When Steve Reich wrote Tehillim, half his long life ago, it was a very modern contribution to the ancient tradition of psalm singing. In this late-night Prom celebrating Reich’s 90th birthday, Tehillim was presented next to a sequence of devotional music from medieval Europe, making for what was surely one of this year’s most atmospheric Proms.
For the first half the stage was held by the singers of the Gesualdo Six, who brought intense focus, luminous tone and consistently outstanding vocal quality to polyphonic works by Machaut, Ockeghem, Dunstable and Josquin des Prez, all sung from memory, interspersed with solo melodies by Pérotin and Hildegard of Bingen. Odd one out, in theory, was a version of Hail Gladdening Light written in 2017 by Owain Park, the Gesualdo Six’s bass and director; but this brief chant-like solo for countertenor, with harmonies filled in by the rest of the singers’ humming, fitted in almost seamlessly.
Tehillim may be from a different sonic world entirely, and yet the mesmeric, devotional aspect of the medieval music endured throughout Reich’s half-hour piece. The work set four Hebrew psalm verses, with four gently amplified soprano voices skipping from syllable to syllable, underpinned harmonically by a small orchestra and rhythmically by half a dozen percussionists, whether clapping, drumming or relentlessly shaking maracas – the latter creating an irresistibly restless sonic aura. Colin Currie and his group have a long association with Reich and his music, and their performance here was authoritative: mesmeric, energised and finally ecstatic.
• Available on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 12 September.
