Above: Dr Elizabeth Scott impressively harnessed the forces of the Chamber Singers, The Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra and guest soloists in a beautiful rendering of Bach’s ‘Christmas Oratorio’- Parts 4-6. The programme also featured a leap forward to perform contemporary works from emerging Australian composers Phillip Cullen and Kayla Erin Hinton.
JS Bach has been described in so many ways since the revival of the Baroque genius’ St Matthew Passion in 1829. A tapestry of superlatives as intricate as JS Bach’s polyphony exists to describe sensations felt when old or new fans discover or revisit his music.
At the end of this, a year troubled and even locally now, with violence, tragedy and death, JS Bach and the memory of this concert remains a beacon of unrivalled joy, invention, variety and skilful musical storytelling with shades of rejoicing, adoration, concern and colour. So relevant and appropriate for our very now.
Australian talent and musicians were truly celebrated in this the second half of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’ Christmas Oratorio journey, which began under the baton of Brett Weymark OAM in 2023. Now so clearly led by Dr Elizabeth Scott, Associate Music Director of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, their Chamber Singers demonstrated the ingenuity of JS Bach, his functionality in providing a quantity of music for regular church services as well as his dramatic directness and clever, contoured text setting.
This version with agile, expressive choir, orchestral players celebrating Christmas in joyous tutti vistas as well as pairings to support soloists was on par with landmark renderings by Bach academies or experts globally. Bach’s character-rich, nuanced storytelling, and nativity scenes plus intrigues such as the suspicious interest in Jesus of King Herod were vividly and elegantly drawn here.
A quartet of fine local soloists (Jacqueline Porter-soprano, Hannah Fraser-mezzo soprano, Jon Longmuir-tenor and Christopher Richardson-baritone) completed the stunning architecture of these cantatas. They told lucid stories via recitatives, arias, duets and even a quartet-recitative in the final cantata.
Above: Jon Longmuir gave a memorable performance in the role of Evangelist. Photo: Simon Crossley-Meates
Narration as led by Evangelist Jon Longmuir was an exciting and well coloured trajectory, with solid high register work and perfect linking-text tone. Soprano soloist Jacqueline Porter gave us compelling episodes within the Nativity-plus sequence. Notably her accounts where a scheming King Herod, suspicious of the Messiah wanted the wise men to get intel back to him.
Porter’s confidence as a person of faith that Jesus’ power and grace eclipses such attempts by old rulers was beatifully rendered and sung in seamless multi-hued arcs. Her Part four ‘echo solo’ was well choreographed or blocked on the opera house stage, with echo soprano and oboe positioned higher and at the rear raised level of the stage.
Baritone Christopher Richardson contributed a solid tone and sentiment whether it be also in the character of a loyal Christian rejoicing in Jesus’ role on earth, or the more candid, characterised recitatives in the role of Herod. Completing this fine team of soloists was mezzo soprano Hannah Fraser, whose consummate talent for working as a soloist but also as a key force within ensemble moments was a joy to watch. Her recitative with the chorus ‘Where is the Newborn King Of Thee Jews?’ was a showcase for an effective blend and balance and the fine synergy between Chamber Singers and soloists above the instrumental tapestry.
The complete six parts or over sixty movements of the Christmas Oratorio is itself a showcase of the cantata model as perfected throughout his career by JS Bach for functional church service music. Its elements or parts were to be performed at six separate Christmas Season services. From a musicological angle, the realisation of all six parts to display for audiences over just two concerts is an exciting display we are fortunate to be exposed to.
Above: Members of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs Chamber Singers and Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra horn players. photo: Simon Crossley-Meates.
The Sydney Philharmonia concerts, so capably led by Brett Weymark OAM and more recently by Dr Elizabeth Scott Demonstrate Bach’s excellent use of resources and options with which to tell stories via these compact and varied cantatas, an admirable substitute for presentations of Handel’s Messiah. The ways Bach could switch orchestration or accompaniment for solo arias were beautifully displayed by single instruments (violin, flute, oboe) or pairings from Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra with soloists.
These sifts in texture unfolded with impressive smoothness and fine flow. The precision and expressive range of the choir to interject with a traditional chorale or an atmospheric chorus is a credit to the continued high standard of all Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and the thorough, informed preparation of its Music Directors.
As well as rousing opening choruses faith and prophecy affirming group moments, plus surprising volume from this small but In addition to excited and full voiced narratives as the Christmas action continues, there was a shift to more intimate, controlled singing from the choir. This contrast came in such exquisite moments of stillness as in the Chorale ‘Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier’ towards the end of Part 6.
Above: Phillip Cullen, composer of ‘A Nativity’. Photo: Simon Crossley-Meates
The talents of the Chamber Singers and of the instrumentalists in solo and duet teams and the concert concepts Sydney Philharmonia Choirs come up with were here augmented or troped by adding new music into the Baroque mix. Inserted in between the cantatas were two new works by Australian -born composers. This new-amongst the older music helps bring Bach’s classic to now and further highlight the promising pool of talent and future possibilities local artists ancd creatives can provide.
This interpretation of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio had already placed our early music skill firmly competing on a global stage. These two ingenious and fitting works for choir also reinforced that Australian born composers are also a creative force to look out for. And local performers bringing the premieres to life are world class. Phillip Cullen’s A Nativity shifted the pace to a contemporary accent in his clever work for choir which blended new music with progressive, vocal placement and modern effect with quotes from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio as well as a setting of the poem A Nativity by Rudyard Kipling.
Above: Composer of ‘A Prayer For Jesus’ ; Kayla Erin Hinton. Photo: Simon Crossley-Meates
Before we launched into Part 6 of the Christmas Oratorio (For the Feast of the Epiphany), Kayla Erin Hinton’s new work brought us back to the now from the Thomaskirche. Hilton’s work was not a jarring shift, but a lyrical feast of original poetry sent to inimitable free modern expressivenes, not an obstacle for the talented Chamber Singers.
The engaging closeness of vocal line and simplicity yielding stunning sonic complexities here delighted. As in the surrounding Bach setting, A Prayer For Jesus’ gorgeous text ful of gentle wordplay was exquisitely set. Its performance was just as commanding or arresting as the Baroque Classic it tropes in English. I left this concert craving more JS Bach, Kayla Erin Hilton and Philllip Cullen. An enriched for receiving the mighty BWV 248 over the past two years. One I feel lucky to witness, hope for a future preservation on recording so this joy-filled concert can be re-gifted at a later date.
Christmas has never been so intricate, gentle, breathtakingly capable and local as this project we were recently able to rejoice in.
