By Harriet Cunningham
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
City Recital Hall, February 25
Soloists Fernando Guimaraes and Mariana Flores with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.Credit: Steven Godbee
The theme for the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra's first concert for 2015 is music itself: an all-Handel program centred around his setting of Dryden's Ode for St Cecilia's Day. It was not just the orchestra paying their respects to the patron saint of music. The admirable Brandenburg Choir provided the chorus, while Argentinian soprano Mariana Flores and Portuguese tenor Fernando Guimaraes both made their Australian debuts as soloists.
The concert began with a bustling rendition of The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. She made her entrance at a fast and not entirely seamless clip, stumbling over traps laid by the treachery of period wind instruments. Look Down, Harmonious Saint, a cantata for solo tenor, got off to a more measured start with clarion tones from Guimaraes, who has a fine, ringing upper register. Lower down it was a bit more muddy, although Guimaraes handled the florid melismatic passages with style.
Handel's Ode for St Cecilia's Day is a nerdy 18th century delight, full of music describing words describing music. Audiences then and now can enjoy spotting the references, from "sharp violins" to "the Trumpet's loud clangour" and "The soft complaining flute". Indeed, one of the highlights of the evening was the elegant complaints of flutist Melissa Farrow, accompanying the bright but nuanced tone of soprano Flores.
Meanwhile, the choir leapt in eagerly for "the double, double, double beat", and the "diapason". In the closing solo and chorus a soprano solo line alternated with busy tutti writing, leaving Flores to sing out alone, stripped of all accompaniment. The spotlight revealed a glorious sound, not always dynamically stable but full of potential.
Finally, tenor and soprano came together for the duet Tra Amplessi Innocenti from yet another Handel cantata, this time in Italian. After the somewhat owlish focus on musical appreciation, this music described appreciation of a different kind, and Guimaraes and Flores played up to their roles, matching voices in delicious harmony.
This concert is repeated on February 27 & 28 and March 4 and 6 at 7pm.