Ferraris and Easter Oratorios? Where else but Haynes Motor Museum in Somerset. Last Saturday (September 20^th) I went to a performance of Omega & Alpha: the End and the Beginning. And yes, it was in the Motor Museum. Which meant we wandered around the famous Red Room, with all its Ferraris, while we anticipated hearing Martin Emslie’s Oratorio. 

Martin, who began his professional life as an engineer and is now, largely thanks to this amazing work, a Fellow of the London School of Music, wrote both the words and music. “Why?” I asked him.

Martin has been Director of Music of Castle Cary Choir since 2009 and he was very aware that most newly commissioned choral music was suited mainly to the needs of professional singers. He wanted to create a work that was good enough to be sung by a professional choir, but also accessible enough to be sung by amateur performers. This meant restricting the vocal range, and writing music that could be performed by a chamber orchestra, but also, at its simplest, with organ accompaniment alone. Only three soloists are required Tenor, Bass-baritone and Mezzo soprano. And because the choir rather than the soloists would be the main focus of the work, he wanted a narrative in which they, the onlookers and witnesses, could tell the bulk of the story rather than simply echo or reinforce the atmosphere around the soloists.

The Easter story was his choice. In his research he found something that was not only profound but also posed as many questions as it answered. It was a mystery, with witnesses providing conflicting viewpoints and opinions. The more he read the Gospels, the  more he realised that the narrative tension demanded an answer to the question that came to be the Oratorio’s theme: Was this an end or a beginning? Its title tells us: it was an end, necessary to allow a new beginning. His words and music dramatize the agony and exultation of the journey towards this revelation.

The Oratorio was first performed in Wells Cathedral last year but since then Martin has extended and developed it considerably, and this was the premiere of the final version. Having also been at the Wells premiere I was interested to know what had been gained or lost by the work’s development.

The evening was crowded: a capacity audience filled the auditorium and we were spellbound. The Castle Cary Choir rose to the occasion, as did the orchestra. The acoustics were a little less friendly than those of the Cathedral but the impact of the work was undiminished. For me there are two stand-out sections from the first half: the tenor solo in which Jesus faces his ‘predicament’ and the chorus’s mocking witness to his climb to Golgotha ‘Climb, climb, carry the cross’. The first song hints to me of Lloyd Webber at his best and the tension between words and music of the second move me almost to tears. At the end of this half, after The Crucifixion, Martin simply walked away from the podium, leaving the audience in silence. It felt absolutely right, giving us time to take breath and regain our emotional balance before the applause exploded.

If the first half ends in the terror of Jesus’s death, the second moves towards resolution and revelation, with Mary coming into her own as she defies the angels who ask ‘Why weepest thou?’ The ending is Pentecost with its ‘gift of tongues’. Martin gives us this with the singing of ‘Thanks be to God’ in seven different languages. Of the 7 part harmony involved, Martin said: ‘I enjoyed doing that.’

And we enjoyed listening to it. The Oratorio, in both short and long versions, is now attracting deserved worldwide attention: from Chile, USA, Korea, Finland, South Africa among others. I am grateful to have been one of those able to attend its earliest performances.

If you get a chance to see this Oratorio, or know a choral society looking for something new, I can’t recommend Omega & Alpha: the End and the Beginning highly enough.

“And how on earth are you going to follow that?” I asked Martin. He smiled and told me that Mrs Noah and the Flood is previewing in Taunton Brewhouse on the 15^th and 16^th of November before moving to London. For this one he’s focused on the music and Sasha Herriman has created the book and lyrics. He tells me the music was ‘fun to write’, and I look forward to seeing and hearing it on my next visit to the Brewhouse. Go to see it if you can.

Penny Deacon