The intimate surrounds of Wyselaskie Yuma Auditorium in Parkville, near the University of Melbourne, provided the perfect atmosphere for a Sunday-afternoon recital by Melbourne vocal ensemble The Consort of Melbourne. “Fire and Ice” was also an enticing theme in mid-winter Melbourne, where the weather is always a conversation starter – an ice-breaker, you could say.
Director and bass Steven Hodgson introduced the program in an entertaining and informative manner, admitting that it was a loosely connected set of works relating to the theme, a title taken from a famous poem by the American writer Robert Frost (though riffed upon later by George R.R. Martin). Many of Frost’s poems are only recently out of copyright, and so settings of “Fire and Ice” itself are as yet few, and none were performed here. Fire, flame and burning passion were represented by works by Hildegard of Bingen, Carlo Gesualdo, Maddalena Casulana, Cecilia McDowall, Elliott Gyger and Morten Lauridsen, spanning almost the entire period of recorded music, from the twelfth century to the present day. Snow, ice and cold featured in music by Antonio Vivaldi, Francis Poulenc and Henry Purcell (though the McDowall probably fitted both categories).
The recital was thus packed with variety in period and style, but with a tendency to the modern, which for many reasons is to be applauded. Contemporary works by English and Australian composers rubbed shoulders with acknowledged “masters” of golden ages of music history, and several of those were represented here by female composers, again not just ticking the boxes beloved of funding organisations but bringing us, as modern listeners, insight into a somewhat hidden repertoire.
Not that the medieval mystic and abbess Hildegard of Bingen needs much introduction to even the relatively unschooled in choral music. Her florid chants written in the 1100s became a sensation in the recording industry in the early 1980s, having rarely been heard in the intervening 800 years. The Consort’s performance of her “O fiery spirit” opened the program, allowing us to meet each of the eight members. The extraordinary chants were beautifully rendered by each singer in turn, the remaining voices slowly building up the underpinning drones. My favourite line is Bingen’s invocation of the creative (holy) spirit, through which “the human mind is set ablaze”. We saw the flowering and the fruits of that spirit in the rest of the program.
The madrigal style of the Renaissance is the bread-and-butter of vocal ensembles, and it was a delight to be introduced to the Italian Maddalena Casula (1544–1590), of whose output 66 madrigals survive, including 17 reconstructed after a missing part-book was found in Moscow in 2022. “Lovely and shining eyes” and “If from the ardent humour”, sung by various combinations of five voices, showed the quality of this previously overlooked composer. These, and the slightly later (and slightly more harmonically adventurous) madrigal “I burn for you, my love” by Carlo Gesualdo, showed that the Consort is very confortable in this idiom. The singing was lively, exciting and emotional; the tuning spot on, and the connection to the listeners immediate.
I did not have quite the same satisfaction in hearing Frank Krawczyk’s arrangement of Vivaldi’s “Winter” concerto from the Four Seasons. The singing was still excellent, but it could not make up for the inadequacies inherent in almost any orchestral transcription for voices, particularly one with such an instrumentally conceived original as this. The fitting of words from the “Requiem” mass did work well, but it was hard for voices alone not to push the tempo of the repeated chords as they got louder, even if the melodies were executed with precision and grace.
Francis Poulenc’s Un soir de neige (A snowy evening) for six voices, dating from 1944, was far more successful, despite Poulenc’s peculiar and individual angular style: somehow, the difficult leaps and wrong-note harmony, once you get it, just work for the voice. The Consort showed what skilled and attentive musicians they are in presenting this short cantata, with its coded references to war-time, occupied France. It was literally chilling!
The meaty part of this concert consisted of two contemporary works. British composer Cecilia McDowall’s recent “Brightest Star” (2019) sets a difficult text, partly quoting messages to the Red Cross from the Channel Island of Jersey, also occupied during World War Two, and in 1944 running short of food and supplies. McDowall is rightly lauded for her often-unusual text choices and her poignant harmonic language. This performance brought to vivid life the bleak prospects of the Jersey citizens and showed again the power of music to convey emotion across the ages when presented by a quality ensemble.
Melbourne-based composer Elliott Gyger’s “Fire in the heavens”, setting an Australian test by Christopher Brennan, was perhaps the most difficult music, vocally, on the program. Gyger wrote the original version for the expert young singers of Gondwana Voices, but rewrote the work for eight, mixed voices especially for The Consort of Melbourne. It is a complex work requiring a lot of vocal effects, all clearly enunciated and presented vigorously by the Consort, whose commitment to new Australian repertoire is a central tenet of their existence. It was wonderful to hear the work of a local composer in such a fine rendition.
After an arrangement by soprano Katherine Norman of “The Cold Song” from Purcell’s King Arthur, which featured a fine counter-tenor solo by Alex Ritter but unfortunately suffered from similar idiomatic shortcomings to the Vivaldi, the program concluded with one of Morten Lauridsen’s Six fire songs, re-imaginings of Italian madrigals. His contemporary American style – here with some added dissonances – is well-known to choral audiences, and this was beautifully sung. Perhaps some of the louder singing was slightly too much for the room, but the work ended in hushed tones, superbly blended.
Ola Gjeilo’s arrangement of Holst’s “In the bleak midwinter” was given as a well-deserved encore, a gentle and soothing end to a fascinating program. Special mention should be made of baritone Lachlan McDonald’s strongly projected solo lines and soprano Catherine Norman’s heavy workload of high parts, but really the strength of the program was the fine work of the entire ensemble. This was an outstanding concert of varied works and styles, sung with faultless diction and individual yet balanced tone. The audience that filled Wyselaskie left eager to hear the next outing of one of our finest local groups.
Image supplied.
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Peter Campbell reviewed “Songs of Fire and Ice”, performed by The Consort of Melbourne at the Wyselaskie Yuma Auditorium in Parkville on July 21, 2024.
