BY ALEX SIEGERS
Treble Helix Unlocked
The Song Company
St James, Sydney, 22 February
The Eton Choirbook – a giant manuscript from Eton College Chapel – has been described as one of the greatest surviving musical treasures of pre-Reformation England, compiled around 1500. Artistic director Antony Pitts explained in the program notes that reading the music from the Choirbook is an enormous challenge for modern-day singers.
The notation in the Eton Choirbook is a type of mensural notation, and it is nothing short of incredible for these musicians to take on the task of learning another musical language, with all its peculiar nuances, even when modern transcriptions exist. In addition to this, all performers stood around a central music stand, all reading from the same facsimile of the Choirbook, as it would have been done more than 500 years ago.
The energy required for this performance was visceral. The performers, glistening with sweat, attempted to subtly wipe their brow and shed layers of clothes as the concert reached its climax; a testament to how challenging the program was, both mentally and physically.
The passion for this project from Pitts is clear. His explanations in the concert program supplemented his spoken introduction during the performance. He explained musica ficta were decided during the performance, with performers indicating whether they were sharpening or flattening notes to their colleagues by pointing up or down.
It was exhilarating watching singers decide what notes they were going to sing, with the other singer on their part watching them intensely to know what curveballs were coming their way. Baritone Mark Donnelly looked totally enraptured, almost manic, towards the climax of John Browne’s Stabat mater dolorosa, dancing with tenor Dan Walker and soprano Anna Fraser through melisma, creating dissonances and resolutions I have never heard before.
Deciding to perform the Sydney concert in St James King Street contributed to Pitts’ world-building. The singers gathered around the facsimile of the Eton Choirbook with the golden dome of the church a halo over their heads. The acoustic in the church was perfect for this type of vocalisation.
Many of the musicians have personal connections to the church and its music program. Tenor Owen Elsley is a current member of the Choir of St James (in which I also sing), bass Andrew O’Connor and alto Janine Harris are past members of the choir, and soprano Roberta Diamond is a regular guest performer. It was worth the wooden pews and the mild case of pins and needles. Also joining the ensemble was Adelaide-based operatic soprano Bethany Hill, Canberra-based tenor Dan Walker, and 2019 VOCALIZATION Scholar Elias Wilson.
Guest tenors Walker and Elsley were superb and sublime, their voices melting into the core Song Company sound and enhancing each others’. From the audience, one could tell both of them were enjoying singing together, possibly more than the audience was enjoying listening to them. Walker also displayed his mastery of English Latin in Richard Davy’s St Matthew Passion. Recited much faster than your usual liturgical recitation, what at first felt unusual and rushed soon became mesmerising and he verbally skated through the text’s bright vowels and soft Cs. It was clear this music was of England, not the continent.
Similarly, guest soprano Diamond worked well with the formidable Fraser, bringing beautiful new colours to the ensemble and enriching the perforce with her own extensive studies in early music at Schola Cantorum Basilensis, Switzerland. Alti Harris and Hill shone brightest when they were able to venture into the higher parts of their range, occasionally getting lost in the mix when they were forced to sing below the stave.
For the final item, the 10 performers were joined by three additional musicians who also studied the Choirbook in a partnership with The Academy of St James – Claire Burrell-McDonald, soprano; Brooke Shelley, soprano and Edward Elias, bass. This allowed the ensemble to perform the 13-part cannon Jesus autumn transiens/Credo in Deum by Robert Wylkynson.
Having performed with a number of these artists in my own vocal career, I was instead in a unique position to be able to observe their talent as a member of their audience. And the canon was truly spiritual experience.
It is moments like this when even the most atheistic audience member sits back and accepts that surely there must be a higher power, for nothing this sublime could be created by a mere man.
