The Song Company: Utopia
This review by Paul Castles originally appeared on Arts Hub and is reproduced here with kind permission of the author.
The Song Company’s current concert series, Utopia, is as characteristic of the acclaimed a cappella ensemble’s highly idiosyncratic sense of programming as ever.
Music that ranges from the medieval world to the modern day is fused into a grippingly organic whole. A skeptic unfamiliar with the Song Company might be dubious when glancing at the program itself otherwise, Utopia’s artistic success is hardly surprising.
The program notes, written by conductor and artistic director Roland Peelman, fully exhibit the rarely equaled level of intelligence and care that is put into the Song Company’s selection and arrangement of repertoire. Peelman’s pre-concert speech, coupled with the easy-going yet assured manner of the performers, helped to cultivate a positive and almost meditative atmosphere.
The seamless first half of the concert ranged from the 11th century to the present day. Blended together were two offerings each by the now-famous musical abbess Hildegard von Bingen, the “Wise” Spanish king Alfonso X (el Sabio), and Josquin des Prez, the Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance.
In the midst of these lay a solo work by the living Russian-Tartar composer Sofia Gubaidulina (another mystically-concerned woman who has come into current and much-deserved fame), captivatingly performed by soprano Nicole Thomson.
This succession of shorter works all lead towards the final piece of the first half: Paradise Unseen by Nigel Butterley, a senior Australian composer who is discussed with increasing frequency as having not received near enough local attention in recent years. Setting words by English poet Kathleen Raine, Paradise Unseen is instantly marked by its stunning textures, beautiful harmonies, and a mastery of vocal writing that has earned Butterley praise and confirmation as this country’s foremost classical composer for the voice.
Terry Riley’s iconic minimalist composition, In C, serves as the fulcrum about which the second half of the concert is built. Preceding it is a vocal arrangement of an unusual and challengingly chromatic six part fugue from J.S. Bach’s Musical Offering, set to French words by Voltaire (and chosen by Peelman).
In C itself, typically heard in its instrumental form, was proven to work just as well in an a cappella setting. As its dreamy threads slowly faded away, the final piece in the program – an arrangement of Imagine by John Lennon – offered an optimistically-tuned epilogue to the Song Company’s beautiful realisation of utopia.
