The sounds of the music and chanting ebbed away; the shadows on the stage faded. There was no applause, no cheering, no curtain calls. The audience rose and silently filed out of the City Recital Hall. This silence was no expression of displeasure; rather it was an acknowledgement that the concluding item on the Australian…
JS Bach’s Mass in B minor BWV 232 is described by Sir John Eliot Gardiner in his recent book Bach, as “unprecedented in its scale, majesty and sobriety.” An ensemble taking on a performance of this masterwork has an exacting task in doing it justice. That task becomes even more formidable when the ensemble reaches…
It’s very likely that hundreds, if not thousands of Australians have retraced the legendary journeys undertaken by medieval pilgrims to sacred sites in the Iberian peninsula. The shrine of St James the apostle, Santiago de Compostela in Galicia and the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria at Monserrat near Barcelona, have held a lasting fascination for…