The venerable Adelaide Festival, after a kerfuffle over its Writers’ Week (now cancelled), opened its music programme with an impressive concert from French Baroque ensemble Pygmalion. Formed 20 years ago under the leadership of Raphaël Pichon, this is the group’s Australian debut and the first of three very different outings at the festival. On this occasion the ensemble comprised ten singers and eleven orchestral players forming a tightly cohesive group. It included West Australian born first violinist Sophie Gent, long-time resident in Europe.
The programme included not only works by Johann Sebastian Bach, but also works by his predecessors, the best known of whom would be Buxtehude and Schütz, and a couple of elder relatives, Johann Michael and Johann Christoph Bach. Overall, as might be expected from the title ‘Good Night World’, the concert leaned towards the sombre rather than the exultant, with the programme notes observing that the composers “lived in the long shadow of the Thirty Years’ War”.
Adam Drese’s motet Nun ist alles überwunden combines resignation with looking forward to a happier afterlife: Now all is over, but do not weep. It was sung by soprano Julie Roset with a continuo accompaniment featuring the theorbo of Thibaut Roussel. Roset sang with sweet pure tone with enough vibrato to colour the lines and evident feeling. The balance between voice and instrumentalists was excellent, as it was almost entirely throughout. Barely had the last note died away, when an alto voice was heard spinning out from the gallery behind us: the first line of Daniel Speer’s canon for four voices Ach vie elend ist unser zeit (Ah how miserable is our time), soon joined by the other voices which seemed to come from different points, so they echoed hauntingly around the hall.
The full complement of singers then filled the stage for Buxtehude’s Jesu mein Lebens Leben, probably the most familiar work on the programme other than those of Bach. Leading the vocal forces in the first stanza was bronze-toned Blandine de Sansal, then the male voices, with the third stanza taken by ringing tenor Laurence Kilsby, with a final satisfying thematic and musical resolution with all the voices.
After a brief instrumental interlude – JM Bach’s sinfonia Auf last den Herren loben with a solo piece from Gent – Erlebach’s aria Himmel due weisst meine Plagen (Heaven you know my sorrows) provided another vehicle for Kilsby’s expressive tenor, sung with feeling and smooth legato. More tuneful misery followed from JC Bach when, following a brief pause for tuning, we finally got to JS, in the motet Lobet den Herrn (BWV 230, date unknown and some dispute as to its authorship). This work broke through the gloom, bringing all the vocal forces together with mostly continuo instruments, exemplifying the precision of the performers allied here with uplifting joyousness.
After another short instrumental interlude by Schütz (Sinfonia, SWV447) which spotlit the recorder of Julien Martin, the vocal group performed a cappella a more secular piece of misery, Hassler’s Ach weh des Leiden. The two final works were both by JS Bach: his motet Jesu meine Freude and the early cantata Nach dir Herr verlanget mich. Both works flowed a succession of modes and moods and highlighted the strengths of all concerned, particularly the close knit discipline of the vocal ensemble as a group as well as the individual talents of the soloists, and the virtuosity of the orchestral players in their support and partnership with the singers under Pichon’s direction.
