Classical Review: Westminster Cathedral Choir at the Cathedral Basilica, plus some unexpected drama

England expects that every choir will do its duty...

It sometimes happens that the mettle of a person or a group is revealed not when things go perfectly, but when things go wrong. This happened this past Monday (March 31) at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in the first half of the concert by the Choir of Westminster Cathedral, directed by their current Master of Music, Simon Johnson, and organist Daniel Greenway. The penultimate offering of this season’s Cathedral Concerts series, this concert marked the exact mid-point of the choir’s seven-concert US tour this spring. Except for two unannounced program changes that did not involve the choir, this was the concert program(me) featured at the Cathedral Basilica. The choir is an all-male mix of children & teens (nineteen) and adults (ten), where Mr. Johnson noted that the kids reside at the school five days a week, to be able to sing daily Mass and Vespers with the full ensemble.

The three works that began the concert were the works closest to modern times, starting with the first of the Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence, dating from 1951-1952, by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), “Timor et tremor” (‘Fear and trembling’). A fine opener, the audience held their applause. (This wasn’t the case later on, notably between movements of the evening’s final multi-movement work.) Mr. Johnson then greeted the audience and gave a quick history of the choir, along with spoken program notes about the next works, although these weren’t necessarily meant to be a concert ‘set’. The second work was the concert’s one selection by a living composer, a setting of the Marian text “Ave maris stella” (‘Hail, star of the sea’) by Sir James MacMillan (born 1959), a dignified and restrained work from 2011 that showcases this choir of wide age range well. Next was a 1937 setting of the Psalm 130-based text “De Profundis” (“From out of the depths”) by Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968), where the adults began the work and the young folks joined halfway through. Mr. Johnson mentioned that one possible reason that Pizzetti’s music is neglected now is Pizzetti’s embrace of Fascism (which would put him in the current mainstream in Italy and elsewhere). This doesn’t stop one from appreciating his music on purely artistic terms, of course.

The next selection jumped back to 1915, a setting of another Marian hymn, “Salve Regina” (‘Hail Queen’), by Herbert Howells (1892-1983), originally composed for the Choir of Westminster Cathedral, which Mr. Johnson noted in his remarks. The Howells was where the evening’s unplanned drama occurred. About midway through, one young chorister fell forward in a faint. Mr. Johnson, several singers and Cathedral Concerts staff immediately attended to him. It would have been quite understandable if the choir had stopped the Howells and momentarily halted the concert. Instead, the rest of the choir kept singing and finished the Howells, even without the conductor. This handling was all the more impressive in that the helpers worked very quietly, without overlaying the music.

Right afterwards, from the organ loft at the opposite side of the Cathedral, Mr. Greenway launched into the ‘Fuga sopra il Magnificat’ (‘Fugue on the Magnificat’) by J. S. Bach, for organ alone, the first change to the printed program, away from the originally planned solo organ movement from Leoš Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, to the disappointment of at least one concert acquaintance. The singers had taken seats in the choir stalls behind the altar as Mr. Greenway played and the young chorister made his way off-stage with assistance. Following applause after Mr. Greenway’s solo, Mr. Johnson assured everyone that the chorister was resting and under supervision, to additional supportive audience applause.

The first half closed with two 16^th century works, following some quips from Mr. Johnson about the TV series The Tudors. A setting of the “Ave Maria” by the English composer Robert Parsons (c. 1535-1572) was the first of the pair. The next was “Infelix ego” (‘O woe is me’) by Parsons’ compatriot William Byrd (~1539/40-1623), a setting of text by Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) which meditates on Psalm 51, and which he wrote just before his execution. Mr. Johnson’s introductory comments took a more serious turn here, with mention of Savonarola’s mindset of ‘I’m right, but everyone is conspiring against me’ (sound familiar?), but also acknowledgement that while Savonarola was sincere in his convictions, that sincerity caused irrevocable cultural losses to history, such as with the destruction of priceless artworks by Botticelli in various “bonfires of the vanities”. In this performance, the choir and Mr. Johnson seemed not always to factor in the Cathedral Basilica’s extended reverberation time, so that even at relatively close range, the words became fairly clotted. Some of the group’s boys cast occasional quick glances backwards, for obvious reasons.

After intermission, and without any spoken introduction, the concert’s second half focused on one extended work, the Cantus Missæ from 1878 of the Liechtenstein-born composer Josef Rheinberger (1837-1901). This was my own first listening experience in any form of the Rheinberger, and it’s always welcome to hear unfamiliar repertoire live. One nice touch was that Rheinberger didn’t start the second movement “Gloria” in an extrovert way in either volume or tempo, such as Beethoven did in his Missa Solemnis, but managed to be bright and optimistic without being very loud or fast at the outset. Midway through the Rheinberger, between the “Credo” and the “Sanctus”, Mr. Greenway performed the ‘St. Anne’ Fugue of J.S. Bach, the other unannounced program change and a replacement for the ‘Introduction and Passacaglia’ from Rheinberger’s own Organ Sonata, Op. 132, No. 8.

Throughout the evening, the choir was always solid, well-prepared and professional, including and especially through that crisis moment, a few understandably shaky moments aside. Interestingly, things quietly kicked up a notch with the encore, William Byrd’s setting of “Ave verum corpus” (‘Hail, true Body’). Mr. Johnson paced the work and played the space perfectly in terms of choir volume and text enunciation. For me, the Byrd encore was the highlight of the concert and made for a most satisfying conclusion.

A good-sized crowd filled most of Sections I and II, quite nice to see on a Monday night for a classical concert. Of course, the key concern now beyond the music-making is the safe recovery to full health of the young chorister. I don’t know if he was able to travel with his fellow singers on the remainder of the tour. At the very least, we all wish him restored health and a safe return home, along with safe travels for all the artists.

(UPDATE, 4/7/2025, 4:50 PM: The young Westminster Cathedral chorister was indeed able to travel with his colleagues out of St. Louis the next morning.)