“The inclusion of impersonal keyboard rather than expressive piano was an effective touch, subtly emphasising the unsettlingly mundane ordinariness of the scenario.
Peter Thomson’s text, consisting predominantly of terse exchanges between the two choirs, was uncompromisingly spare and direct, though incorporating authentic elements of dark humour and a tenacious glimmer of hope in the closing reaffirmations of the word ‘love’. To underline the unexceptional, everyday nature of the central figures, simple musical language was used, including universally recognisable elements such as jazz, blues and waltz rhythms, as well as music hall and minimalism. The choirs represented the torturer and the victim and towards the end of the work, in a dramatic coup de theatre, the singers physically swapped places and exchanged roles, underlining the corrosive effect of oppression on both protagonists and the uncomfortable truth that, given certain circumstances, anyone might be forced to assume the role of oppressor or victim. The piece was scored for two choirs, percussion, electronic keyboard and a pre-recorded soundtrack containing heavy metal band music. “Commissioned by Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture, Sally Beamish’s A Knock on the Door (2021) featured a specially written, powerfully forthright text by Peter Thomson condemning torture and its malign consequences on both victim and perpetrator. The increasingly hushed closing paragraphs, where the executioner pleads for forgiveness, were movingly rendered, especially the final, heartfelt whispered entreaty. Delivered with bite and precision, the terse concluding ‘Sun Stone’, in which Dorfman presents the final words of an executioner to his victim, returned to the same unsettled, abrupt soundworld as the opening movement. However, the most memorable and affecting musical experience was provided by the poised, hypnotically reiterative treatment of Mendoza’s prayer to the Virgin of Guadalupe at the heart of the score. “The singers captured the urgency and biting immediacy of the search for the identity of a found body in the first Dorfman setting, punctuated by organist Jonathan Hope’s crisply articulated, dissonant chords. The composer’s interest in liberation theology had already born fruit in a music theatre work, Busqueda and Cantos Sagrados explores further the religious and political themes of that earlier piece. “James MacMillan’s Cantos Sagrados (‘Sacred Songs’), for choir and organ (1989) was a fervent, thoughtful work in which settings of poems by Ariel Dorfman and Ana Maria Mendoza concerned with political repression and the ‘disappearance’ of prisoners in Latin America were coupled with passages from the Latin liturgy.
Based on themes of resistance and defiance, the featured scores addressed critical issues such as illegal imprisonment, the fight against torture and repression, as well as the need for compassion and peace. The programme consisted of four substantial choral pieces, two of them receiving their first performance, by composers with whom the choir has worked with over several years. “In Birmingham Town Hall on 13 November, Ex Cathedra and conductor Jeffrey Skidmore presented a Remembrance Sunday early-evening concert entitled ‘Songs of Protest’.
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