An unusually chilly Friday night and the audience flowed in early, still wrapped up in coats and scarves. It was a full house in the Cell Block Theatre of the National Art School in Darlinghurst, an historic building made of thick stone. The inside is hollowed out but traces of broken stone left in the walls shows where the stairways and storeys above used to be. Looking up towards the roof there are rows of small windows over what would have been each morbid door, still featuring their iron bars of gaol cells. Yet the space was warm and friendly on the ground floor with comfortable chairs, coloured back lighting for the performance space reaching up to the rafters, and many happy faces.
The gathering was for The Song Company, a high class vocal ensemble founded more than 30 years ago attracting professional singers from around Australia. Under the Artistic Direction of Antony Pitts they have expanded their repertoire broadly with works from 9th century music through to the most contemporary. Joining the Song Company for this performance, padding out the works to give a lush, full sound, were the students of the Sydney Conservatorium High School, Members of the Sydney Philharmonia VOX and The SongCo Chorale, a collection of singers from the Song Company workshops.
Pitts opened the concert with an introduction. What better way to grab the imagination of the audience than with a clear picturesque scene. He spoke of composer Gavin Bryars working in London about 50 years ago. Bryars project at the time was to film street people living it rough around Elephant and Castle and the Waterloo Station. He filmed an old homeless man singing a fragment of a hymn over and over. It was not used in the film but Bryars discovered the voice was in tune with his piano, so he made a loop from the sound fragment, added the chords from the original song and built out an extraordinary, unique work. An arrangement of the loop with variations for 32 voices. Mind boggling!
Pitts beautifully summed up the capture of this little sound grab. “He owes the world nothing yet he gives us his song.”
Working their way forward from the back of the room, the singers enveloped the audience with their beautifully pitched tones, then drew together for a short, single part Renaissance styled melody. Silence fell and the homeless man’s voice began his loop. A slightly shaky voice with unrelenting strength of spirit behind it. It felt like, no matter how hard life can be, this man held true to his faith in Jesus. Gradually the singers joined his song. The soundscape constantly changed and flowed like watching the Northern Lights. Subtle shifts, solos peaking over the other voices, then fading back to the group. It drew a tear to the eye, thinking about what an amazing tribute this is, so subtle and sympathetic, to a man whose name is not recorded. A man ignored by busy people on the streets of London who died before he could hear this incredible piece Bryars worked around his simple hymn.
With so many singers there was room to move them around the stage breaking up and re-forming new groups, new patterns, there was always something new to see. The more sweetly they sang the more clear a picture came forth of this poverty stricken man, forever with a smile on his face backed with the support of a massive choir of angels. Just beautiful. The audience loved it and responded with generous applause.
The second major work was by Pitts himself. Two years ago he introduced to Australian audiences a life-size facsimile of the amazing Eton Choirbook compiled between 1490 and 1502. An enormous heavy, hard cover manual, the musical works are hand written and painted including colour coding as part of the notation with gold gilt embellishments. So very precious, it was one of the few collections of Latin liturgical works to survive England’s Reformation.
Tallis Scholars have recorded works from this book and Pitts has developed one of the works beyond its original score. Eton choir master Robert Wylkynson wrote a Transiens in 3 part canon for 13 voices which Pitts built out to 25 voices in a throbbing, repeating canon of variations. The libretto takes its inspiration from the Book of Revelations where the elders sing a new song around the throne of the Lamb. Nice timing to draw upon this theme as we are currently in the “end times” according to many ancient cultures.
The tempo was perfect. Enough to have the singers moving to the beat but still spacious enough to keep it airy and etheric, slowly drawing together then splitting and changing shape. It made the perfect companion to the earlier work. In fact, the concert was produced in a unique, holistic way. Usually choral groups put on a program of several works which may relate to each other in a linear fashion but, this concert was the next level up. It encompassed ideas and visions experienced throughout the concert, revisiting, summarising, turning back, turning forward. Somehow the concert was easy to see as a complete work which only an artistic genius with visionary talent could put together. The audience was mesmerised and stayed silent a long time afterward before bursting into enthusiastic applause at the close.
Well done, The Song Company! A memorable concert. They continue their ‘Burden of Truth’ tour from Sydney on to Canberra performing on Thursday 10 June 2021 at Albert Hall. If you don’t have the chance to get there and see them in person, you can buy the album of the music either as a digital download or a vinyl record on their website listed below. It’s a great way to support your local artists and keep Arts alive in Australia.
Can’t wait to see what they next have planned.
Program
JAMES MILTON BLACK – His Love Never Failed My Yet
ROBERT WYLKYNSON – Melody of Jesus autem transiens
WILLIAM BYRD – Ave verum corpus
GAVIN BRYARS – Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet
ANTONY PITTS – Transiens (World premiere)
The concert at the Cell Block Theatre took place on Friday 28 May, 2021.
If you don’t have the chance to get there and see The Song Company in person, you can buy the album of the music either as a digital download or a vinyl record at https://thesongcompany.
Production photography Christopher Hayles photography