Phoenix Collective Quartet & Jacqueline Dark: The Juliet Letters
Hunter Baillie Church, Annandale, 27 November 2021
The Juliet Letters is a song cycle written collaboratively in the early 1990s by English songwriter Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet. The songs were inspired by a media story about an academic who had taken it upon himself to answer letters written by heartbroken lovers to the fictional character Juliet Capulet in Verona, of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet fame.
The text of the songs are not the original letters, but invented by Costello with a rather dark sense of humour. There are some instrumental only movements, but basically each song is a letter from a different star-crossed lover. They range from sheer malice (Swine) and disdain (Who do you think you are?) to suicide (Taking my life in your hands and Dear Sweet Filthy World) and every lost-love emotion in between.
The mezzo/cabaret singer Jacqueline Dark was an inspired choice to perform this cycle with the Phoenix Collective Quartet. Many of the melodies are of recitative-style simplicity rather than structured arias. This particularly suited Dark’s crystal clear diction and she approached each song with commitment and gusto. A cheeky humour was ever just below the surface. She took full advantage of the many possibilities of characterisation, as in the childlike Why is daddy not here? or the raunchy This Sad Burlesque.
The instrumental movements (Deliver us, Dead Letter and Last Post) had much of the intensity of early twentieth century masters of the string quartet genre for which the Brodsky, and for that matter the Phoenix are known: Bartók, Shostakovich, Berg, Britten etc. In this song cycle however, the focus is primarily on the voice and the quartet textures, while certainly atmospheric, are sometimes just in the way of sustained chords. The balance between voice and instruments was ever well considered.
It was interesting to hear the viola come to more than usual prominence in this cycle. The viola can excel in mournful tone, which made it right at home here.
When I first heard about this piece in Phoenix’ promotions, I was intrigued. I thought it would be based on some of the actual letters written to Juliet. While this turned out not to be the case, the result was rather more fascinating and unified in a dark (excuse the pun) sort of way. This cycle was one of Costello’s few experiments with “classical” music and it did indeed meet my expectations for being intriguing. The outcome is engaging and entertaining rather than, as is often the case with string quartets, high-brow. It worked surprisingly well as both a full-concert-program piece and as song cycle, in no small part thanks to the outstanding and committed performances of Dark and the Phoenix.
