Women were at the centre of Crouch End Festival Chorus’s nicely structured programme last Sunday at Alexandra Palace Theatre.

Composer and sufragette Ethel Smyth wrote the opera The Wreckers and here the Overture - full of lively brass, strings and percussion - is a wonderful evocation of the power of the sea.

William Grant Still’s wife Verna Arvey wrote the words for Wailing Women, a cantata that parallels the treatment of Jews with African Americans. It gave us our first hearing of Francesca Chiejina, the evening’s exceptional soprano, perfectly summoning up a distillation of sadness and anger.

Ham & High: The Crouch End Festival Chorus performed pieces by Ethel Smyth, William Grant Still and BrahmsThe Crouch End Festival Chorus performed pieces by Ethel Smyth, William Grant Still and Brahms (Image: David Winskill)

Brahms was impelled to write A German Requiem following the death of his mother and, after two other requiems (Verdi’s and Mozart’s), is one of CEFC’s most performed pieces.

The first movement is a slow meditation, oozing compassion, laced with grief but gradually, helped along with London Orchestra de Camera’s flutes and harps, offering some comfort.

The second, with its haunting theme and rather terrifying assertion For All flesh is as Grass, has the Chorus spitting out the mournful words as if uttering a curse. The tension is eased by the exultant And the Ransomed of the Lord shall Return.

This was followed by the rich, expressive baritone of Oliver Zwarg, working brilliantly with the Chorus in Lord Teach Me That There Must be an End.

Ham & High: CEFC conductor co-founder and music director David Temple takes a well deserved bow.CEFC conductor co-founder and music director David Temple takes a well deserved bow. (Image: David Winskill)

And Ye Now Have no Sorrow was superb: singing from memory, Francesca’s performance was rounded and eloquent: her voice never stressed but passionately expressive.

The most electrifying part of the evening came as CEFC delivered the penultimate movement. Moving and breathing as one, eyes darting from libretto to conductor David Temple, they hammered the words home as if driving an iron spike into a beam of oak.

Another triumphant night then for the Crouch End Festival Chorus who on July 31 make their 17th appearance at the BBC Proms joining the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales in a performance of John Adams’s Harmonium, before returning to Ally Pally in October with Monteverdi’s Vespers.