In the studio: Roxanna Panufnik’s Dance of Life

Recording sessions can be tense affairs at the best of times. On this occasion, there is a certain – shall we say – ‘atmospheric distance’ between the recording venue and the music’s spiritual home. The many groups of performers have never met, the composer and cast don’t speak the same language and the main protagonists are tired from long journey. And it’s in Estonia, and it’s raining.

The May 2013 sessions to record Roxanna Panufnik’s Dance of Life: Tallinn Mass, the large-scale choral piece commissioned by the Tallinn Philharmonic Society to celebrate the city’s ascension to European Capital of Culture in 2011, take place in central Tallinn at the Estonian National Radio Studio. The numerous performers comprise three choirs, orchestra, soloist (Patricia Rosario, longstanding friend, as well as collaborator, of Panufnik), choral director, and conductor (Michhail, “Mischa”, Gerts). The narrator is Estonian actor Jaak Johanson, who speaks excellent English and is wearing an extraordinary costume that looks like something out of Medieval Bruges, although I’m assured it’s for a performance of Shakespeare in which he’s taking part after the session.

All this considered, then, it’s amazing how serene the atmosphere is.

The biggest challenge of the sessions is presenting a large cast (there are 78 musicians in all) in a small studio in music that Panufnik conceived for performance in a large church. The ceilings are low, and the general acoustics in the studio don’t lend themselves at all to a performance that will transport the listener to the Jaani kirik, the Lutheran church in Tallinn where the piece enjoyed its premiere in July 2011.

In the box, though, it’s a totally different story. Producer Philip Rowlands notes that a technical error has led to the reverb being fed to the speakers at the back of the studio; this has actually worked to his advantage, allowing the sound to disappear upwards and creating a sound that belies the limitations of the room. Musically, the shifting tonalities (especially in the Gloria) are bell-like in their clarity, and the parts are balanced and more distinct, with the voice of Patricia Rosario standing proud of the texture. The only raised voices are those of Panufnik and Rowlands, sitting companionably together at the desk, shouting at each other like an old married couple when they don’t want to take their cans off, and Gerts nipping in and out with contagious energy to make comparisons with what he is hearing in the room.

It’s only the next day, after the end of the final session, when we’re all chatting over Russian stew and Borscht, that I realise there had been a touch of tension on that first day.

‘There had been a huge amount of preparation,’ says Panufnik, ‘but you never know when you go to other countries how people do things.’

As it happens, the atmosphere is noticeably different on the second day: the anxiety of the first, with everyone waiting to see whether the pieces of the jigsaw that had been so carefully crafted in isolation were actually going to fit together, has disappeared. Moving on to putting the performance down on disc rather than just rehearsing it, everyone is much more serious and engaged. Up until now, Panufnik and Rowlands have been content at rehearsal to listen and observe, but once recording starts, they are much more concerned about making it perfect. But most of all, it seems clear that everyone has entered Panufnik’s sound world and is comfortable in it, with the singers, especially, more able to stretch out within boundaries they understand.

‘If you’re running out of time in a session it can be quite a pressured situation,’ says Panufnik. ‘I’m always very aware of asking people to do things repeatedly, but Phil’s very good at doing that where I’d wimp out.’

Rowlands laughs. ‘Yeah, but it’s also a question of how you approach it. If you’re happy and say it with a smile, you’ll be surprised by how much you can get away with.’

Video: the recording sessions