BY MARK BOSCH, LEAD CRITIC
Music on Music
Sydney Chamber Choir
University of Sydney, 30 March
Sometimes, I feel like I give the game away a little too early as a reviewer. I can’t help it; rest assured that sometimes, not much nuance is necessary. Sometimes, against your best judgment, you just have to be unabashedly grateful.
If my past experience with the Sydney Chamber Choir was anything to go by, I expected Saturday night’s program Music on Music to be chock-full with pleasurable and profound choral masterpieces.
Of course, it was, with 12 items bridging about 500 years from Josquin des Prez to Joseph Twist. But it was the sheer quality of the singing, rather than the quantity, that really left me breathless.
Among the crowded air of the University of Sydney’s Great Hall, the sound of 30 choristers (and one impeccable organist in Joshua Ryan) danced not only with the aplomb you’d expect from such a professional ensemble, but a refreshing dose of attitude. This was particularly the case in the final works of each half, Bach’s Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (c. 1726) and Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb (1943), which may well have been the most technically difficult. On an evening that sported soli from no less than 12 of the group’s singers, alto Natalie Shea’s dramatic declaration of the valour of mice in Britten’s setting of the fascinating Jubilate Agno was the most memorable. But the soprano soli of Josie Gibson and Wei Jiang in Twist’s How Shall We Sing in a Strange Land… (2011) and Tippett’s Dance, Clarion Air (1952) respectively were also terrifically sensitive.
The critics called Tippett a dilettante. Any such notions would surely have been firmly dispelled upon hearing this harmonically eloquent and, most importantly, humorous piece. Sydney Chamber Choir captured this humour so tastefully under the direction of Sam Allchurch, who debuted as its music director here, though you wouldn’t have known it: Allchurch conducts this choir with such consistency, it’s as if he’s been doing so for years. His hard work is the highest tribute to the choir’s erstwhile music director, the late, great Richard Gill.
It’s safe to consider that Gill would have loved this program, a stylish mix of old and new that never felt the slightest bit disjointed. Plus, it introduced me to one of my new favourites, Gyger’s Ut queant laxis (2003), which made deeply felt use of the organ. The piece ended with organist Ryan quietly sustaining a chord at the instrument’s extremities, provoking a moment of innigkeit (intimacy) on an evening charged with extroverted exuberance.
All this speaks to the sheer depth and range of this ensemble, and even still, the performers push themselves. Byrd’s Quomodo cantabimus (1584) demands utmost clarity between voices, and Bach’s Singet dem Herrn exceptionally well-balanced soli. Only for the merest moments did I think these qualities might be missing, before being reminded exactly what sort of performance I was experiencing: in all, one that was deeply gratifying and soul-recharging.
Images supplied. Credit: Pedro Greig.
