Tale of Two Cities

What a rare privilege it was to hear the forty seven combined voices of these two wonderful Choirs in the setting of Great Hall in the University of Sydney! Edmund Thomas Blacket’s high, sandstone vaulted ceiling provides the perfect acoustics for the highly trained, carefully rehearsed and beautifully controlled voices of both choirs – and the repertoire chosen for this particular concert.

Gabriel Jackson’s Sanctum est verum lumen was an inspired choice to begin the concert. In this composition Jackson wanted to “write a piece that was essentially about light, from gentle luminosity to fiercely dazzling brightgness” … and as the forty voices opened with the long G major chord, late afternoon light refracted through multi-coloured stained glass windows lending an extra radiance to the ‘spectacular complexity’ of the music.

As this was written as a companion piece to Thomas Tallis’ Spem in alium, how else could the concert end but with that most beautiful composition? This forty-part Renaissance motet for eight choirs of five voices was a perfect choice for these choirs in this venue.

With the singers arranged in their eight choirs at both the front and back of the Great Hall, Carl Crossin conducted from the central aisle this twelve-minute piece where individual voices sing and are silent in turns, sometimes alone, sometimes altogether. Conducting and singing such a complicated, contrasting piece is a challenge for conductor and singers alike, and it was met superbly. No audience could have been more thrilled or uplifted – nor or shown their appreciation more warmly.

Sydney Chamber Choir’s excerpts from Britten’s  Ad majorem Dei gloriam and

three tributes to Saint Cecilia (Jackson, Stanhope and Britten) were beautifully executed and an interesting contrast to Sanctum est verum lumen, as were Et misericordia (MacLean), Rosa mystica (Britten) and How Shall We Sing in a Strange Land (Twist) presented by the Adelaide Chamber Singers.

Much more of a contrast – and a delight – was Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine presented with such joy by Crossin and his Adelaide Singers. The narrative and the chords blend so creatively, lifting the voices and the audience into the flights that Leonardo longed to make.

For those who missed this performance, grieve not! ABC radio was there recording so keep checking their Classic FM program for a broadcast date.

Carol Wimmer