St Clements, Hastings Old Town, Saturday 22 June 2019

What better way to spend a hot summer’s evening than in the gentle company of a group of madrigal singers accompanied by archlute and guitar? Hastings Philharmonic Chamber Choir brought a beautifully balanced programme of quietly effective singing covering madrigals from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The first half was given over to works by John Dowland and allowed us to hear two exquisite lute solos from Cedric Meyer. Within the warm acoustic of St Clement’s these were particularly effective and demonstrated once again that amplification is not needed when audiences are this attentive.

Nine of Dowlands settings were presented with a range of voices. Flow my tears  was given by soprano Emily Armour and bass Oscar Smith, while Marcio da Silva was the lead soloist in the highly operatic setting of Up merry mates. Emily Armour returned for a movingly soulful account of In Darkness before the entire chorus brought the first half to a close with Now, oh now.

The second half was spread across eight composers, from whom Morley’s Now is the month of maying was by far the most familiar and John Wilbye’s Adieu, Sweet Amaryllis proved touchingly effective. The evening was rounded off with some rather more extrovert settings including then they all fell to kissing from Farmer’s Fair Phyllis I saw and Mother I will have a husband.

In addition to the lutenist, Marcio da Silva joined in some of the larger choruses, both as singer and accompanying on guitar, giving subtle changes to both texture and dynamic.

Many of these madrigals are extremely complex, often deliberately so, and part of the enjoyment is hearing the singers grapple with the cross-rhythms. That they hardly ever came unstuck was pleasing, but that there was a sense they were at times on a knife-edge was equally exciting.

Salome this weekend, followed by Rossini the week after.