"Power of the Passion - from very different corners"
Passion St Matthew Passion. Melbourne Symphony. Concert Hall.
Passion. Australian Art Orchestra. Methodist Ladies College Music Auditorium.
THE Bible's blow-by-blow description of the events culminating in Christ's crucifixion have provided composers with ample programmatic material. Whether the finished product is a glorious sacred treatment, as in Bach's St Matthew Passion, or Lloyd Webber's hugely successful rock musical Jesus Christ, Superstar, there's no denying the endless musical interpretations the story affords.
And continues to afford.
Last week, just hours after the resounding final chorus of the Melbourne Symphony's performance of the St Matthew Passion echoed in the Concert Hall, a new interpretation of the biblical events was being played out on the other side of town. Five jazz-based composers, led by Paul Grabowsky, dipped their talent into the ring and emerged with Passion, a reworking of five movements from the extensive Bach canvas, played out by Grabowsky's Australian Art Orchestra. But if the two performances took their lead from the one work, it was there the comparisons ended.
In the traditional sacred corner was the Melbourne Symphony, conductor Christopher Bell drawing a well-defined and balanced reading from the huge vocal forces. With two choirs, supplemented at one stage by the National Boys Choir, and with the orchestra split into evenly divided units, the stereophonic nature of Bach's composition was well in hand.
From the rock-steady continuo of John O'Donnell's organ and David Berlin's cello, it remained a pleasing task for Bell to flesh out the bulk of the music with Bach's diverse accompaniment from simple wind trios to substantial choral highlights backed by the combined strengths of both orchestras. In particular, Bell's ability to float a delicate string sound through the hall gave the performance a distinctive frailty in which to wrap its emotional strengths.
The Melbourne Chorale had a substantially successful night, its modulated response to the conductor nicely balancing the elements of anger and submission played out by the text and most noticeably in Bach's subtle five-times reworking of the choral centrepiece head, full of blood and wounds.
James Oxley's outstanding Evangelist, a role tinged with bitter aggression, led the soloists. His vivid treatment also afforded a warmth and a sense of leadership not easy to attain in such exposed and detailed circumstances.
In Oxley's footsteps came some especially fine responses from Sara Macliver's heartfelt soprano, SallyAnne Russell's rich and even mezzo and John Heuzenroeder's mellifluous tenor.
Across town, Grabowsky's soloists were substantially instrumental, though guest vocalist Christine Sullivan played a linking role, singing short interpretations of some of Bach's best-known chorales to lyrics by Grabowsky. Given that they dabbled in the ancillary elements of Bach's original, they were important linking treatments for the five bigger movements of this modern Passion, featuring the compositions of Grabowsky, Doug de Vries, Alister Spence, Niko Schauble and John Rodgers.
Those wanting a recognisable comparison with Bach's original would have searched long and hard through these improvised episodes to find comfort in the modern treatment.
Here was music that was substantially entertaining in its showmanship but often so overloaded with imagery it was best to enjoy it as a newcomer rather than a revisitation.
With that in mind, the pictorial elements of de Vries's Captive, with its nod to Piazzolla and South American rhythm, Spence's For Love, featuring a superb tenor sax solo, and Schauble's Crucifixion, the closest the performance came to Bach's original, came off best. Amid Grabowsky's overloaded fugal treatment of the opening Come Daughters, and Rodgers's pulsating and highly emotional climax of Finale, the confines of the Methodist Ladies College auditorium were somewhat stifling and I longed for the excesses of the music to breath more freely.
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