LondonMusicReview

Figure: This is My Body – Swiss Church, London

Reviewer: Jane Darcy

Composer: Dietrich Buxtehude

Frederick Waxman, musical director of Figure, has once again thought deeply about the presentation of this historically informed performance of Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri patientis sancissima. His chosen venue is the clean space of the Swiss Church, its empty white interior offering a blank canvas and perfect acoustics for his engaging reimagining of this beautiful sequence of devotional cantatas.

Waxman and co-director Philip Barrett are keen to stress this is not in any way a religious service. But they manage to balance the devotional nature of the sacred music and its secular performance by pointing to the powerful emotional feelings it generates, drawing attention to Buxtehude’s original manuscript on which appear the words ‘to be sung with the humblest devotion to the heart’.

The performance space is empty, audience members invited to stand as the singers quietly weave through them or take their places on low platforms. The chamber orchestra of organ, violins, viols, double bass and theorbo perform in the sanctuary. Waxman follows the original baroque scoring for both instruments and choir, a remarkable ensemble of five voices.

The fact that the seven short cantatas of This is My Body are each devoted to a part of Christ’s body might suggest a difficulty to modern sensibilities, but in fact the texts, taken from Salve mundi salutare, are a revelation. They focus beyond Christ’s wounds and become at times celebratory meditations. Ad pedes begins with the joyful Ecce super montes (‘Behold upon the mountains the feet of one bringing good news’). The miraculous Ad genua starts with a thrilling duet by soprano Claire Ward and mezzo-soprano Katie Macdonald, Ad ubera portabimini (‘You will be brought to nurse/And dandled on the knees) to which is added the exquisitely differentiated male voices of countertenor Tom Lilburn, tenor Michael Ball and baritone Hugo Herman-Wilson.

Ad latus uses the gorgeous language of the Song of Songs:

Arise, my love,

My beautiful one, and come,

my dove in the clefts of the rock,

in the hollow of the cliff

The repeated emphasis on the maternal side of divine love (echoed in Ad Pectus, with its depiction of humans ‘like newborn infants’ is reminiscent of Brahms’s use of Isaiah’s maternal imagery in A German Requiem, another piece which balances the sacred and the secular.

Throughout the blend of instrumentalists and singers is perfect. Together they produce thrilling variations in sound. Being able to stand so close to them allows us to see the singular expressiveness of the singers, the quiet absorption of the instrumentalists. As This is My Body darkens towards its final meditation on death, we are drawn even more deeply into the powerful emotions of the piece and this intensely beautiful performance.

Runs until 15 March 2023

The Reviews Hub Score

Intensely moving experience

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The Reviews Hub London is under the acting editorship of Richard Maguire. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.

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