Sydney Philharmonia Choirs | Rachmaninoff’s Vespers
July 20, 2024, Sydney Town Hall
This reviewer found tonight’s performance of Rach’s Vespers somewhat problematic. More on this later.
Many of us immersed in the world of choral music would agree that Sydney Philharmonia Choir’s Symphony Chorus is a very fine ensemble. It needs no introduction, it’s always superbly well-rehearsed, and this evening the singers (mostly) kept their eye on the conductor. They always blend – certainly no frustrated soloists there, and that’s as it should be.
In one sustained breath, so to speak, the choir maintained these sacred chants for well over an hour. Chants and rhythms so evocative (for me, at least) of folk melody that derives from that ancient peasant tradition of harmonic vocalisation. As we know, this form of musical expression is common throughout the world, familiar to us in the form of repetitive verse sung by African American slaves toiling on those southern plantations in the USA. Tonight’s choral splendour reminded me of the Slavic song festivals that I witnessed some years ago in Vilnius Town Hall. In happier times those visiting Ukrainian, Russian and Belorussian men, women and children dressed in their various national and local costumes were a triumph.
Wherever you find it, the melodic chant is mesmerising and unforgettable, so bravo to this wonderful choir and Brett Weymark.
What, then, did I find problematic? Let’s start with the acoustics in Sydney’s Town Hall, built more than a century before this science was beginning to qualitatively influence the design of auditoria. From where I was sitting it felt like clarity was difficult to achieve – by this I mean the quality of clarity one finds achieved in marble-floored churches where sound resonates. Which is understandable, because Sydney Town Hall is, well, Sydney Town Hall. I know of one or two churches within a few kilometres of Sydney’s CBD whose acoustics may have been better suited.
The inclusion of various musical instruments as accompaniments simply didn’t work for me – I thought, “can’t we just get on with it?” These skilled professionals attract no criticism from me, but their inclusion I felt simply got in the way. Let the choir speak for itself, I say; why try to improve on a masterpiece? One need look no further than Voces 8 and its recent concert at the Sydney Opera House. Their singing speaks for itself!
With an ageing population (yes, most of us at the event were at least in our 60s) I can understand that classical music is finding it increasingly hard to attract a younger audience, rather like church attendance. Theatre, too, is grappling with the same issues, however doctoring (improving….) the text of the playwright in some re-interpretive fantasy, invites scorn from the faithful, yet fails to attract a younger audience. It’s plain to see that something needs to change, but in our case not the direction it took tonight.
I could have lived with the cello, sax and double bass, however I found the frequent ‘scene changes’, whereby the choir shape-shifts around the central performance space as the conductor and his rostrum is pushed around on a wheeled dolly, tiresome. In fact, a complete distraction. Yoga mats took up valuable seating space and reminded me of one great sleepover at a yoga retreat, but that’s just me. And I’m no fan at the end of a performance of those who dog whistle and whoop, and the screamers who let rip – though rarely at the Sydney Opera House where I think it would be frowned upon. While the whoopers clearly thought the performance worthy of all the noise, I just think they are in poor taste.
All up, I wonder what many of our Russian brothers and sisters who passed me on the stairs made of it? That said, Nick Russionello’s saxophony is never less than brilliant, whatever the setting!
