Carl Orff always had a desire to reach the public with music that would be rhythmically dynamic and forthright. His most celebrated dramatic Carmina Burana (1936) – a theatrical work for solo singers, large chorus, a smaller chorus, boys’ chorus and orchestra – has always had great audience appeal. Pairing this work with the Choral Symphony (Symphony No 6) by the celebrated Australian composer Carl Vine was a guaranteed way for maestro Andrew Wailes to fill the Melbourne Town Hall to capacity with not a spare seat in the house – nor a spare inch on the stage. And what a sight it was!
With a highly disciplined adult choir of 240 vocalists, 69 members of the Australian National Boys Choir and 76 orchestral musicians, plus soloists and a truly indefatigable and vivacious conductor and host, the success of this Royal Melbourne Philharmonic grand event was inevitable. These massive works shared similarities: exciting visual appeal, respectful and theatrical settings of several Latin based text and languages of past civilizations, the mystery and power of ritual, and music with colourful, dramatic and incisive energetic crescendos and syncopated rhythmic outbursts.
For Wailes, this was his third direction of Vine’s Symphony, a powerful four-movement work that he premiered in Melbourne in 1998. The first movement “Enuma Elish” (When Heaven was not named) featured shimmering strings, murky deep heavy and ominous notes, increasing to an intense fortissimo and blast from the magnificent pipe organ, its pipes glowing in gorgeous green lighting. Intense sound built with a long and driving crescendo of rising brass, drums and woodwind in a colourful opening. “Eis Gên Mêtera Pantôn” (To the Earth, Mother of All) with female voices, and calm and soft sustained strings and harp honouring the spirit of Goddess Earth, and with free solos on piccolo and glockenspiel colouring the texts, centred on the joy of youth and nature. The large choir was most blended and balanced in well-held pianissimos for the third movement “Eis Selênên” (To the Moon). A full celebration of life developed in explosive alternating male and female text settings with extended timbale and timpani passages, complex cross rhythms in the orchestra and a triumphant deafening final note on pipe organ for “Eis Hêlion” (To the Sun). Chariots and immortal Gods were well portrayed in Vine’s dense, powerful and demanding choral work, superbly performed before taking us to interval.
Red lighting brought a dramatic vision for the fiery opening of Carmina Burana, with the most famous “O Fortuna” for full chorus delighting us with its golden, solid, but almost overpowering brass and very energetic and thunderous bass drum, a fine brisk uptempo pulse and the massed choir producing the clearest and cleanest pronunciation of the Latin texts. Orff chose a collection of songs and poems from a 13th century collection of ancient Bavarian secular songs whose themes were shared by humanity – fate, luck, fortune, and nature. Melodies centre on folk-like simplicity with driving rhythms, repeated and clearcut rhythmic phrases, with clear poetic stanzas, at times mocking and jesting, praising springtime pursuits and failures of courtship, coupling, tarrying and competing for love’s prize.
The RMP Orchestra led by guest Concertmaster Sophia Kirsanova was of the highest standard, with fine musicianship shown in all solos and varied orchestrations. “The Merry Face of Spring” described surprising simplicity of nectar-scented breezes with flutes, triangles and the timbres of high metal percussion, while the livelier folk-dance “Behold the Pleasant Spring” expressed a true Bavarian Ländler waltz, with heavy downbeats tambourine and glockenspiel colouring the scene.
Soprano Kathryn Radcliffe (beautifully expressive in “A Girl Stood in a Red Tunic”) and baritone Christopher Hillier (dramatic and beguiling with “I am the Abbot of Cockaigne”) gave splendid concert performances of their solos – not always an easy task in the cavernous hall with an augmented orchestra playing at full strength at times.
Most memorable for many in the audience will be the ironic lament sung and wonderfully acted out by tenor Kanen Breen, who emerged from off-stage for “The Roasting Swan”. In falsetto, the roasted, cygnet cries – “Once I was a beautiful swan. O miserable me! Now I am roasted black”. It was indeed a surprising look, eliciting laughter from the audience, but most admirable too was Breen’s extraordinary vocal timbres and expression, with pantomime and choreography timed to match the accompanying raspy muted trombones.
In the side balcony, while it was harder to project voices through the hall, the National Boys’ Choir expressed great beauty when accompanied by celeste and flute in “Cupid flies everywhere” and in the buoyant texts of “This is the Joyful Time”, where there was delightful picture painting of Cupid flying everywhere most joyfully.
Most admirable in this hugely successful performance was the energy, flow, visual magnificence, lighting, teamwork and impressive articulation and clarity of language for massive choral work and texts of antiquity in a grand venue.
The closing “O Fortuna” Chorus completed another memorable RMP spectacular – with requests for more bringing an encore of the same. Bravo!
Photo credit: Paul Dodd
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Julie McErlain reviewed Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and Carl Vine’s “Choral Symphony”, presented by the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic at the Melbourne Town Hall on May 19, 2024.
