Above: Bach Akademie Australia instrumentalists provided a fanfare to begin and end the concert’s first half and Monteverdi mass performance. Featured image: Bach Akademie Australia with Bach Akademie Australia Choir in their debut performance at City Recital Hall. Images: Noni Carroll Photography.
Since we first heard a choir join Bach Akademie Australia instrumentalists in 2019 there have been some beautiful choral moments presented by this collective group.
The use of small choir and established soloists collaborating with the early music specialists has enabled quality performances of well known Bach music to appear. Also, some lesser known works have been included in programmes for audiences to discover and recognise Bach’s versatile genius in.
Grazie in Grazia was a concert event which continued this successful collaboration. Its expert structure celebrated the music of J S Bach alongside key Italian and German composers in music history leading up to his output. The historical swoop from Monteverdi through to the Baroque master was a satisying journey to take as audience at this event.
Consistent with other ensembles worldwide which focus on JS Bach’s oeuvre, the presentation of vocal and choral music in addition to his wonderful instrumental output is always a joyous time. Bach Akademie Australia continue to make nice work of selecting appropriate examples with which to flesh out their concerts in Sydney churches and now at Angel Place.
On this occasion, the only Bach work on the programme was the early cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag BWV 63 (1723). Fittingly from the Christmas period, and from Bach’s position at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, this work was more proof of Bach Akademie Australia’s expertise in recreating Bach’s voice with attractive accent and passion.
This cantata crowned both the historical and stylistic chronology of this nicely put together programme. This journey in musical development was supported by thorough and enlightening programme notes from Madeleine Easton for us to read.
Easton as Artistic Director showed continued flair in interpretation of this and the non-Bach works before it. She brought together the layers and details of Bach’s filigree at well chosen tempi and with enthusiastic response from vocalists and orchestra. The admirable clarity, subtlety of expression and bounce with which this was done was world class and endeared this Akademie to us yet again in their final concert of a successful 2022.
The variation between choir (here a choir of just 8 people) with duets and solo arias and recitatives is always a highlight of a Bach Cantata performance. It was nicely rendered with choir members moving from the stands behind the orchestra to the front of the stage space.
Interaction between vocalists in duets as well as between soloists and instrumental layers showcased Bach’s expressive expertise of mood creation and complex broad textures of voices and instruments, here recreated masterfully by the group.
One such expressive moment was the Duet for soprano and bass ‘Gott du hast wohl gefüget…’ (God you have well ordained what now happens to us) with oboe solo, which was seamlessly sustained by the oboist Adam Masters.
Above: Oboe soloist Adam Masters performs in Bach’s Cantata BWV 63. Image : Noni Carroll Photography.
The remainder of this event leading up to the joyous Christmas Day Cantata featured music from Renaissance and early Baroque Monteverdi, Gabrieli, Merula and Heinrich Schütz.
Bach Akademie Australia provided a thorough pathway of historical style and text setting leading up to compositional style possible by the time of Bach.
The Monteverdi Mass setting recreated in the first half was a revisiting, appropriately in our post-pandemic times, of the Thanksgiving Mass heard in Venice at the end of Black Plague horrors in November 1631.
The performance practice here celebrated Monteverdi’s clarity of text setting. It interspersed the sections of the Mass and chants with Italian instrumental music from Gabrielli and Merula.
Opening the concert and preceding the Mass movements came a rousing fanfare for a quartet of brass and drum, played in the upper gallery of the Recital Hall and soaring over the space. This exciting declamation was repeated to end the Mass. It provided visual, spatial and emotional colour to the event.
More Monteverdi was heard following the ‘thanksgiving’ Mass, with more Latin text ably delivered over consistently well-nuanced and well-shaped accompaniment. The beloved Cantate Domino song of praise continued the thanksgiving feel.
Following interval was a switch to German language and the new voice setting and musical verve of Schütz. The rendering of the vibrant Psalm 150 setting Alleluia : Lobet den Herren (1725) in mixed formation across the stage alternating vocalists with instruments in the lineup.
Music written to shift across the vocal and instrumental parts, between the various forces, here had its blend further emphasised in this physical formation as text and musical motifs took turns to urge Christians to find different ways to praise God.
Above: Choir and orchestra of the Bach Akademie Australia perform at the City Recital Hall. Image : Noni Carroll Photography.
This work’s challenges of constant change in combinations of voices and instruments were met with strength and successful quick shifts of grouping across the ensemble on stage. Overlaps, echoes and answering were neatly and excitedly handled by these singers and instrumentalists.
This work was performed with formidable energy and vivid, keen storytelling despite its complexities. It was a well chosen work from a key contemporary of JS Bach with which to head into Bach’s text setting in this concert’s closing cantata.
Throughout this concert event, the Historically Informed Performance gave us an early seasonal gift of an interpretation using authentic period sound. This sonic palette was complete with period wind and brass instruments including the cornetto, sackbutts, natural trumpet, period oboe and strings including theorbo.
This concert’s joy, grace and fluid performance style of the chosen works thrilled the audience over and over with audible gasping reactions. The expert vocal and instrumental collaboration leaped off the stage and into our Bach-loving hearts.
In this and all musically healthy Bach Akademie Australia events both this year and prior, the elevated experience shared is something we must give thanks. The huge ovation at the concert’s conclusion showed our gratitude and wish to enjoy this established group in our future musical lives.
The Bach Akademie Australia Choir performing at this concert were:
Susannah Lawergren , Brianna Llouwen -Sopranos, Hannah Fraser and Stephanie Dillon – Altos, Andrew Goodin, Koen Van Stade – Tenors as well as Jack Stevens and Andrew O’Connor – Bass