The Song Company | Love’s Four Seasons
15 June 2025, Blackheath Uniting Church, NSW
Eamonn Dougan’s Love’s Four Seasons is the kind of program that goes beyond simply exploring music, it explores humanity. I was lucky enough to catch the final performance of this series, touring Newcastle, Wollongong, Canberra, Sydney and the Blue Mountains, performed in Blackheath on a crisp Blue Mountains afternoon. The concert offered a thoughtful and emotionally resonant journey through the cycle of love and Dougan’s design of this program deserves high praise. In his program note, he writes:
“There cannot possibly be one precise definition, one collective reaction to what is the most fundamental of emotions … it is the romantic which is the focus here, tracing a conceivable arc of emotions, mirroring that journey in the seasons of the year.”
…and what a journey it was. The program seamlessly blended Renaissance and early Baroque madrigals from Monteverdi, Gesualdo and Strozzi with contemporary works by Howard Skempton, Healey Willan, Jonathon Dove, Kim Porter and Bernard Hughes, each set representing a season, and each piece unfolding… like a letter in love’s long correspondence.
Performed entirely without a conductor, the program relied on a remarkable level of communication and cohesion from the ensemble. The singers shaped phrases through breath, posture and eye contact, constantly responding to one another with a keen musical empathy. Changes in vocal combinations, from solo to duet to quintet and occasionally full sextet, kept the texture varied and visually engaging, and the sense of balance between voices was well tuned throughout.
New voices, familiar artistry
Eliza Bennetts O’Connor, stepping in for Susannah Lawergren at short notice today, delivered a poised and expressive performance that more than met the moment. Amy Moore and Timothy Reynolds, familiar faces to Song Company audiences, brought clarity, maturity and dramatic sensitivity. Newcomer Tom Herring (bass) impressed with his grounded tone and natural musicality; his presence was both confident and compassionate.
The absence of long-time members Andrew O’Connor and Jessica O’Donoghue was noted only because of the legacy they’ve built with this group. Yet, their absence also opened the door for other artists to shine – and shine they did. Former Emerging Artist Eleanor Adeney added rich colour and expression, and George Wills’ theorbo playing (filling in for Tommie Andersson) was warm, supportive and unfailingly tasteful. Dougan himself joined in the singing at times, contributing baritone lines with gentle authority. His presence throughout – as a reader, musical architect and collaborator – elevated the ensemble from finely tuned to deeply inspired.
Dougan’s inclusion of spoken poetry before each set, from British poet Brian Patten, brought moments of stillness and reflection, drawing out the themes of each season with wit and tenderness.
Spring’s sparkle to Winter’s lament
Among many highlights, the modern works left a strong emotional impression. Howard Skempton’s setting of Yeats’ He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven was sung with beautiful delicacy and restraint. Healey Willan’s Rise up, my love shimmered with Romantic warmth, and Kim Porter’s reimagining of Flow my tears built from melancholy to revelation in one breathtaking final chord.
Amy Moore’s solo performance of Jonathan Dove’s My love is mine was an afternoon-defining moment. As her final note floated upward, a ray of sunlight spilled through the church windows and birdsong chimed in as if even nature couldn’t resist joining the song.
Bernard Hughes’ Perhaps, set to a text by Vera Brittain, came late in the program and was a clear crowd favourite, eliciting audible sighs and whispered praise across the pews. We had been, rightly, asked to hold our applause until the end, so as not to break the emotional arc of the seasons but you could feel the collective urge to respond here.
Barbara Strozzi’s works gave voice to a perspective rarely heard in madrigal programs of this type. In O soffrire e fuggire (Consiglio Amoroso), she cheekily advises the lover of an ‘inconstant woman’, “if you want to punish your fickle lady, punish her with gifts, castigate her with kisses.” A trailblazing woman of her time, Strozzi brought both intimacy and innovation to the madrigal form, qualities the ensemble embraced with flair and humour.
The concert closed with Monteverdi’s Piagn’e Sospira (“She wept and sighed.” ) Though steeped in sorrow, the piece held within it the hint of renewal. The final phrase, like a dawn breaking through grief, suggested not an end but a return: and we think, ‘Ah! Love’s cycle is ready to begin again.’
Blackheath’s strong audience turnout was testament to the town’s love of music, and it was truly worthwhile to make the short pilgrimage up the mountains for this performance – a gathering of voices, poetry and light, telling the oldest story in the most human of ways.
