BY MARK BOSCH, LEAD CRITIC
A Royal Affair
Sydney Chamber Choir with The Muffat Collective
Great Hall, University of Sydney, 1 June
I’m decidedly no fan of monarchy. But Sydney Chamber Choir’s A Royal Affair disclosed the possibility that we just might be able to enjoy the music of royalists without lending them our tacit support.
Of course, if you’re a fan of just about any long-dead composer, you’ve probably already needed to make some separation between the music and its context – even if subconsciously (because boy, from Gesualdo’s murderous tendencies to Wagner’s antisemitism, some contexts were pretty nasty). Thankfully, it is possible to enjoy things across contexts, dissociated — though never completely — from the original circumstances of their creation. Probably my favourite thing about A Royal Affair was that the ensemble clearly had a commitment to asking the searching questions associated with performing music that condones colonialism, as Malcolm Williamson’s setting of James McCauley’s poetry in Symphony for Voices (1962) clearly does.
Thanks to Ria Andriani‘s remarks before the piece, I felt at ease — well, not exactly at ease, in fact still troubled and uncomfortable, but in a useful, reparative way — as I listened to alto Natalie Shea’s harrowing, hypnotic, densely chromatic solo in the first movement of the work. Though notionally a piece “about” Australia (or a particular idea of Australia), this was the national premiere of Williamson’s Symphony for Voices, and I felt lucky to be in attendance – not only for Shea’s riveting solo, but the whole choir’s deft navigation of the work’s complicated harmony.
Judith Weir, current Master of the Queen’s Music and the first woman to hold the title, featured three times in the first half, from her discriminating setting of E. E. Cummings’ A Blue True Dream of Sky (2003) — which spotlighted another excellent member of the choir, soprano Belinda Montgomery — to her plaintive Love Bade Me Welcome (1997), and finally her playful, four-movement work from the same year, The Song Sung True, which included the exuberant words of Scottish poet Alan Spence, among them “every single thing sings”, “in singularity sings and rings”, and “everything is a thing”. Outstanding!
The choir was joined in the second half by The Muffat Collective. The Sydney-based baroque band here significantly strengthened in number to meet the requirements of Handel’s exultant Dettingen Te Deum, HWV283 (1743) and the classic Zadok the Priest, HWV258 (1727) which closed the night. The former was led beautifully by Sam Allchurch, who is completely in his element with this choir, and who would surely have been thrilled with the sensitive, period-perfect sound of The Muffat Collective. There was one moment when the trumpets threatened to detach from the altos, but I’d be otherwise grasping at straws to find anything wrong with this totally elegant, totally engaging performance.
Unfortunately, it’s Sydney Chamber Choir’s last til November, but rest assured I’ll be pining for its rich and radiant sound all through the interim.
Image supplied.
