Classical music treat at Queen’s Hall

It was thanks to the Patrons of Queen’s Hall that classical music lovers were treated to the recital “My Song is Hope” featuring tenor Neil Latchman with special guest Hyacinth Nicholls last Saturday. Accompanying the singers were Enrique Ali on piano, UTT teacher, violinist and member of the Ibis Quartet and viola player Simon Browne, and the Bishop Anstey Steel Ensemble.

There was no performance of the National Anthem before the programme proper that began with Neil Latchman singing “Son Tutta Duolo” by Scarlatti – a song of grief and anguish – that seemed a strange choice for a programme titled “My Song is Hope” but, as Latchman explained, joy was to come in Donizetti’s “Me Voglio Fa ‘na Casa.”

Next, we were asked to spare a coin or two with Verdi’s “Il Poveretto” – a war vet pleading for alms to buy bread and then Latchman’s party piece, “Non T’Amo Piu” by Tosti (I don’t love you any more).

Joy returned with the first appearance of Simon Browne on violin and “Komm Zig?ny” by K?lm?n – better known as the refrain “Play Gypsy Dance Gypsy Sing Gypsy” that is indeed jolly.Hyacinth Nicholls took the stage next to tempt Samson to trust her with the aria “Mon Coeur S’ouvre a ta Voix” by Saint Sa?ns, followed by “Les Chemins de L’amour” by Poulenc and some more familiar fare – the Trinidad Folk Song “Gone to Glory” and the Tobago Folk Song “Jumbie in De Road”.

From the classic recital pieces and folk music, the second half of the programme was devoted to ballads, beginning with “Mi Mancheral” by Mario Marinangeli and Luis Bacalov – the music that won an Academy Award for the best film music in 1995.

Latchman and Nicholls sang the duet “If We Were In Love” by John Williams, Nicholls followed that with “A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square” – a classic, if memory serves, from the 1940s and then, in sharp contrast, she sang the American folk song “Shenandoah” unaccompanied.

“Love is a Many Splendoured Thing” – the film music, set to words, from the film of that name, and three ballads from musicals “Over the Rainbow” from the Wizard of Oz, “If I Loved You” from Carousel, Climb Every Mountain from The Sound of Music, and “You’ll Never Walk Alone” also from Carousel.

A final and (to this commentator’s mind) curious choice of an encore was Ivor Novello’s war-time tear-jerker “We’ll Gather Lilacs in the Spring Again”.

Neil Latchman and Hyacinth Nicholls proved over and over again that trained singers do not need microphones to be heard in the farthest reaches of the Queen’s Hall. One imagines the stage d?cor of a flimsy curtain concealed the rather unlovely (but superbly efficient) “Shell” – neglected by far too many choirs who rely on microphones, loudspeakers and all the attendant paraphernalia.

Neil Latchman interrupted his songs to acknowledge the presence in the audience of “Auntie Hazel” (Ward Redman) the host of the defunct TTT’s 12 and Under programme that was the launch pad for so many singing careers in this country and remembered when, as a small boy competing in the Musical Festival, he had first walked on to the Queen’s Hall Stage.

There were times when one felt Neil Latchman over-dramatised his performance, sometimes seeming a little hoarse – but that might be due to the icy air-conditioning in the Queen’s Hall drying up the singers’ throats for it seemed that towards the end Hyacinth Nicholls, too, was not as comfortable as she had been in her first two to three songs.

The Bishop Anstey Steel Ensemble impressed with the players reading the sheet music in front of them and glancing from time to time as necessary at their conductor.

Our thanks to the Patrons of Queens’ Hall for bringing two local stars of the recital circuit home to sing for us, and for the support given them by the indefatigable Enrique Ali, and violinist Simon Browne, and not forgetting the Bishop Anstey Steel – who are to take part in the Ihlombe! Music Festival in South Africa later this year.