{Table} Christmas Oratorio, Parts 1-3 Bach {/Table} BACH'S Christmas Oratorio is what the Tallaght Choral Society were billed to sing at the National Concert Hall last night. In the event, what they offered was less than the marathon a full performance of the work would amount to - they performed only the first three of the six cantatas which make up the work.
Since the beginning of the year, the society has been working under a new director, Grainne Gormley, and last night's Bach performance was my first encounter with her work.
Her gestures are big and emphatic and her choice of speeds tended to create the impression of uniformity of pace. But, more than many a choral director, she achieved in this performance an agreeable transparency that allowed one to hear rather more than usual of the inner voices.
The four vocal soloists were rather mixed. Tenor Niall Morris wasn't always, clear with his words (a serious fault in an Evangelist), and sounded too pressured in delivery to carry the rise and fall of his narrative in the recitative. On the other hand, the recitatives" of the bass Philip O'Reilly were always wrought with verbal intelligence and musical point.
Soprano Fiona McAndrew marred a potentially pleasing delivery with a vibrato that often sounded too heavy for Bach, whereas contralto Deirdre Cooling-Nolan sang with a firmness and focus of line that was altogether more moving.
The Orchestra of St Cecilia sounded generally well (though not always ready to observe the dynamic markings in the score). The greatest pleasure they offered was in the second of the cantatas, which calls for the inimitable alto richness of no less than four oboes d'amore.
