OTLEY AND ILKLEY CHORAL SOCIETIES sing Haydn’s Creation  

All Saints Parish Church, Otley    

Saturday 8th June 2025

Otley and Ilkley Choral Societies have grown in confidence under their director, Alex Kyle, and can now be counted on to give excellent performances of standard repertoire like Haydn’s glorious oratorio, The Creation. So it was on Saturday night with the choirs relishing the big set piece choruses which celebrate the ending of the six days. All parts produced well-focused sound with clear words, good balance between the parts and excellent attack particularly in the fugal passages. The soft singing in the first chorus was particularly notable.

The major delights for the audience, of course, lie in the arias and recitatives which tell the story and are accompanied by Haydn’s musical imitations of the various creatures described – a forerunner of Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals only wittier! And here the outstanding performance was the organ playing of Tim Harper whose agility and choices of registration were a delight. He was supplemented cleverly by the timpanist, Stephen Muir, adding percussive impact.

The trio of soloists were all in good voice and blended well in the trio sections. Jennifer Clark lifted her clear flexible soprano into the stratosphere for ‘On mighty pens’, Toby Ward (tenor) produced magical pianos for the sunrise and bold clear delivery for ‘In native worth’. I enjoyed William Kyle’s impish delivery of the zoological arias and he combined well with Jennifer Clark to give Mozartian knowingness to Adam and Eve. It is not his fault that this is not really the part for a baritone.

The programme started with a vivid performance of one of Lassus’ settings of the Veni Creator Spiritus with alternating verses in plainsong (Toby Ward again) and for the choirs. This was well conducted by Amy Howe, the first Ilkley Choral Society conducting scholar, although the decision to use the full organ to support the chorus did rather muddy the textures.

Musical director, Alex Kyle, is to be thoroughly congratulated for the improvement he has made to these two choirs and for his overall direction of the performance, which was greeted with justifiably enthusiastic applause from the large audience.

Chris Skidmore