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Apartment House’s day of delight, insight and excellence at Wigmore Hall

Christopher Woodley

“Mitchener’s versatility was to the fore in a graphic rendition of the piece, producing a tightly controlled primal scream as she literally found her voice, all aglow with the light of her upper range.”

Lutyens’ sound world was in stark contrast to that of Rolf Hind’s Blue to the Throat, an elaborately structured new work in eight sections, for voice – Elaine Mitchener – and ensemble. The title refers to Shiva, the god whose throat turned blue from drinking all the evils of the world. Hind assembled a text that includes a Czech tongue-twister, the wisdom of Rumi and Kabir, the Rig Veda, and a new poem by Dante Micheaux; it traces the voice’s journey from the guttural to articulate speech and to full-blown lyricism. Mitchener’s versatility was to the fore in a graphic rendition of the piece, producing a tightly controlled primal scream as she literally found her voice, all aglow with the light of her upper range. The ensemble, conducted by Jack Sheen, was a supportive collaborator, for which Hind provided crunching chords and melodic lines with serrated edges.