Reviewed by Ray Smith, Tuesday 4th March 2015
Act One: Laude and Madrigals Featuring The Song Company.
Director Roland Peelman conducted The Song Company as they opened the evening's performance by the
Gavin Bryars Ensemble with Guests with
L'vidi in Terra Angelici Costume (I Beheld on Earth Angelic Grace). Never was an opening piece better named. The a cappella presentation was breathtaking in its complexity and the beauty of its delivery as the six voices wove a subtle cloth in the air. It was mesmerising. How the performers were able to pitch so accurately and apparently without effort remains a mystery as they extended the shifting, shimmering chords in unexpected directions.
Members of the Gavin Bryars Ensemble joined and, once again, James Woodrow's electric guitar eased its way into the arrangements with soft organ like tones and ghostly sighs that were reminiscent of a theremin.
We were also treated to a Premier of
New Madrigals. Peelman quipped that, "the ink is still not dry" on the 10 day old manuscripts that his six singers read from. To produce such polished performances of works so new that rehearsal opportunities must have been very limited, is a testament to the skill of this outstanding vocal ensemble and its director.
Act Two: Nothing Like the Sun. 8 Shakespeare Sonnets.
The Gavin Bryars Ensemble was extended by clarinet, bass clarinet, percussion, piano and a second viola. The texts were narrated by Gavin Friday and then sung by Peyee Chen and John Potter as Bryars himself conducted from the double bass. The narration was difficult to hear and Friday's rather bizarre body contortions during the readings and 'sideways' approach to the microphone did nothing to help. Thankfully, the crisp, crystal voices of Chen and Potter then delivered the text in perfect clarity in answer.
The arrangements were soft and uncluttered during the narration only to rise and twist to the vaulted ceiling to support the superb singers. Bryars background as a jazz bassist became apparent when he soloed against Anna Coleman's beautiful, brooding bass clarinet. Roland Peelman took to the piano with the same precise timing and deep empathy for the compositions that he and his singers had demonstrated in Act One, and Rebecca Lagos punctuated the pieces with unobtrusive grace on an array of percussion instruments including vibraphone and hammered dulcimer.
The Gavin Bryars Ensemble is a delicately balanced beast capable of great gravitas, and gentle but insistent authority, but the chosen guests were as a glove to the ensemble's hand. It was a display of superb musicianship.
Act Three: Mercy and Grand by
Tom Waits/
Kathleen Brennan. Arranged by Gavin Bryars.
The ensemble took to the stage with two new guest musicians, James Crabb on button accordion and Julien Wilson on tenor saxophone and bass clarinet. This is not the same design of a small two or three row button accordion that folk music audiences are familiar with, but a five row Continental style, a Pigini 'Mythos' model with 64 buttons for the right hand, custom built for Crabb in 1992. Wilson was awarded the 2008 Australian Jazz Artist of the Year Award.
As the extended ensemble settled and tuned the final member entered. Jess Walker took to the stage with all the shyness of
Judy Garland at an Awards Ceremony. She strode confidently to the front of the stage and tore the microphone from its stand. The opening gambit of,
A Little Drop of Poison set the scene perfectly. Walker snarled the verses and members of the ensemble, without microphones, answered with the refrain, "She left in the fall, that's her picture on the wall. She always had that little drop of poison". The grins on their faces told the whole story as they relished the opportunity to let their hair down, and the audience simply loved it.
I had had my doubts about a female singer, let alone a classical ensemble, tackling the dark and dangerous works of Waits and Brennan but I could not have been more wrong. If you don't have the actual
Tom Waits and his 'gravel off a shovel' voice available, it would be madness to try to emulate his unique style, and no such attempt was made.
The arrangements were as diverse as the songs, ranging from spine-tingling bowed harmonics on bass, 'cello and violas, to fluid and fluent electric guitar solos as James Woodrow was finally allowed to let his Stratocaster off its leash. Wilson's tenor saxophone solos were sleazy, dirty and perfect. Crabb's liquid lines lamented the death of
Georgia Lee or wandered wistfully through the corridors of Waits's mind.
Bryars allowed himself the luxurious indulgence of 'just' being the bass player, as Jess Walker slipped effortlessly between the roles of Mezzo Soprano and
Hooker from Minneapolis. It was utterly brilliant.
Tom Waits himself said, "I'm honoured to have an artist of Gavin Bryars' stature dress these songs up and take them out to an elegant night on the town." He did Tom. He really did.
