Sir John Rutter, the composer often called the nation’s foremost creator of singable tunes, marked his 80th birthday with a concert at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bach Choir in a programme that included the world premiere of his new work, I’ll Make Me a World, alongside a performance of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No 5.
Rutter, whose music has featured at two royal weddings and a coronation, has been a dominant figure in anglophone choral music for six decades. His works are staples of choir rehearsals, school assemblies and carol services across the UK and North America. The cathedral was packed for the occasion, with a cross-generational audience listening in rapt silence throughout the long programme.
The world premiere showcased soloists Jonathan Brown and Melanie Marshall, with gentle references to African American spirituals, blues and gospel. The Bach Choir delivered remarkable diction, while the orchestra demonstrated a flair for musical code-switching. Rutter’s 2015 cantata The Gift of Life, setting a range of religious texts including his own verses, offered tender melodies and snazzy syncopations, with Broadway-ready orchestral introductions and sopranos shining in the upper register.
The performance also featured Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No 5, in which the rougher edges of the composer’s pastoral modernism were smoothed to a high shine. The orchestra’s strings were expensively blended, with climaxes that were irresistibly majestic and topped by gleaming brass.
Despite the cathedral’s challenging acoustic, where coughing can ricochet like gunfire, Rutter worked with its foibles. He inserted minute pauses to allow chords to bloom and left the extraordinary reverberation to take over at the end of each number. The evening was polished, predictable in the best sense, and visibly enjoyed by the musicians on stage – unmistakably the work of a master craftsman.
