Arriving at Saffron Hall to review the Tallis Scholars’ “Mysteries and Miracles”, a concert exploring several centuries of sacred music, I was surprised to be seated at the end of a row towards the back of the auditorium rather than closer to the stage. The reason why became clear after the interval when the vocal ensemble returned to perform Gregorio Allegri’s “Miserere mei Deus” (“Have mercy upon me, O God”), the piece the young Mozart was supposed to have memorised and transcribed after hearing it on a visit with his father to the Vatican in Holy Week. But four of the ten scholars were absent and one, the tenor Simon Wall, stood apart from the main group. Who among the assembled, therefore, would sing the celebrated high top C?
The answer was the soprano Emma Walshe, who was not on stage but, as we discovered, in the walkway directly below me, together with the three other “absent” singers. This second choir could not be seen by most of the audience but could be heard, and the purity of their voices and resulting stereophonic effects were as sublime as they were moving.
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