Choral Scholars of University College Dublin: Chamber Music by James Joyce, Vol. 1
Signum Classics

In a 1907 letter to his brother, James Joyce expressed hope that someday material from his first poetry collection Chamber Music would be put to music; 117 years later, Joyce's wish is now a reality thanks to Desmond Earley, the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin, and the Solstice Ensemble. Earley, the Artistic Director of the Choral Scholars, commissioned eighteen composers from around the world to create choral works based on poems from the book, which are performed by the choir and the ensemble under his direction. One of the best things about the seventy-one-minute collection of world-premiere recordings is that a second volume is already underway, though admittedly this first collection sets a dauntingly high bar. It is, put simply, a remarkable confluence of performer, composer, and lyricist.

How fitting that the singers for the project should be the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin when Joyce himself was a graduate of University College. He was also an accomplished tenor whose love of music permeates his writings, be it the poems presented here or Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. In total, ten sopranos, nine altos, eight tenors, and twelve basses contributed to recording sessions for the project, though in different combinations at different sessions. Earley's also the Artistic Director of the Solstice Ensemble, whose panoramic colour on this project derives from three strings, five woodwinds, French horn, harp, guitar, and harpsichord.

Latvian composer Eriks Ešenvalds and Early himself contribute material, as do composers from Ireland (Mark Armstrong, Eoghan Desmond, Owen Brady, Elaine Agnew, Kevin Whyms, Seán Doherty, Laura Sheils), the United States (Dale Trumbore, Timothy Stephens, David Walters, Damien Geter, Jocelyn Hagen), Canada (Matthew Emery), Australia (Natasa Paulberg), Switzerland (Ivo Antognini), and Slovenia (Andrej Makor). The texts with which they worked are straightforward when compared to the extravagant experimentalism of Joyce's later novels and thus lent themselves splendidly to musical adaptation. Despite the involvement of many composers, Chamber Music is remarkably cohesive, due in part, no doubt, to the fact that they allowed the texts to guide their musical approach. There's not a misstep in the bunch, though naturally certain songs will register more strongly with each listener. In coupling its fragile vocal swirls with alto saxophone, Makor's “All day I hear the noise of waters” can't help but beguile, and others are as mesmerizing. The vocal counterpoint that animates Geter's “Gentle lady, do not sing” is arresting, as are the energized vocal harmonies pulsing through Sheils' “Now, O now, in this brown land.”

Songs that resonate especially strongly are those that evoke the tenderness, ache, and poignancy of an Irish folk lament. Directly referencing a village north of Dublin, Brady's “O, it was out by Donnycarney” instantly captivates for its gentle folk character and a lovely instrumental arrangement. Here, as well as in a small number of other songs, a vocal soloist steps forth to lead the song and amplify the emotional dimension. The lamenting tone of Whyms' “Because your voice was at my side” is rendered all the more powerful when an alto takes the lead alongside the choir and a sparse arrangement of harp, guitar, and contrabass. Elevated by two soprano soloists, Earley's “Silently she's combing” is more a folk than classical setting, and a haunting one too.

Both vocalists and instrumentalists are integral to the music's effect. The opening piece, Emery's “From dewy dreams, my soul, arise” would not have the impact it does minus the haunting alto sax, for example, which after entering unaccompanied is joined by the gently soaring textures of the choir to cast the recording's first spell. The fragile delicacy of Stephens' “When the shy star goes forth in heaven” perpetuates the mood, with this time harp, strings, and alto sax gently buoying the vocal polyphony. Meanwhile, Trumbore's serpentine “Dear heart, why will you use me so?” uses a bass clarinet in B flat only as the instrumental partner to the choir's anguished questioning.

Songs of stirring emotional intensity (Walters' plaintive “O cool is the valley now, ”Desmond's doleful “Rain has fallen all the day”) alternate with ones that sparkle radiantly (Armstrong's ebullient “Winds of May, that dance on the sea,” Hagen's joyous “Lean out of the window, Goldenhair”) and majestically intone (Paulberg's mystical “Sleep now, O sleep now,” Doherty's enrapturing “My dove, my beautiful one”). As the album nears its end, “My love is in a light attire,” a love poem Joyce wrote as he was becoming infatuated with Nora Barnacle, receives a predictably exquisite treatment from Ešenvalds; it doesn't hurt, either, when the vocalists are so beautifully supported by Solstice's cellist.

October 2024