Luminescence – Of the Body, a sensual delight

Luminescence Chamber Singers | Of the Body

4 April, 2023, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House

The occasional drum notwithstanding, Luminescence is an a cappella group from Canberra of six solo voices directed by Roland Peelman. This thoughtful program was lively, intelligent, and alternately great fun and serious. And always beautifully performed.

The core work, Of The Body, is a cycle of seven pieces written specifically for this ensemble by composer Dan Walker, who also sings tenor in the group. Every piece focuses on a different body part and is based on a poem by a different poet. Each has its own very distinctive musical setting. The Introitus is based on a fourteenth century Italian poem and is written in the style of the Renaissance madrigal, although the dissonances are much stronger, giving it a modern bent. The setting of the early Japanese Sara Sara (the quiet sounds of wringing hands) like many of the pieces in this work, deals with the experience of women and the musical writing here is reminiscent of Anne Boyd’s As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams.

The sixteenth century motet by Thomas Tallis, In Manus Tuas Domine (Into Thy hands, oh Lord, I commend my spirit) gives a contrasting view of hands. The glory of this piece is its many false relations; unprepared semitone dissonances, which highlight Christ’s suffering on the cross.

Perhaps inappropriately, but thankfully at the end of the motet, the glass wall in the Utzon Room revealed a display of fireworks on the harbour. Ah, Sydney…

Walker’s quasi-liturgical Caligaverunt Oculi Mei uses Latin text from the matins service in low male voices singing chant-like music, with an English poem about eyes by Sara Teasdale in the female voices above. ‘Although your feet bring you to me’, there is more than a hint of fetishism in Your Feet! The ecstatic female-only voices in Rebel Blood celebrates menstruation, childbirth and women’s joy and suffering. Much of the cycle concerns itself with the feminine. Ode to a Mouth sees the mouth as core to life, there at its beginning, eating, breathing, speaking, and at its end. Onomatopoeic vocalisations abound as the mouth is both subject and object of this setting. Appropriately, the last work of the cycle (and the concert) is How to Hold A Heart. Here the text is spoken over a light blanket of pulsating sung texture.

The whole Of The Body cycle is impressive in its huge diversity of styles. Also, for a composer, knowing each of the voices intimately is a huge advantage. The writing places the sound dead centre of each voice’s tessitura, tonal, and dynamic comfort zones, making the music utterly at ease and at home in its execution.

The concert’s program was structured by interposing short works, too many to mention here, by other modern and early composers between the movements of Walker’s work. Again a huge range here; a sixteenth century nonsense verse by Dominique Pinot including voice imitating a racket (a rustic reed instrument) and serious madrigals about heartbreak by Adriaan Willaert, including drum and more rustic vocalisations. There was plenty of scope for tonal shenanigans too in Lassus’ Der Nasentanz (the Nose Dance), describing every manner of proboscis imaginable and humour abounded.

We saw this group perform in the Glebe Town Hall twice last year and they do very well in these intimate venues. This renders their music intimate and personal. The variety of styles, humour, commitment and expert musicianship of the singers under Peelman’s direction made this concert a sensual delight. Keep an eye out for future Luminescence performances.

Photo credit: Anthony Browell