Michael Morton-Evans
The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold the First was so enamoured of Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere that he asked the Pope for permission to obtain the music. I can just imagine his dismay when his court singers failed to deliver the tones he’d heard in Rome’s Sistine Chapel. Seeking an explanation, the Choir Master in Rome explained that the piece couldn’t be expressed by notes alone, but had to be taught by example.
Pinchgut Opera’s concert Eternal Light over the weekend at the City Recital Hall promised a programme beginning with Allegri’s Miserere, the musical structure of which follows what was common practice for the singing of this motet, plainchant verses alternating with different choral elaborations of the chant, and an angelic leap to high C at the heart of each solo verse.
In this case, the ornamentations vital to this amazing work were supplied by Australian 17th century ornamentation expert, Jacob Lawrence, a friend of Pinchgut’s musical director, Erin Helyard. The result? Well I have to admit I felt a little like Leopold The First. I had to stop thinking of the Miserere I thought I knew, and turn my mind to this version. It’s very different, but beautiful in its own way and the singing was, of course, outstanding, which one expects when it’s Australia’s finest choristers, Cantillation. This version, the programme informed me, was based on the original manuscript dated 1661 from the Sistine Chapel.
The 75-minute programme continued with a lively Chaconne by Johann Pachelbel, he of the famous Pachelbel’s Canon, played with verve by Helyard standing at a small chamber organ, and then what is probably the best-known of all Heinrich Biber’s compositions, his 1692 7-movement Requiem in F minor. Here the Orchestra of the Antipodes provided an impressive intensity of the musical language used to portray lamenting and mourning. This is not for nothing one of the 17th century’s greatest requiems.
Some fairly ordinary Johann Schmelzer, Biber’s teacher, brought us to the final work and Glory be, there we were with the excerpt from the Allegri Miserere made famous by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge in 1963 that we all have come to know (and love?). It was a tiny bit like being at a football match where things proceed fairly slowly, and then in the final five minutes a goal is scored and the crowd erupts. The audience was ecstatic and so they should be. It was an altogether wonderfully tranquil evening with gusts of excitement showcasing Australian musicianship at its very best.