Formed in 2008, the Consort of Melbourne has a core of eight singers specialising in both historic and contemporary chamber vocal repertoire. Since its establishment it has happily maintained a presence at the Melbourne Recital Centre under its founding director Warren Trevelyan-Jones, followed by Peter Tregear and now, since May, its enthusiastic new artistic director Steven Hodgson. Its marketing bravely announces the group as ‘Melbourne’s premiere vocal ensemble’. Based on what I heard on Wednesday evening in the Melbourne Recital Centre’s Salon there is no reason to deny that claim.
It is a joy to hear a local professional chamber choir singing in Melbourne. Katharine Norman and Kristy Biber are two thrilling sopranos; perhaps sometimes verging on needing to be reined back to match the rest of the ensemble. Miranda Gronow is a vibrant and intelligent alto, but it was Hannah Pietsch’s voice that melded the ensemble’s sound with warmth, intelligence and grace. The two tenors, Dan Walker and Christopher Roache, are true musicians with perfectly matched voices. One would be lucky to find two better bass baritones than Lucien Fischer and artistic director Steven Hodgson. The young Ensemble 642 comprising Baroque triple harpist Hannah Lane and theorbo player Nicholas Pollock, however, disappointed. Their accompaniment of the Renaissance repertoire and a brief improvised dance in the program was muddled, lacking in style and rapport.
This interesting and carefully designed program presented repertoire written over many centuries and all inspired by various metaphors for ‘fire’: passion, pain, fear, danger etc. Central were madrigals by the Renaissance masters, Claudio Monteverdi (Ardo, avvampo and Quel augellin che canta) and Carlo Gesualdo (Luci serene e chiare and Ardo per te, mio bene) placed alongside two works by American composer Morton Lauridsen whose output is an engaging combination of 16th and 20th century compositional styles. Here he uses often searingly dissonant tonal language in consort with a deep understanding of the poetry set, along with word painting and other Renaissance techniques, to portray fire as symbolic of unrequited love in fervour and pathos. The two compositions from Six “Firesongs” on Italian Renaissance Poems (1987), Io piango and the touching Se Per Havervi, Oime with its Monteverdian ornamentation, were highly competent works sensitively sung.
There was monody by Hildegard von Bingen sung (shared between upper voices) a lute song by Elizabethan Nicholas Lanier (somewhat less convincingly shared between lower) and a strange, ghostly work by Neo-Baroque German composer Hugo Distler, his Der Feuerreiter from Mörike-Chorliederbuch, Op 19 (1939) where German pronunciation was excellent, even if the music wasn’t. As well, a beautiful madrigal by Luca Marenzo (Dissi a l’amata mia) and an ebullient work to finish by Thomas Morley (Fyer, fyer!). A highpoint of the performance, Elliott Gyger’s Fire in the heavens is a recent reworking for the Consort of Melbourne of an earlier work setting poetry by Christopher Brennan describing the ‘oppressive power of the noonday sun in the Australian bush’. It typically reflected the work of this first-rate composer in both demonstrating a virtuosic and fluent compositional technical language along with a startling imagination for the setting of text.
Improvements in the ensemble’s performance might have included a greater observance of light and shade (much of the singing was quite loud), a truer exploration of the honest, more-subtle affections of the repertoire, and cleaner starts. It is difficult to both conduct such technically and emotionally intricate repertoire and sing at the same time though Steven Hodgson managed well. His enthusiastic and large-gestured style of direction may need to be rethought if we are to hear a fuller and more focused offering of his considerable gifts as a singer.
In sum, the young Consort of Melbourne deserves all encouragement. It has high potential and I predict it will enjoy continuing success.
Four stars out of five.
Flames Within – The Consort of Melbourne
Local Heroes Series 2016
Steven Hodgson, Artistic Director
Presented by The Consort of Melbourne and Melbourne Recital Centre
Melbourne Recital Centre, Salon
15 June, 2016
