Festive Cheer Of This Quality Is Something To Sing About

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday December 17, 2007

Harriet Cunningham

? CLASSICAL

NOEL! NOEL!

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra

City Recital Hall, December 15

Reviewed by Harriet Cunningham

IT'S common, even fashionable, to feel jaded about Christmas - the cliches, the consumerism, the endless loop of Jingle Bell Rock. But music can also be the ultimate antidote to Christmas sneer. An hour or so with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, at its annual Noel! Noel! concert, and Scrooge-like symptoms should diminish rapidly.

The key is the quality of the music and performances. The Brandenburg Orchestra is a classy act, and its Christmas program is a well-judged mix of intriguing discoveries and old favourites. This year the choir is once again the focus, and once again its members sing beautifully under the accomplished direction of Paul Dyer. Some of their entrances are magical: the canon in Es Ist Ein Ros' Entsprungen, the refinement of Arcadelt's Ave Maria and the rude enthusiasm of Riu, Riu, Chiu.

The sound is solid and sometimes ever so slightly stolid, but mostly refreshingly open and free of overproduced vibrato. All the soloists come from within the choir and barely linger for applause before returning to the choir, which creates a rather touching sense of community and humility, especially in Tommie Andersson's homely arrangement of Silent Night.

As for the band, they play with poise and transparency. An addition to the usual line-up is a trio of sackbuts - the predecessor of the trombone. Led by Nigel Crocker, they provide a rich, warm and occasionally virtuosic flair to the choir's measured tones. Other instrumental highlights include Lucinda Moon's immaculate performance of Biber's tricky but beautiful sonata The Annunciation, and the swoon-worthy slow movement from Bach's Concerto in C minor, a duet for Moon and oboist Kirsten Barry.

This concert will be repeated today and tomorrow at 7pm at St Francis of Assisi Church, Paddington.

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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