Australian Chamber Choir | Mozart Requiem
May 27, 2023, Scots’ Church, Melbourne
It is so much fun watching a choir in full song. Mouths moving, chests heaving, and heads bobbing in time to the music. Everyone together in perfect unison. It’s a beautiful thing.
So it was at the Australian Chamber Choir’s performance of the Mozart Requiem at Scots’ Church this afternoon, directed by Douglas Lawrence AM and featuring soloists from the choir: Elspeth Bawden, Elizabeth Anderson, Lyndon Green and Thomas Drent.
The Requiem is well known to music lovers, even so, nothing prepares you for the glory of the live performance, especially in the beauty of a church as large and magnificent as Scots’ Church, Collins Street, Melbourne.
Mozart died before finishing the Requiem and poor Constanze (his widow) was left to engage Joseph Eybler and Franz Xavier Sussmay to fill in the gaps from Mozart’s musical sketchings and bring the work to fruition.
I was most impressed by the well researched and insightful concert program notes which referenced Agnes Selby’s excellent book, Constanze, Mozart’s Beloved. Well worth the read as we continue to reassess the role and active participation of women in the history of western music.
The concert opened with a beautiful rendition of Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus, warming up the choir, orchestra, and audience. It was clear right from the start that the Australian Chamber Choir were in fine form.
Douglas Lawrence set a cracking pace for some movements, but even when we were on the edge of our seats he seemed to exude calm confidence. The acoustics added volume and depth to the orchestra as well as the choir, as did the basset horns, trombones and timpani.
Thomas Drent’s bass gave me goosebumps in the Tuba Mirum with its accompanying trombone solo, as did Lyndon Green in the tenor part of the same movement. Soprano Elspeth Bawden and alto Elizabeth Anderson paired beautifully in the Benedictus. Sublime ensemble work from the soloists in the Recordare.
But it was the whole choir – the Australian Chamber Choir – including the soloists who delivered the punch and bang of the great choruses; the creeping drama of the opening Introitus and Dies irae and the explosion of the Sanctus, all the way to the other extreme with the bittersweet Hostias and Angus Dei.
I should add that everything in the experience – the bookings system, reserved seats in the church, emails and program notes from the Australian Chamber Choir – was of the highest quality.
The Requiem was a fitting tribute for the 20 year old woman for whom it was commissioned. Haydn had it played at his funeral. And I intend to hear it again and again before my time is up. Cue the Lacrimosa >>
