Review of The Sixteen at The Anvil, in Basingstoke

Last time I attended one of these weirdo conventions, we were worshipping the newborn CD.  Now, all has changed. CD lives on, but vinyl has risen from the dead, and at the very top of the finest Hi-Fi trees it perches unchallenged, offering quality and an undefinable musical involvement that digital technologies simply can’t match.

Which brings this nerd to The Sixteen: A Child Is Born at Basingstoke’s The Anvil on Wednesday, November 29.

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For those unfamiliar with them, The Sixteen are a group of choral singers founded by conductor Harry Christophers in 1979, and which now sits at the very top of the tree of choral music. They are even the official "Voices Of Classic FM", and you can’t say higher than that!

Perversely, there were 18 of them – no idea why – singing unaccompanied, and they performed a concert of carols and quasi-religious music intended as an amuse-bouche for Advent and Christmas. See Amid The Winter’s Snow and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day were charming renditions of old favourites that offered a hint of festive feeling, but with most pieces being sung in Latin, you needed to enjoy the music for its arrangements, complex harmonies, and ecclesiastical beauty. 

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And that wasn’t difficult. The concert was unamplified – joy, oh joy! -  meaning that you could identify just who was singing what, and what they produced was a note-perfect evening of world-class singing. The sopranos were sweet and clear, the bass singers strong but not overpowering, while the alto of Edward McMullen was just sheer perfection of poise and elegance.

In the manner of traditional classical concerts, there were no introductions from the stage.  That’s fine for a popularist programme, but for a concert of somewhat niche music, some pointers from the podium would have helped draw the narrative arc and engage the audience.  Couple that with a stark, undecorated stage, and I was left with just the teensiest feeling that something was missing. 

Yes, I’d heard an evening of musical precision: human Hi-Fi, if you will. But the Hi-Fi was CD quality;  pure and clean, yet strangely sterile. If only The Sixteen could have found their inner vinyl and connected with the audience a tad more, it would, for this nerd, have transformed proceedings from merely memorable to truly unforgettable.