Freddie Crowley, the conductor of the 13-voice Corvus Consort, calls his new album with the Ferio Saxophone Quartet Revoiced, which is apt because every short item, except one, 16 in all, has been arranged or transcribed by Crowley. Of the four new-ish pieces, three are existing works revamped by Crowley or the composer, and only Owain Park's Miserere after Allegri is specifically written for this combination of saxophones and choir. Thirteen of the tracks are Baroque and Renaissance music, and even the four new pieces sound old, heavily influenced by their surroundings or taking early vocal pieces as their starting point. I wouldn't normally listen to this kind of album: despite the new pieces, it just stirs my prejudices and seems the kind of cosy product, with its Bach, Gabrieli and even Schütz lollipops, aimed at the ageing festival/music club-goer or perhaps as a kind of promotional calling card. It's not really my kind of dog-walking, chill-out fare either. There is even a faint whiff of Garbarek/Hilliards, particularly in the occasional soaring soprano saxophone line, which we kind of liked when it first came out in 1994, but on reflection just turns out to be manufactured posh kitsch. Having said all this, despite myself and putting aside the general warm bath foaminess of it all, this is a hugely enjoyable disc, largely because of the excellent performances, particularly those of the choir.
The choir make a wonderful sound – well balanced with the young voices matched and blended. Unlike the saxophones, their tone colours vary, depending on what they're singing, and I like the graininess and occasional grit they use in the lower voices, particularly the tenors. The Ferios got together when they were students at the Royal College of Music, and they are very good players. Their style here is a consistent mezzo voce monotone, which in itself is very beautiful, but they rarely play loudly and certainly not with attack, which I'm assuming is a conscious choice for this repertory. There is seldom any clear articulation or front to the notes, and much legato smoothness. The exception is the lovely baritone playing of Shevaughan Beere, whose unassuming chuffing along on the bass lines sounds for all the world like a Baroque bassoon – I found my ear being drawn away from the elegantly manicured top lines. They have thought about sound so that at certain moments you could mistake their close harmony for a chamber organ, or elsewhere – in Schütz, for example – soft-edged cornetts and sackbuts. There are precedents for saxophones in early music – Alan Hacker put a pair of soprano saxophones in Monteverdi's Vespers back in the 1980s. The Royal College's director is Colin Lawson, a very fine period clarinettist and pioneer of historically informed performance. In his books and elsewhere he has quite a lot to say about woodwind articulation in early to classical music, before the ironing out of Romantic legato style got hold of it.
The four new pieces are perfectly acceptable if unexceptional. Owain Park's modern take on Allegri's Miserere plays with much of the original music, twisting here and there chromatically with the soprano saxophone getting the high C towards the end. James MacMillan's Christus vincit from 1994 is what you expect, expressively slow and atmospheric, with the eight vocal lines of the original split between voices and saxophones, those high soprano parts going to the soprano saxophone. American composer Sarah Rimkus’ Mater Dei also sounds surprisingly old despite the chromaticism, but builds to a powerful climax with the choir making a thrilling sound. The most interesting of the four is Roderick Williams’ Ave verum corpus, which pushes the ensembles with rich and interesting textures, taking Byrd's motet as its starting point. This version was made by Williams for these performers. A lot of work has gone into this project and while I can't really see the aesthetic or intellectual point of it all, it is a gloriously enjoyable noise, and maybe that's enough.
