Perth Festival: Ancient Voices ★★★★½

The Gesualdo Six, The Giovanni Consort, Voyces and William Barton

Winthrop Hall

14 Feb, 2020

When Marin Mersenne, the father of acoustics, observed the similarity between the popular instrument of the 17^th century, the viola de gamba, and les voix humaines, the comparison implicitly recognised that the human voice was the greatest of all musical instruments.

No other has its combination of range and tonal subtlety; no other has its emotional force. No other has tongues to speak.

All those qualities were in full display in UWA’s Winthrop Hall when the visiting Gesualdo Six joined two Perth choirs and the distinguished Kalkadunga performer William Barton in a concert of sublime musicianship and generosity.

The Six, countertenor Guy Williams, tenors Joseph Wicks and Josh Cooter, baritone Michael Craddock, bass Samuel Mitchell and bass and leader Owain Park performed alone an exemplary repertoire of ancient choral pieces from Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and Nicholas Gombert, with more recent work by Francis Poulenc and Max Reger, that would have left any lovers of precise harmony and meditative musicology more than satisfied.

They also gave impressive readings of contemporary work, by Cheryl Francies-Hoad, the Canadian composer Gerda Blok-Wilson, and, in an early highlight of the concert, David Bednall’s beautifully-formed telling of the “fishers of men” story, Put out into the deep.

But it was the introduction of our own choirs, The Giovanni Consort and Voyces that extended the performance’s opportunities and took it to new levels of excitement.

The choirs showed they could go toe-to-toe with international ensembles, and there was considerable delighted pride evident in the audience at the quality of their work.

The combined choirs excelled in some often very technically demanding ensemble work, beginning with interesting pieces by Alison Wills where the voices created the sound of wind in the wires as a storm gathered. It continued with a work by the Gesualdo Six's own Owain Park, and Benjamin Britten’s A Hymn to the Virgin

A highlight was a Perth Festival commission, the intricate, almost subliminal, 40-part Ode to Ode by the WA composer Cara Zydor Fesjian – the Gesualdo Six plan to include in their repertoire.
And the combined choirs featured in the evening’s two highest points.

The first was a triumphant Tallis’s Spem in allium, the first time the Gesualdo Six had attempted perhaps the greatest achievement of English vocal music.

And towering over all that had come before was an electrifying performance of William Barton’s Kalkadunga Yurdu, with the combined choirs, conducted by Hugh Lydon, reaching enormous heights with Barton’s singing and didgeridoo playing.

The performance was introduced by choir members singing in overtone, the vocal technique that is the basis of didgeridoo playing. Barton transfixed the audience from the instant his disembodied voice was first heard before he entered the hall to the pulsating climax of the piece with the choirs in full voice behind him.

For me this moment brought together the elements of an ecstatic week, as Perth Festival director Iain Grandage stood collaboration, indigenous culture and performance front and centre in the spotlight.

I have seen and heard many unforgettable things in the grand old Winthrop Hall, right back to the Indian maestros Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan in 1972, but I have never seen its audience erupt like it did at the conclusion of Barton’s piece.

  

The pestilence has brought us few pleasures, but one is the decision of ABC Classic FM to extend the life of many of their recorded concerts, including this one. Link here for the whole, exquisite experience!