Owain Park, The Epiphoni Consort, Tim Reader - When Love Speaks: Choral Music by Owain Park

Published Saturday 1st May 2021
Owain Park, The Epiphoni Consort, Tim Reader - When Love Speaks: Choral Music by Owain Park
Owain Park, The Epiphoni Consort, Tim Reader - When Love Speaks: Choral Music by Owain Park

STYLE: Choral
RATING 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
OUR PRODUCT CODE: 180520-
LABEL: Delphian DCD34239
FORMAT: CD Album

Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

Tim Reader's Epiphoni Consort first came to our attention in a collection by British composer David Bednall where words, music and performance all aligned most pleasingly and now the choir have done it again, this time illuminating some very fine choral writing by another one to watch in Owain Park. Park started his musical journey as a chorister at St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol, moved on to be Organ Scholar at Wells Cathedral while also singing with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain before two years as an assistant conductor to the Millennium Youth Choir of the Royal School of Church Music and then on to Trinity College, Cambridge. So we can see - and hear - that Mr Park knows choral music from the inside out and in this collection, on which he plays piano, he has written music that listeners will enjoy hearing and choirs enjoy singing. The programme is constructed around three suites: "Sing To Me, Windchimes" has an eclectic set of poems that all reflect a somewhat melancholic view of the passing of time as seen through the changing seasons. The other suites both take texts by Shakespeare and make the words sing. "Shakespeare Love Songs" combines lines from 'Romeo And Juliet', 'Love's Labour's Lost', 'Venus And Adonis' and Sonnet CXVI to tell the story of the lovers' journey from flirtation to fulfilment. "Shakespeare's Songs of Night-Time" also mixes up plays and sonnets to great effect and will, I am sure, be of great interest to any choir director looking for something new, challenging to sing and yet accessible to hear. The astute reader of this review will have noticed that there is not a great deal that is explicitly Christian in this collection, which is an observation and not a criticism although we do try to concentrate on, for want of a better description, church music when reviewing choral releases. However, the content and the performance are both sufficiently noteworthy to justify bringing this release to your attention and there are two pieces that church choirs might like to know about. "Antiphon For The Angels" for violin and eight-part choir was commissioned by the ensemble Voces8 and violinist Rachel Podger and uses Latin and English versions of words by St Ambrose and Hildegard of Bingen. On this recording the violin part is played by Gabriella Jones and the words and music mesh together very well indeed. The other Christian piece, "Holy Is The True light", was commissioned by the choir Tenebrae for a concert exploring the theme of remembrance. It takes the Latin "Lux aeterna" and combines it with an English translation of words from the Salisbury Diurnal, a medieval service book, building up to a vocalization of the tune "Nimrod" from Elgar's 'Enigma Variations' and the whole would be a most worthwhile inclusion in any Remembrance Day service. If ever Owain Park gives us a full collection of church choral music it will be well worth hearing and, in the meantime, this has certainly whetted my appetite to hear more of his work and confirms my opinion that the Epiphoni Consort is an outstanding choir.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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