![\"Songs](\"https:\/\/soundslikesydney.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Songs-of-the-Divine-158x240.jpg\")
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The Choir and Orchestra of St James<\/i><\/p>\n
St James, King Street, Sydney<\/i><\/p>\n
22 March 2014<\/i><\/p>\n
Songs of the Divine \u2013 Baroque Masterpieces<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0For the first concert in their 2014 series, the choir and orchestra of St James, under the direction of Warren Trevelyan-Jones, turned to the two pillars of the musical Baroque: Bach and Handel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The concert opened with Bach\u2019s Missa Brevis <\/i>in A major, BWV 234, one of his four short Lutheran masses written in the late 1730s.\u00a0 Bach constructed these short masses by recycling music from the weekly cantatas he had written some 15 years earlier.\u00a0 Only two of the six movements of the A major mass cannot be traced to his earlier cantatas and they are probably derived from cantatas which are now lost. \u00a0Like all four of the short masses, BWV 234 consists only of the Kyrie<\/i> and Gloria<\/i> sections of the mass, with three choral movements and three for solo voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0In their performance of the Mass the choir of St James re-established its fine reputation with singing that was well disciplined, balanced and well blended.\u00a0 The sopranos have a pure and bright sound; the altos are solid and unified; the tenor sound is clean and unforced and the basses have a good, solid body of tone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For this concert, the orchestra of St James consisted of nine solo players who mostly used period instruments.\u00a0 They were led by Alice Evans who played a sensitive violin obbligato in the Domine Deus<\/i>.\u00a0\u00a0 Melissa Farrow and Megan Lang distinguished themselves in the anguished flute dissonances of the Qui tollis<\/i> movement and there was some sensitive continuo playing from Kirsty Vickers (cello), Aurora Henrich (bass) and Alistair Nelson (chamber organ).\u00a0 The balance between the singers and instruments was generally excellent in the attractive church acoustic which is very well suited to forces of this size. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Throughout the concert, the vocal solos were sung by members of the choir, as they would have been in Bach\u2019s performances.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the soloists were not identified in the printed programme, so individual contributions cannot be appropriately recognised.\u00a0 Some of the smaller solos were a little under-powered and there were occasional pitch difficulties, but there was also some delightfully bell-like solo soprano singing, rich and expressive alto solos, beautifully clear tenor singing and robust bass solos.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first half of the concert concluded with an intriguing rarity.\u00a0 This was the motet Der Gerechte kommt um,<\/i> which does not even have a BWV catalogue number. \u00a0The work originated as a five-part unaccompanied motet to the Latin text Tristis est anima mea<\/i> attributed to Bach\u2019s Leipzig predecessor Johann Kuhnau.\u00a0 Bach amended it for a German text and clothed it in an instrumental accompaniment for two flutes and strings, completely transforming it.\u00a0 The result sounds quintessential Bach.\u00a0\u00a0 It is a highly wrought work with poignant suspensions, resolved dissonances and a throbbing bass line.\u00a0 The excellent performance sustained the emotional intensity throughout.<\/p>\n
\u00a0After interval, the one work was Handel\u2019s Dixit Dominus<\/i>.\u00a0 Handel wrote this soon after his arrival in Rome in 1707 as a precocious 22 year old who was suddenly exposed to the vitality of florid Italian music.\u00a0 He responded with an audacious setting of the Dixit Dominus text which must have left his singers wondering what hit them.\u00a0 Three hundred years later the work still presents a challenge to any choir which performs it.\u00a0 The choir of St James fully rose to the occasion, singing with power, unanimity and clean attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Warren Trevelyan-Jones clearly delighted in the expressive extremes of Handel\u2019s work and thoughtfully varied the sonic texture by placing the men at the very back of the chancel while they sang the cantus firmus<\/i> in the De torrente <\/i>movement.\u00a0 He also emphasised the \u2018smiting\u2019 of the conquassabit<\/i> text, by adding a powerful, almost percussive organ registration. \u00a0Throughout the concert Warren Trevelyan-Jones\u2019s guiding hands were clearly apparent.\u00a0 His tempi were consistently well-judged and he directed his forces with clear and expressive gestures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0All in all, this was another satisfying concert of superb music from the forces of St James.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The next concert in the St James 2014 concert series is on Wednesday 21 May.\u00a0 It will be a joint presentation with the choir of St Mary\u2019s cathedral and Australian Baroque Brass under Paul McCreesh, a world-renowned specialist in early music.\u00a0 It will include works by Gabrieli in the resonant, quasi-Venetian acoustic of St Mary\u2019s Cathedral.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Larry Turner\u00a0for SoundsLikeSydney\u00a9<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n Larry Turner has been singing in choirs for many years \u2013 both in Sydney and London.\u00a0 He is an avid attendee of operas and concerts, with an emphasis on vocal music.\u00a0 He particularly enjoys music from both the great a capella period and the baroque \u2013 especially the lesser-known works of Bach and Handel.\u00a0 He has written programme notes for Sydney Philharmonia, the Intervarsity Choral Festival and the Sydneian Bach Choir and is currently part of a team researching the history of Sydney Philharmonia for its forthcoming centenary.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 The Choir and Orchestra of St James St James, King Street, Sydney 22 March 2014 Songs of the Divine \u2013 Baroque…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"sls_format":[],"class_list":["post-15823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"acf":{"deck":"","is_featured":false,"media_type":"standard","audio_embed":"","video_url":""},"yoast_head":"\n