MORNING STAR:
THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
The Gesualdo Six
Esplanade Waterfront Theatre
Friday (6 December 2024)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 December 2024 with the title "The Gesualdo Six overcomes dry acoustics with rich sonority".
Lovers of vocal consorts will remember The King’s Singers, Chanticleer and Hilliard Ensemble performing at Esplanade over the years. Now meet relative newcomer, The Gesualdo Six, founded in Cambridge in 2014 and directed by Owain Park. Singapore was the final leg of the six-member a cappella group’s first Asian tour, part of Esplanade’s annual Voices: A Festival of Song.
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| The present Gesualdo Six: Alasdair Austin, Guy James, Michael Craddock, Josh Cooter, Joseph Wicks & Owain Park. Photo: The Gesualdo Six |
Despite dryish acoustics of the newish Singtel Waterfront Theatre which opened in 2022, the Six - comprising two countertenors (Guy James and Alasdair Austin), two tenors (Joseph Wicks and Josh Cooter), one baritone (Michael Craddock) and one bass (Owain Park) - brought out a rich and full sonority. Opening with well-known chant Veni, Veni Emanuel, as arranged by Philip Lawson, the purity of unison voices soon diverged into glorious polyphony.
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| Photo: AlvieAlive |
This Christmas concert, comprising well-known melodies and little-heard rarities, spanned early renaissance to contemporary works. Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) is a name often associated with Christmas music. His Nun Komm, Der Heiden Heiland (Now Come, The Gentiles’ Saviour) moved with a solemn beauty.
Listeners might be more familiar with Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale of the same title, and it was his harmonisation of In Dulci Jubilo, rather than Praetorius’ version, that was heard. Scored for just four voices and sung in English, the result was a cathedral of sound.
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| Photo: AlvieAlive |
Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), after whom the group was named, had to figure sometime. Infamous for the murder of his cheating first wife and her lover, his motet Venit Lumen Tuum (Your Light Has Come) stood out with its chromatic and dissonant harmonic language. Heard alongside modern pieces like Sally Beamish’s In the Stillness (2007) and Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s The Promised Light of Life (2015), the centuries seemed to converge.
Arguably the concert’s most memorable moment came in Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds’ O Emmanuel (2012) when countertenor Alasdair Austin’s pristine voice floated like ether over droning accompanying harmonies. The strophic In The Bleak Midwinter (1906) by Gustav Holst and Angelus Ad Virginem (Angel To The Virgin) completed a divine first half.
Sixty-three young singers of the Voices Festival Choir joined the Six for three works, conducted by Park. Beginning with William Byrd’s Hodie Christus Natus Es (Christ Was Born Today), they impressed with impeccable deportment and sturdy tonal projection. Park’s own arrangement of the popular Away in the Manger for these forces received its world premiere, a source of pure delight.
Another Christmas favourite, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (A Rose Has Bloomed) was first sung as a canon and later as arranged by Praetorius. Estonian composer Arvo Part’s Morning Star had his trademarked tintinnabuli (bell-like sonorities) albeit in English, while Park’s O Send Out Thy Light separated high voices from low voices to stunning effect.
The concert closed with Maria durch ein Dornwald ging (Mary Walked Through a Forest of Thorns), as arranged by Lawson, and Bob Chilcott’s The Shepherd’s Carol, which were greeted with unanimous acclaim. Taking a departure from serious sacred stuff, the Six’s jazzy encore of Jingle Bells by Gordon Langford made for a suitably cheerful and festive send-off.
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