SALUT! BAROQUE PRESENTS ‘VOICE, REJOICE!’ AT VERBRUGGHEN HALL

Above: Salut! Baroque musicians involved in the Voice, Rejoice! concert at the Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music. (L-R, bottom row): Sally Mellhuish (Recorders), Brad Tham (Baroque viola), Sarah Papadopoulos (Baroque Violn), Jack Peggie (Percussion), Julia Magri (Baroque Double Bass), George Willis (Baroque Guitar and Theorbo), Anna Fraser (Soprano)  (L-R, top row): Monika Kornel (Harpsichord), Alana Blackburn (Recorders), John Ma (Baroque Violin),  Tim Blomfield (Bass Violin), Jane Downer (Baroque Oboe).

The final concert in Salut! Baroque’s 30th birthday year entertained, educated and obviously pleased their loyal followers. It was also a clear demonstration of why this Sydney early music ensemble has endured for three decades. On the top of the birthday honours list must be the Artistic Directors of Salut! Baroque, Sally Melhuish and Tim Blomfield. 

Firstly, Tim’s illuminating programme notes are always a fine read, puitting history clearly in place for us and always drawing the concert ingredients together from right across Europe in an impressive swoop that encourages our reading and understanding from angles various and a new network with interesting and new networking.

Secondly, both Artistic Directors in this concert, and for many concerts before it, have juxtaposed a huge range of music within the concert flow, curated within a specific musicological theme.

Through these themes the audience assembled for each concert always discovers new Baroque music, lesser heard composers and countries or cities of origin thanks to the programme presented by Salut! Ensemble members and guest performers.

This final birthday-year event was labelled ‘Voice, Rejoice’. a study and celebration that dealt with the rise of the expressive solo voice during the Baroque Period. This programme owed much to the stunning guest appearance from local soprano, Anna Fraser.

It also brought a party feel as only music for the voice can, with a cornucopia of text-setting gems from a huge range of functionalities. These various styles of vocal music included opera excerpts, plus sacred and secular song in English, French, Spanish, Catalan and German.

Interspersed with the variety of vocal colourings and formats were  four instrumental music brackets. During these moments along this programme’s musical discovery tour, the audience were introduced to music for instrumental ensemble by Carlo Tessarini and Telemann’s ‘Water Music’- a set of four dance movements describing aspects of the river Elbe.

As well as these treats we were introduced to an overture-suite composed by Buxtehude’s son-in-law plus a suite by Daniel, the younger brother of Henry Purcell.

This last vibrant, well-crafted work was a definite highlight. Not only did it add English music to the showcase alongside Dowland, but this music by Daniel Purcell-a first hearing of the composer for many-was as accomplished and engaging as any of the more familiar theatre music from his brother Henry. I was instantly inspired to  seek out more of this ‘other’ Purcell.

Salut! Baroque ensemble members (a mighty 11 of them!) worked well together throughout these works. It was enriched by the presence of Baroque oboe in this concert. The regular trio of violins with viola put in some notably athletic and eloquent work in this programme.

John Ma’s violin contribution to the non-choral version of the chorale from JS Bach’s cantata Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme (BWV140) was noteworthy. His rendition of the string accompaniment as a single line showed impressive stamina and was exquisitely shaped. This solo version of the well-known music was an interesting and very successful version, just one of several collaborations in various characters between Anna Fraser and featured ensemble members.

Other vocal music moments which shone and were very engaging were the Spanish and Catalan songs. These danced, leaped and were delivered with perfect accent, lilt, spirit and nuance by Fraser- with superb clarity of diction and expression across the languages.

Supported by the ensemble and percussion in these Spanish works, Fraser’s commanding renditions of these songs extended our understanding of the Baroque sound worlds beyond the more widely heard Italian, German and French compositions.

Anna Fraser mastered this programmes challenges of shifting from one language to the next, as well as from one intense emotion to another. This calibre of performance assisted the musicological and music history goals of this concert’s theme.

This clear rendering helped us appreciate the level of filigree, colour, dramatic narrative and directness of expression that was the essence of the developing use of the solo voice by composers in the Baroque period.

The crowd at the Sydney Conservatorium heard vibrant performances encapsulating a wide range of emotions. The vocal music danced, rejoiced, and saluted nature (in the music of Romero, in an anonymous Catalan song), then witnessed grief (in the aria ‘Aria triste aprêts, pâles flambeaux’ from a Rameau opera), shared good humour (via Marais’ ‘Air de Matelots’) and showed the danger of desire and seduction in the music of Dowland. There was scheming seductive song from Cleopatra’s character in a Guilio Cesare in Egitto operatic excerpt, not that one by Handel but here instead by Antonio Sartorio.

This evocative music, offered us a wide range gesturing from composers with new techniques for voice and instruments with which to express themselves and emotions within texts and tales.

This Salut! Baroque concert was carefully curated to showcase the contributions of well and lesser-known musicians operating from several countries at the same time. The result was Baroque magic conveyed in vocal and instrumental selections by this popular group in their birthday year. It was an impressive party from beginning to end.

We look forward to the 31st year of Salut!Baroque, and more of its continued rich programming that extends, enlightens and colourfully explains our experience of Baroque innovation within their celebrated focus era.