Above: Nicholas Russoniello played Baritone and soprano saxophone improvisations in between movements of the Vespers at this performance. Featured image: Conductor Tim Cunniffe led Symphony Chorus members during this beautifully lit performance. Photo credit, both images: Simon Crossley-Meates.
This performance extended our experience of sacred choral music in a number of rewarding and innovative ways.
The concept of vespers- those intense and mesmerising sacred timekeepers-was here heard not in its Gregorian Chant style Latin setting, but in the svelte Russian Orthodox measured rhythmically complex swoops. Rachmaninoff’s approach to the text results in a detailed, highly nuanced version in the vernacular.
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’ Symphony Chorus embraced the idiosyncracies of the Russian language and this multi-part choral music, in which beautiful parallel movement for gesturing abounds, plus the bass part descends often into rarely heard extreme depths.
Above: One of many formations the Symphony Chorus sang in during Rachmaninoff’s ‘Vespers’ Photo credit: Keith Saunders.
This event gave some audience members the chance to process the music’s undulations lying on a yoga mat. However, the stunning lighting display and swirling, constant movement of choir and conductor were best taken in from the heights of the Sydney Town Hall galleries.
The physicality resulting from performers and conductor being constantly on the move enhanced the contrasts and momentum of the choral masterpiece. We followed its ceremonial arrow through a call to prayer, the Easter morning story, church doxologies such as the Gloria and a constant promotion of the habitual practice of praise. Swirling choristers resembled in a way urgent community members in this fluid, furtive dance across the Town Hall Floor.
Our experience of these vespers at this event was anything but the original a capella style. A quartet of low strings provided atmospheric stamps, almost-drones and layeering beneath the voices. The two cellos (Anthea Cottee, James Beck) and two double basses (David Cooper, Jennifer Penno) sang from four compass or cross points on each side of the performance square space across the historic venue’s centre.
Introduced at various points as interludes to the separate chants were melifluous improvisations from saxophone virtuoso Nicholas Russoniello. His inspired utterances came, like the All Night Vespers Rachmaninoff’s pen, in soaring soundscapes from the high register (soprano saxophone) to the low (baritone saxophone).
Visually, this performance of prayers and praise from night to the morning makes effective use of the venue- with action shifting smoothly from the focus floorspace, to stage sections and seating galleries, to chorus performing at the climax completely outside in the foyer. Mark Hammer’s lighting design found constant moments and opportunities for changes to the dramatic accent to be visually celebrated.
Above: Conductor Tim Cunniffe and choir members performed in many different on-stage shapes throughout the event.
Mezzo-soprano Hannah Fraser and tenor Louis Hurley also appeared in narrative moments well lit and poised around the space, parting sea of choristers or blending in with them. Their contribution was in engaging voice, always successfully transitioned in and out of the choir-only chants, and with penetrating, solid tone.
The tone colours and blend of the Symphony Chorus in this busy, movement-rich execution of Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil spiralled out and up and overlapped with exquisite precision. The sprawling work unfolded for us with excellent command of the all-Russian text. The rhythmically demanding, multi-directional part activity and challenging voice leading for all voices was mastered with an overall resulting smoothness despite all the effort required to produce the complex lines.
Conductor Tim Cunniffe ensured the gentle momentum was maintained and the choral voice moved with the requisite clarity and well-balanced, svelte progression. This was even more admirable as his podium was constantly being moved and the Symphony Chorus members traversed the performance square and entire venue constantly throughout to take up position in each of its entirely new tableaux.
Rachmaninoff’s moments of gentle gesture as well as his organic growth towards large, loud climaxes of choral textures swirl around in turn during this work. Both the gentle and more exuberant vocal energies alternated with excitement throughout this performance. Looking down on this vivid visual spectacle with its multitude of moving parts and receiving such a varied sonic tapestry in return was a magical way in which to encounter this work.
For those experiencing this evocative music for the first time, this was quite the theatrical introduction. For those expecting the vespers to be a monastic, controlled vespers delivery, Rachmaninoff’s nuanced twentieth century approach to the model was so much more in Sydney Philharmonic Choirs’ innovative approach. So captivating was this vivid recreation, we always felt the musical trajectories in the prayers or hymns where matched and elaborated on via so many new atmospheres, colours, movement and instrumental tropes.
This was a landmark musical event in the Town Hall venue’s recent history, and in the performance event creation timeline for Sydney Philharmonia Choirs.
