Crux

KorMalta's Holy Week concert "Crux" on Wednesday 1 April offered a contemplative, tightly focused evening that highlighted the choir's blend of technical polish and spiritual intent within an intimate setting.

At the heart of the programme stood Rheinberger's Stabat Mater, the work around which the entire evening seemed to pivot and deepen. Riccardo Bianchi, directing from within the ensemble, balanced the dual demands of singing and conducting with striking assurance, his gestures clear yet never fussy, and his own vocal line seamlessly integrated into the texture rather than sitting on top of it. KorMalta unfolded Rheinberger's long phrases with unhurried patience, allowing the harmonic suspensions and releases to register with almost physical weight, and shaping the text with a quiet intensity that avoided operatic excess while never feeling emotionally distant. The choir's control of soft dynamics in the closing movements created one of the night's most affecting stretches of stillness, a sense of collective listening that made the final cadence feel earned rather than merely arrived at.

Bruckner's Christus factus est provided a darker, more granite-hewn counterpart, and KorMalta leaned into its architectural clarity. Here, Miguel Rosales' bass gave the lower lines a deep, steady anchor, lending gravity to the harmonic foundation and allowing the upper voices to soar without ever sounding top-heavy. The carefully graded crescendos towards "exaltavit illum" were exceptionally well-judged, powerful but never forced, and what impressed most was the choir's ability to sustain line through Bruckner's long phrases, keeping the music flowing instead of fragmenting into blocks of sound.

Elsewhere in the programme, Rheinberger's Abendlied offered a luminous moment of repose that lingered long after its final chord, so it felt entirely natural when it returned as the encore. Long-serving alto Bianca Simmone brought a calm, centred presence to the inner lines, her sound knitting the harmony together, while a newcomer tenor added a fresh, bright edge to the top of the chord, suggesting a section in healthy evolution rather than mere continuity. In its first appearance the choir emphasised the piece's prayerful intimacy, with translucent inner voices and a gentle, almost conversational approach to "Bleib bei uns," and in the reprise Abendlied felt like a benediction over the whole evening: slightly warmer in tone, a shade more expansive in phrasing, and sung with the ease of music that the choir clearly loves and inhabits deeply.

Surrounding these pillars were finely etched readings of Lotti's Crucifixus, Rachmaninoff's Bogoroditse Devo, Gesualdo's O vos omnes, Liszt's Ave Crux, Brahms's Geistliches Lied and Mendelssohn's Herr, nun lässest du, each chosen to illuminate a different facet of Holy Week contemplation without disturbing the concert's overarching sense of unity. Together, they framed the Rheinberger and Bruckner works not as isolated showpieces but as stations along a carefully plotted spiritual journey, shaped from within by Bianchi and grounded by a consistently strong core of solo and sectional contributions.

KorMalta goes from strength to strength.