Review: Twist’s triumphant Australian Song Cycle

Sydney Chamber Choir | Garden of the Soul

November 20, 2021 – Independent Theatre, North  Sydney,

It’s not every day you find yourself musically swept into a warm deep ocean looking up through a smack of jellyfish, or launched into a wheeling chattering flock of lorikeets as they careen over a rainforest valley, but from my seat in the Independent Theatre on Saturday evening I was genuinely transported by Joe Twist’s world premiere of An Australian Song Cycle, commissioned and performed by the Sydney Chamber Choir. Twist explains, “The work traverses a comprehensive and contrasting array of Australian voices over the last century, drawing on poets from Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson to Judith Wright, Michael Leunig, Les Murray and Oodgeroo Noonuccal. These poems are rich with distinctly Australian imagery, perfect for a choral setting, with each exploring different elements of our natural surrounds. Scored for choir, piano and cello, I’ve tried to highlight these musically.”… and he has succeeded – masterfully, in fact.

The song cycle begins quietly with ‘Grey dawn on the sand hills’, the first lines of Sunrise on the Coast by Banjo Patterson. If you have never watched the sun rise over the east coast of Australia I urge you to listen to this song, I felt I was there, the choir lifted gloriously to the glowing crescendo of ‘And lo, there is light!’ then immediately retreated ‘Evanescent and tender’. Beautiful word painting, deftly conducted by Sam Allchurch and brilliantly interpreted by the choir who were obviously well-rehearsed and intimately connected to the music from the outset.

Andy’s Gone with the Cattle brought a tear. The solo voice of Belinda Montgomery began this ballad as a sort of wife’s lament and as the song progressed a cappella I felt like I was listening to the original setting of the verse and that Henry Lawson had simply put the words of this a popular classic Australian droving tune down on paper to create his poem. This is a work that should become a staple of every Australian touring choir.

Wonga Vine (poetry by Judith Wright) gave the women of Sydney Chamber Choir their turn in the sun vocally, as the cello and piano lines climbed up like the vine, they sung repetitive canonic waterfall-like descending lines evoking the cascading white flowers hanging over a bubbling creek, simply stunning imagery which led into “bursts of colour and driving rhythms from rapid piano flourishes and florid vocal writing for Michael Leunig’s Magpie and Les Murray’s Jellyfish.” I’m quoting Twist’s program notes here because they elaborate the works so perfectly. Peter Skrzynecki’s poem Lorikeets also featured in this middle section of songs celebrating Australian flora and fauna. In all these pieces the choir were animated and joyful, with men g-lob-ing, women warbling and Jem Harding on piano and Anthea Cottee on cello complementing the choir’s lorikeet-like chatter with delightful rapid high pitched thrumming.

“nutty udder and teats”

“arching with blossoms and honey”

this is poetry designed to be recited aloud and the choir’s clear intonation hardly lost a word.

But it was not all glorious sunrises, quirky animal ditties and folk tunes. In the final two songs Twist changes tone and plunges into Ashes penned by Jack Twist (Joe’s father). This was not a sudden change to doom and gloom, in fact it should be mentioned that while each of the songs in the cycle could easily stand alone the transitions between each were a very significant part of the overall work. This one in particular went from a sea-like soundscape in Jellyfish to ‘A fading sun of dirty orange horizon swathed in smoke’, sung by the men of the choir with the women changing their ‘sea’ sounds almost imperceptibly to create a hissing smoky sputtering, evocative of an eerie fire ravaged landscape. The text speaks of devastation, the music creates a chill feeling ever rising to the work’s powerful climax, a drumming chanting of fauna death statistics. The use of varying dynamics rising and falling across the vocal landscape left the audience feeling a heavy weight.

This and the final work bring a sense of seriousness, as Twist writes “The colourful celebration at the outset of my Australian Song Cycle culminates with Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s Time Is Running Out, a passionate response to the destruction of sacred land stolen from First Nations peoples, and here a vital voice to the work. Earlier lyrical melodies give way to loud, declamatory singing and hammered piano chords to match the violence of lines such as: ‘The miner rapes the heart of earth’. With this dramatic music I’ve endeavoured to amplify the need for ‘truth-telling’ about the social and environmental atrocities of our history as well as the urgency of our climate crisis.” Brutal, blunt, this is not a hopeful ending to the cycle, it jars, and stays with you well after the raucous applause has died.

Joseph Twist has somehow managed to perfectly wrap up the very essence of Australia into an eight movement Song Cycle, he is a masterful composer who intimately understands the choir as an instrument. What a triumph! Thanks must go to the Maury family for making this commission with Sydney Chamber Choir possible, this new work is an extraordinary contribution to the Australian choral repertoire.

…And that was only the second half of the program…

Sydney Chamber Choir also performed three renaissance pieces and three works by Benjamin Britten (including his Hymn to St Cecila, the patron saint of Music) all with the passion and precision we’ve come to expect from this fine ensemble. The choir has recently ditched their traditional choir blacks in favour of splashes of solid warm blues, greens and reds which adds personality and flair to their stage presence, I love it. The whole program showcased a vocal ensemble of extreme versatility and skill where any chorister can be called upon to step out and take a solo, and those that did this evening truly shone – a remarkable concert indeed.

Artists

Sydney Chamber Choir
Jem Harding – piano
Anthea Cottee – cello
Sam Allchurch – conductor

Program

Ego flos campi (1555) Jacobus Clemens non Papa

Zefiro torna (1614) Claudio Monteverdi

Vidi speciosam (1572) Tomás Luis de Victoria

Rosa Mystica (1939) Benjamin Britten

A Hymn to the Virgin (1930) Benjamin Britten

[Quartet: Amanda Durham soprano, Alison Keene alto
Mackenzie Shaw tenor, Ed Suttle bass]

Hymn to St Cecilia (1942) Benjamin Britten

[Solos: Megan Cronin & Josephine Gibson sopranos, Alison Lockhart alto
Richard Sanchez tenor, Jesse van Proctor bass]

An Australian Song Cycle (2021) Joseph Twist

1 Sunrise on the Coast (Banjo Paterson)
2 Andy’s Gone with Cattle (Henry Lawson)
3 Wonga Vine (Judith Wright)
4 Magpie (Michael Leunig)
5 Lorikeets (Peter Skrzynecki)
6 Jellyfish (Les Murray)
7 Ashes (Jack Twist)
8 Time Is Running Out (Oodgeroo Noonuccal)

[Belinda Montgomery soprano solo, Sébastien Maury baritone solo]