One of the nice things about following student music is seeing what the university’s musicians get up after they leave – the standards at Durham are high and I’ve watched many undergraduates progress to professional careers. One of those is soprano Claire Ward, who I particularly remembered for her performances in Durham Opera Ensemble productions of Carmen and Mansfield Park and who returned to Durham this week as part of baroque trio The Portrait Players to open the 2024/25 MUSICON concert series.
The Portrait Players’ angle is to create programmes that, as their name suggests, present musical portraits. ‘Les femmes illustres’ is a show in two acts – the first looking at women writers from 17th century Paris before moving on to the actors and singers for whom Henry Purcell created some of his most dazzling arias.
The programme opened somewhat provocatively, with an explosive invitation to ‘flee this dangerous place’ (Ah! Fuyons ce dangereux séjour, with music by Sébastian Le Camus and text by Henriette de Coligny). Happily, no-one followed this suggestion – if we had, we would have missed a delightful evening that combined charm and virtuosity in equal measure.
Unusually for a singer, Claire Ward spent the first half of the concert seated, alongside her fellow-musicians Kristiina Watt (theorbo and baroque guitar) and Miriam Nohl (viols). This effective staging gave us the sense of dropping in on a private salon, enhanced by the group’s lively and informal chat between pieces. I was particularly intrigued by their account of one poet, Madame de Scudery, who also wrote a book of imagined speeches by the great women of classical history, although I would also have liked to hear a little about the composer of all the French music, as Sébastian Le Camus was a new name to me.
The trio’s command of French baroque style and their evident ease with the language added to this relaxed mood, with the gentle swing of the inégale beat and graceful melodies from Claire Ward and Miriam Nohl that were enhanced by a glittering display-cabinet of ornaments without breaking the line.
Most of the songs followed the fashion of the era for nymphs and shepherds and were infused with lightness and playfulness even when the texts spoke of the pains of love. I loved the stillness of a hot, sultry summer day that the trio created for ‘Le doux silence de nos bois’, with a gently plucked viol line and the colours of Claire Ward’s line in ‘Bois écartés’, (both songs again by Le Camus and de Coligny).
Kristiina Watt and Miriam Nohl gave us instrumental interludes between sets of songs and one of the evening’s highlights was a lilting chaconne for solo theorbo by Robert de Visée that began simply but gradually became more and more intricate. Kristiina Watt drew us in so beguilingly with her relaxed, improvisatory playing that I hardly dared breathe and I sensed the rest of the audience felt the same. I was so transfixed, I had no idea whether her piece had lasted five minutes or five hours.
I spent Saturday at MUSICON’s inaugural event of the season – an excellent Come and Sing day, focussing on Henry Purcell’s sacred music so it was nice to follow this in the second half listening to The Portrait Players performing Purcell’s theatre music. This included several songs for his masque ‘The Fairy Queen’ that were added later for a Mrs Ayliff to sing and which were clearly written to show off both her lyrical and virtuosic skills. I enjoyed Claire Ward’s own contrasting characterisation in these two pieces – ‘Ye gentle spirits of the air’ bright and eager, and darker colours for the Plaint ‘O let me weep’, with the viol echoing her passion.
The trio gave a particularly joyful performance of one of Purcell’s best known songs, ‘Fairest Isle’ and I particularly enjoyed the opening of the second half, ‘The cares of lovers’ which demands such quicksilver shifts of mood. The Portrait Players ended this delightful recital with a ‘mad song’ from Purcell’s music for Don Quixote. Like most of this evening’s music, ‘From Rosy Bowers’ was a true ensemble piece that allowed all three musicians to shine. Claire Ward’s vocal line switched between a languid, easy style and unhinged bursts of passion, Miriam Nohl’s strong pulse added to the urgency of the more insane passages whilst Kristiina Watt added great expressiveness.
The Portrait Players, Les Femmes Illustres
Tuesday 15 October 2024, Elvet Methodist Church
