African Sanctus

FOR performers and audiences more used to the more traditional sounds of Faure and Mozart, African Sanctus can be a big step away from the comfort zone.

David Fanshawe's 1972 setting of the Latin Mass uses recording he made in Africa and the tapes of his musical explorations in Uganda, Sudan and other places feature prominently.

There were a couple of places where there were pauses before the tapes clicked in, but the performance here was high quality stuff. It is a demanding work and the EFC rose to it with a sense of energy and passion.

The setting of the Lord's Prayer, where soloist Maureen Brathwaite excelled, sounds to me like the power ballad from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical while I particularly liked the sequence of chants leading up to the Agnus Dei.

Four-piece percussion group Backbeat used a huge range of drums to add to the driving sense of energy of a performance that soared.

African Sanctus formed the second half of the programme. In the first half, we heard the full range of Backbeat's musical talents. They teamed up with the EFC for a stirring performance of internationally renowned Devon born composer Bob Chilcott's The Making of the Drum among other pieces — another example of inventive, memorable modern music.