THE SONG COMPANY
Susannah Lawergren & Amy Moore, Sopranos
Jessica O’Donoghue, Mezzo Soprano
Timothy Reynolds, Tenor
Hayden Barrington, Baritone
Andrew O’Connor, Bass

PROGRAM
Bob Chilcott – The Sleeping Child
Anne Cawrse  – Love is Born/Lux Aeterna
Andrew Smith – Veni Emmanuel
Herbert Howells – Long, long ago
Brooke Shelley – Nativity
Andrew Smith – Veni, redemptor gentium
Jacobus Clemens non Papa – Magi veniunt ab oriente
Orlando Di Lasso – Videntes Stellam Magi
Andrew Ford – Lullay, my liking
Andrew Smith – Et lite barn så lystelig
Matthew Culloton – In dulci jubilo
Lyle Chan – Love is Always Born
Owen Elsley – Hodie Christus natus est

The season is with us again when many musical ensembles either feel the need or take the opportunity to present a Christmas concert.

Why Christmas? Many children today never set foot in a church and Christ does not even enter their minds when thinking about Christmas. Yes, they receive gifts from those who love them, but it has largely become a secular affair dominated by commercialism. And an ever increasing proportion of the audience at Christmas concerts probably does not buy into the virgin birth, that choirs of angels and a guiding star made the announcement, or that, however compassionate a teacher Christ may have been, he was the salvator mundi. Nor that the righteous will spend the rest of eternity in heaven, joining the choir invisibule.

So what makes a concert of Christmas music still compelling?  Well, there are several things. Firstly there is the sense of shared history and a long tradition within which all this religious mythology, fundamental to our Western culture, has grown.

It is hard to argue with the sublime 4 voice polyphonic motet by Clements and the 5 part one by Lassus being sung by the exquisite professional voices of the Song Company. Echoing around the acoustics of a neo-gothic church, the individual voices emerge out of the texture and recede back with a constant shifting of focus. In a sense this Renaissance music represents a culmination of our culture and it is integrally bound with Christian mythology as well as the glorious resonance of cathedrals which represent the confidence, power and might of the institution of the Church. A far cry from that of the humble baby in the manger!

Secondly there is the archetypal as well as intensely personal joy in the birth of a baby, a subject that readily translates into music, and one with which we can all identify. In the European tradition it represents a ray of hope in “the bleak midwinter”, the point at which all seems most hopeless.

This winter symbolism of course does not work so well in the Southern Hemisphere, but this has not stopped many renowned Australian composers engaging with the religious aspects of Christmas and the birth of the child. In this program many such composers are represented, Anne Cawrse, Brooke Shelley, Andrew Ford, Lyle Chan and the UK based Owen Elsley. These composers have all tended to concentrate on the intimate aspects of the story with lullabies, and even, in the case of Cawse and Chan, a poem by Michael Leunig. Charming too were the bell-like vocalisations and glissandos in Shelley’s Nativity and bell-like percussion in Elsley’s Hodie Christus natus est; a modern take on the Gregorian Chant made famous as the opening and closing movements of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols.

This concert, you might have gathered, has a strong emphasis on contemporary compositions, Herbert Howells (UK) and the Renaissance ones not withstanding.  The remaining composers from the “bleak midwinter” are Andrew Smith (UK) and Matthew Culloton (USA), curiously all with settings of latin texts.

Andrew O’Connor directed this concert while singing the bass part and he also read some touching poems in between the segments. His commentary relating some personal connections with the spirit of Christmas were nice too. That they pulled this concert off on just two rehearsals, is indeed a testament to the superb musicianship of the ensemble, but a fact that might have been better kept to himself.

We must finish by congratulating the Song Company, not only for their wonderful performance, by for this final program celebrating their 40th year. They are building quite a tradition of their own…