Above: Director of Music at King’s College Cambridge, Daniel Hyde, conducts the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge during this Musica Viva national tour. Featured image-choir members in performance. Photo credit: James Grant.
Often choirs with trebles from major cathedral or chapel training centres worldwide are described as bringing us ‘voices of angels’ or ‘the voice of God’. This was true, right from the opening inimitable sonic tradition of Handel’s Zadok The Priest, featuring a pure top layer and admirable unified choir voice.
We were, however, brought so much more though during Concert Programme 1 of the choir’s latest Musica Viva tour, its ninth to our shores. The pure, disciplined and heavenly voices were also the voices of stunning musicianship, flexibility and experience. Only voices and musicians so developed could present works from centuries ago to now, sacred and secular, with such successful drama and comfortable communication regardless of style or comfort zone ventured in or out of.
An absolute highlight of this capacity Sydney Opera House event was the reference to organ training at Kings College. The choral items in the first half of the concert were punctuated twice with performances from organ scholars on the Concert Hall instrument. The instrument’s registration palette and range was given a substantial workout, as were surely many of our preconceptions of organ music as two vibrant works by Olivier Messiaen were impressively delivered.
In the hands of the Kings College organ scholars (Harrison Cole and Paul Greally) on tour here, these
challenging works by the twentieth century synaesthete Messiaen on sacred themes leapt into the space with appropriately disarming gesture and effect.
We heard ‘Les Anges’, from LaNativité du Seigneur (1935) and later ‘Transports de joie’ from L’Ascension (1933-34). These modern works, and this calibre and style of organ music would have been suprise inclusions in this programme for many-not often heard as well as being important and substantial introductions to music from the modern organ performance canon.
These non-choral items in Programme 1 at the Sydney Opera House introduced all to both the uniqueness of Messiaen’s modern musing over religious images and the completeness of organ virtuoso training at the Kings College centre that makes it able to share such electrifying performances.
And the variety of musical interpretation and utterance continued during the concert’s first half well past the Renaissance and Baroque. We witnessed a beautifully nuanced, blended and articulated O magnum mysterium setting from Morten Lauridsen, composed in 1994. This rendering was just as direct and well shaped as the Renaissance version we would expect from this choir, heard after Zadok the Priest at this chameleon programme’s opening moments.
Above: Creatives being this tour’s commission work, ‘Charlotte’ (2023): poet Judith Nangala Crispin and composer Damian Barbeler take a bow in front of the choir and its Director. Photo credit: James Grant.
Also showcasing this choir’s flexibility, versatility and interpretative prowess no matter what musical style was the beautiful and sensitive performance of a typically searching commission and new work element within the Musica Viva’s concert concept. Not leaving this choir in its comfort zone, drawing from existing repertoire, Musica Viva championed the exposure of a recent Australian work in this concert.
The World Premiere of Charlotte (2023) by Damian Barbeler, set text from a modern poem by Judith Nangala Crispin in the vernacular that deals with emotions and identity issues for First Nations families.
The directness of this choir’s storytelling, in a work containing complex reiterations of text for emphasis and fragmentation of text phrases was sensitively delivered by soloists and the group. The interpretation of the modern reflective narrative as well as the modern musical use in which English text was delivered illustration the skilful, albeit angelic voices visiting us.
Such display and rendering of the messages from the Blake Prize winning poet were further enhanced by the reality that this traditional English choir and its training centre was flourishing over 300 years old at the time of Australian invasion during the eighteenth century.
Staying in the twentieth century for the remainder of the evening and the second half. In another style of introduction, the choir had also paid tribute to the British expat to Australia, Edgar Bainton. This musician, composer,conductor and director of both the Newcastle and Sydney Conservatoriums introduced Australian audiences on what works were being written abroad. we were gifted his work for choir from 1928, And I Saw A New Heaven, with its unique shapes and sentiment in reliable hands here.
Touring program 1 concluded with the second half dedicated to the Duruflé Requiem Op 9. Back to the liturgical, traditional sacred text in Latin, but showing a prowess for delivering a more modern voice, this choir of experienced voices with well chiselled musicianship brought the drama and colours of the work to life.
Once more accompanied ably and with superb layers plus colour shifts by the Kings College organ scholar, shifts in choral outburst and fine line tracing were heard from restrained stillness and tiny textures to more raucous templates when required, such as for the vibrant ‘Libera Me’. In a concert rather than a liturgical performance, the nine movements are an endurance test for the listener, but the nature of contrast and quality of sounds produced were constant reward for the grateful, attentive audience member following Duruflé’s setting, so expertly recreated before us.
Choir of the King’s College Cambridge have recorded the single of ‘Charlotte’ recently for listening as a single on streaming platforms. Other recordings from the choir are released on their own label and available from https://www.kingscollegerecordings.com
