an advantage on Epiphany in the former collegiate church in Beuerberg.
During the performance of the Isura Madrigal Choir in the late afternoon, the warm woolen blanket was also a popular item in the audience.
Shivering between all the baroque works of art in the Catholic church – nobody here wanted that.
Beuerberg: Opulent Christmas cycle by Isura Madrigal Choir from Geretsried
Sure, they're crazy, the Brits - which we've known since the corresponding Asterix volume from 1966 at the latest.
Nevertheless: The constant shivering should be worth it.
Under the direction of Johannes Buxbaum, the almost 40-strong ensemble, which rehearses every week in Geretsried, gave their English Christmas concert in the well-filled Church of St. Peter and Paul.
Motto: "A Ceremony of Carols".
It was the second of two events of this kind: the choir had already performed in the Holy Family Church in Geretsried at the beginning of December.
"Carol singing" is a British tradition for singing Christmas carols in the streets and churches.
Basically something like the carol singers who go from door to door to raise money for a good cause.
Harp and organ accompany the Geretsrieder Isura Madrigal Choir in Beuerberg
"A Ceremony of Carols" - the main work of this hour-long performance, an opulent cycle for choir, soloists and harp, was largely penned by the English composer Benjamin Britten (1913 to 1976).
The work was composed by him in 1942 for three-part boys' and women's choir.
A coincidence, if you will: Originally, Britten probably only planned a series of individual songs, but he later combined them into one work.
In the performance of the Isura Madrigal Choir, it was performed in the version for four-part mixed choir, accompanied by Christoph Bielefeld on the onomatopoeic, subtle harp and Stefan Metz, who played the organ with restraint and unpretentiousness.
The ensemble pulled out all the stops.
Coherent, atmospheric, sometimes meditative but in the constant field of tension between absolute precision and sonorous procession, a finely woven tapestry of sound, to use this (admittedly) somewhat worn image.
As a congenial supplement, the Isura Madrigal Choir also presented well-known songs such as the solemn, sometimes folky-playful "In the bleak midwinter", a drinking song suitable "God rest you merry, gentlemen" or the powerful "Deck the hall".
Stefan Metz played the organ pointedly here, alternating with the singing, an almost bluesy question-answer construct.
"Angel's Carol" by John Rutter, contemporary British composer and co-editor of various choral music collections, on the other hand, sounded exhilarated and blissful.
Regarding the temperature in the collegiate church:
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