fri 29/03/2024

King's Singers, Cadogan Hall | reviews, news & interviews

King's Singers, Cadogan Hall

King's Singers, Cadogan Hall

A programme of festive favourites is Christmas at its most tuneful

An awful lot of bad singing goes on in the name of Christmas. If it’s not the endless piped renditions of Slade and Cliff Richard, then it’s anaemic carol singers in every railway station and foyer. Each street corner becomes a concert hall (albeit one with exceptionally poor acoustics) and every passer-by an unwitting (not to say unwilling) audience member. Music becomes a commercial mood-board, a festive ear-worm to prompt charitable giving and personal spending in equal measure. How joyous then to escape the icy pavements and ambient noise for a few hours and celebrate Christmas with the ultimate musical professionals, The King’s Singers.

Now in their 42nd year, the group may not include any of its original members, but the quality of sound and musicianship is as slick as ever. Repertoire too, though always expanding to include new arrangements and commissions, is carried across from each incarnation of the group to the next, and it was a programme of beloved King’s Singers favourites and newer additions that made up last night’s “Joy to the World” programme of carols and festive readings.

Despite the avowed intent of taking us “back to the true meaning of this time of year”, there was nothing po-faced about this celebration. The first half tempered its more traditional offerings – Bach’s beautiful four-part harmonisation of “O Little One Sweet”, “Gabriel’s Message”, “Stille nacht” – with more highly spiced contemporary arrangements. “Noël nouvelet”, in an organum-influenced version by the group’s baritone Philip Lawson, is a classic, with its delicately frosted embellishment of tumbling duplets. Likewise Lawson’s bittersweet “Lullay my liking”, its refrain a sudden outburst of lyricism, came off rather well, especially against the rather more obvious harmonic fuss and fiddling of Bob Chilcott’s “What Child is This?”

The King's Singers gets Christmassy with "O Holy Night"


Setting the tone with Saint-Saëns’s absurd “Sérénade d’hiver”, the second half was the musical equivalent of the group whipping off their trousers, Chippendales style, to reveal novelty Christmas boxer shorts beneath. Doing what they do best, the King’s Singers pushed stands aside and grooved and doo-wopped their way through “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” (Dave Brubeck-style), “The Little Drummer Boy” and a particularly cheeky chromatic-inflected “Jingle Bells”.

Almost as good to watch as to listen to, the ensemble’s greatest strength is the polish and precision of everything that takes place on stage. Tuning is obscenely accurate, tones blended so closely that inner parts ooze harmonically into one another, and communication a constant in the eyes and movements of each singer. Rock stars to a man, if the King’s Singers could be said to have a front man it would be a gentlemanly tussle between tenor Paul Phoenix (blessed with supreme comic timing) and countertenor David Hurley. Shaping the group’s sound perhaps most dominantly with his unfussy purity and unerring sense of line, I dread the day that Hurley moves on to other things.

johnny-tnIt was my first live encounter with the group’s latest recruit, bass Jonathan Howard (pictured right), who took over earlier this year from longstanding resident Stephen Connolly. Not possessed of quite Connolly’s focus at the bottom of the voice (anything below about an E gets rather hollow and woolly, more a vibration around a pitch than an actual note), Howard nevertheless proved his predecessor’s equal for light-footed musicality, with some lovely dramatic gestures (and an unexpected robot dance) by way of a bonus.

Interspersed among the musical numbers, and linking them in impeccably choreographed attacca sequences, were readings selected and delivered by the group themselves. Showmen all, each appeared to relish the opportunity to release their inner thespian, reading pieces ranging from the polite poignancy of Christina Rossetti’s Christmas Eve to the rather more spiky wit of Charles Causley, and Rudyard Kipling’s Eddi’s Service. Perhaps most subversive however was John Julius Norwich’s A Correspondence. Detailing the responses of the increasingly irate beloved upon whom the gifts catalogued in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” were bestowed (“Edward, I thought I said no more birds…”), its every letter was framed by a verse of the carol.

For sheer musical class and quality there isn’t a vocal ensemble in the country to top the King’s Singers. Their blended tone and rounded-off delivery may not be to everyone’s taste, but for generous and intelligent musicianship they reign supreme. So, if Christmas muzak or the Classic FM Rutter-fest is all getting too much over the coming weeks, you could do far worse than clear out your ears with the crisp, festive freshness of this ensemble. The originals, and still the best over 40 years later; accept no close-harmony imitations.

Watch The King's Singers perform "Blackbird"

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