Sydney Philharmonia Choirs | I Was Glad – Cathedral Classics
April 1, 2025, Sydney Opera House, NSW
24 hours after the Symphony Chorus took to the Concert Hall stage at the Sydney Opera House, I am still thinking about it. What a delight for a church music junkie like myself to witness many of my most beloved anthems brought out of the quire and onto the Concert Hall stage.
When I read the program and knew the scale of the repertoire, I admit to feeling afraid that the sound would be underwhelming on the Concert Hall stage. Upon walking in and finding the choir arrayed on the stage like a Mahlerian Symphony Orchestra, my fears were instantly dispelled. I can only imagine how Brett Weymark would have felt at the centre of it all, 100+ choristers with him for every gesture.
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s beautiful acknowledgment of country began the evening, before the opening bars of Parry’s ‘I Was Glad’ sounded from the magnificent organ. Prior to this performance, the largest choir I had ever seen perform this piece would have had approximately 40 members, and your average Cathedral Choir may contain 12 adults and 20 treble voices. In the hands of this 100 + member Symphony Chorus, it was thrilling. With the organ and choir full throttle, there was plenteousness indeed within these palaces.
Parry, Ireland, Balfour Gardiner, Finzi, Bairstow, Goodall, Harris, Vaughan Williams – this concert had anything and everything you could possibly want from a concert labelled ‘Cathedral Classics’. In the full knowledge that the aforementioned list of composers contains a very specific type of musician, it was fantastic to see Roxanna Panufnik and Cecilia McDowall represented, and legendary British composer Joanna Forbes-L’Estrange conducting a new commission, a ‘choral re-imagining’ of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I enjoyed the references to Thomas Morley, and the extended whistling birds in ‘Spring’, and the choir were very clearly enjoying themselves.
There were some beautiful unnamed soloists throughout the concert, and it would have been lovely to have their names to acknowledge their gorgeous singing in amongst an enormous program. A special mention must go to the groups of sopranos singing in Ireland’s ‘Greater Love’, Bairstow’s ‘Blessed City, Heavenly Salem’, and Goodall’s ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’. Throughout the concert, the Symphony Chorus showed extraordinary musicianship in their shaping of phrases, diction and unity of ensemble. There were occasional tuning discrepancies between the organ and the choir, however this is to be expected of a choir of this size. The choir particularly shone in William Henry Harris’ ‘Bring us, O Lord God’. The detail that Brett Weymark managed to achieve with the choir in such a delicate 8-part anthem was impressive.
David Drury is the most sought-after organist in Sydney with good reason. This repertoire suits him down to the ground, and one can only imagine how much of a joy it was to play so many familiar pieces on an instrument like the Concert Hall Organ. He brought out lines that often get lost on a parish church organ, and the 32-foot pipes positively shook the building. David’s solo piece ‘Celebration’ by Cecilia McDowall, was thrilling; the organ lit up magnificently by both lights and organist.
Twice in the night, the audience rose to their feet to join in with the choir in singing two extraordinary hymns – ‘Abide with me’, and ‘The Old Hundredth’, and to be amongst a sea of people all singing enthusiastically was pure delight. To borrow words directly from Brett Weymark, the entire evening was a “…jolly good vibration.”
