This joyful opening concert of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s 2018 season celebrates 16th and 17th century English choral and chamber music by Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Locke and Handel, and closes with the Australian premiere of Vaughan Williams’ ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’ played on period instruments.
Countertenor Maximilian Riebl gave a captivating performance
The concert, which features the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra & Choir and countertenor Maximilian Riebl, begins primarily with sacred music that will be new to many, and culminates in a piece that is voted consistently in the UK as one of classical music’s most popular works.
It is hard not to resort to cliché in describing this exquisite and uplifting program, combining hymns, anthems, madrigals, Handel’s Concerto Grosso Opus 6/7 and a love song from his renowned opera, Orlando.
Conductor and Artistic Director Paul Dyer literally bounced at times on his harpsichord stool to emphasise the down beat during Purcell’s well-known, jaunty Rondeau from Abdelazer, and again between pieces, striding across the stage with sheer happiness at the magic created by the Brandenburg Choir and Orchestra under his guidance.
That Purcell’s Rondeau became the basis of Benjamin Britten’s much-loved Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra added to the aptness of Dyer’s joi de vivre.
A high point of the concert’s first half was the countertenor Max Riebl’s intensely moving rendition of Purcell’s ‘Cold Song’ from his ‘semi-opera’ King Arthur. Traditionally sung by a bass or alto, Riebl embodied an intoxicatingly forceful ‘spirit of the cold’, producing a seductive, paradoxical, warmth. His voice, his gesture, his presence, created a heart-stopping atmosphere, recalling the famous scene in DH Lawrence’s 1920 novel, Women in Love, when the grieving and tormented Gerald Crich lies down in the snow to sleep, perchance to die. More gutsy and less histrionic than Andreas Scholl’s version, Riebl’s larger-than-life performance owned the Recital Hall, reducing his audience to awe-inspired devotion.
Staged with an additional string section located above like a church organ
Illuminating connections across the centuries recurred throughout the evening, proving how themes from Renaissance England speak to a contemporary audience 400 year later.
Williams’ ‘Fantasia’, established these continuities decisively by linking the earliest composer from the program, Thomas Tallis – whose mid-16th century choral works represent some of the greatest examples of polyphony for voices – to a 20th century masterpiece which layers strings in a similar mille feuille arrangement. Staged with an additional string section located above like a church organ, this piece presents the largest ensemble the Australian Brandenburg has yet amassed.
The results were transcendent. Building on Tallis’ tune ‘Why Fumeth in Fight’, (sometimes sung as ‘Why Fumeth in Sight’ due to confusion as to whether the Elizabethan script used the long f for an s) the piece evolves into an apassionato, which features members of the newly-formed Brandenburg Quartet, Shaun Lee-Chen and Ben Dollman on violins, Monique O’Dea on viola and Jamie Hey on cello.
The pianissimo humming during Gibbons’ ‘Drop Drop Slow Tears’, echoed later by the quietest of strings in Locke’s ‘Curtain tune from The Tempest’ showcased the control and virtuosity of this extraordinary group of musicians.
I can’t speak highly enough of this beautiful program, singing to and fro across the centuries.
Catch this wonderful concert at the Sydney Recital Hall Angel Place:
- Wed, 28 February, 7pm
- Fri, 2 March, 7pm
- Sat, 3 March, 2pm
- Sat, 3 March, 7pm
Melbourne Recital Hall :
- Sat, 24 February, 7pm
- Sun, 25 February, 5pm
For more information visit Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
