Having farewelled the Adelaide Chamber Singers amid great ceremony in November 2021, Carl Crossin was back with the group he founded – and it was smiles all round.
With his replacement, Christie Anderson, in hot demand elsewhere, Crossin’s return was born of necessity. Anderson has been conducting the Dortmund Women’s Chorus in Germany, touring southern France with Young Adelaide Voices, and fronting The Song Company in Sydney as guest artistic director in September.
This Elemental program found Chamber Singers in good shape, if in need of a little parenting. To take nothing at all away from Anderson’s peerless ability to draw out the best from any choir, the introspective repose and exquisite shaping of line that Crossin gets from the singers really found its mark in this concert.
The main attraction was Morten Lauridsen’s “Fire Songs”. In these modern incarnations of the madrigal, this contemporary American composer employs 16th-century poetry and similar techniques of word painting as did Monteverdi. He expresses the heat of passion just as dramatically – hence their name.
Honed yet severe, Chamber Singers’ performance certainly found its mark.
Reaching deeply into minor keys and right up high in the soprano range, the first of these “Fire Songs”, entitled “Amor, io sento l’alma” (“Oh love, I feel my soul”), opened up a vista of expression. These pieces are a total throwback to Monteverdi, and one never quite knew which century we were in. Chamber Singers’ disciplined singing made the illusion of time travelling perfectly complete.
It was a clever idea indeed to surround these “Fire Songs” with madrigals by Monteverdi and Gesualdo. These were just as pungent. Monteverdi’s “Sí, ch’io vorrei morire” (“Yes I want to die”, from his Fourth book of Madrigals) is a wonder for its forceful intensity.
The same went for Gesualdo’s “Luci serene e chiare” (“Eyes serene and clear”). This madrigal finds morbid contentment in the wounds of love. Here, of course, was music by one of history’s most notorious composers: Gesualdo murdered his wife and her lover after discovering them in an adulterous act, and he apparently mutilated their corpses.
Lauridsen’s response, in the fifth of his “Fire Songs” and using the very same words, is just as emotionally warped. It’s luridly attractive.
Chamber Singers were tonally balanced, cohesive and natural in their phrasing. Sometimes contrapuntal lines became uncharacteristically blurred, but where a single melodic line predominated, and where breathing was unified across the whole ensemble, their singing did its customary wonders.
A 16th-century gem, Arcadelt’s “Il bianco e dolce cigno” (“The white and sweet swan”), was lovely in its fluctuating melodic line. Eric Whitacre’s “Water Night” relaxed into a restful lyrical quietness; its minor keys were sweetly tuned.
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Pieces by Frank Ticheli and Paul Stanhope were a welcome addition to this program, and were well sung, too.
The best part of this program, though, came in Crossin’s own arrangement of Arvo Pärt’s “Fratres”. Originally an instrumental piece, it adapts so very well for voices. For this, the Chamber Singers stood in a circle and rotated counter-clockwise a few steps for each of its repeating “stanzas”. Positioned in the middle of his singers, Crossin struck soft-stick drum beats to signal each change. The performance was trance-like and wonderful. They must do it again.
It was gratifying to see Crossin back with the Chamber Singers. As Conductor Emeritus, his steadying hand could not be more valuable.
This is a review of Adelaide Chamber Singers’ Elemental concert at Pilgrim Uniting Church on October 5. Their next concert is Resound! at St Peter’s Cathedral on December 15.