Syntony

The Christian story is apparently a renewable energy source, along with the sun, the winds and the waves.

From Away in a Manger to the B Minor Mass, composers – believers, agnostics, don’t–knowers – have been inspired to put words about the birth, life and death of Jesus to music.

Syntony completed their Alchemy concert series with Gold, works that glowed with the lustre of pure, rust–proof, 24–carat aurum.

Six singers in various combinations proclaimed The Word in Rorate caeli, by Jacob Handl, Taverner’s funny and provocative Today the Virgin (wherein Mary doth protest too much, trying to explain her baby bump to Joseph) and two motets by Tomas Luis da Victoria.

For Five Carols from Quem Quaeritis, it took the liberty of allocating two lower voices – originally scored for children, later for unbroken female voices – to tenor Ben Whittall and counter tenor Matthew Rutty.

With sopranos Emma Horwood and Bridget Warnes, they gave an intelligent, if alternative reading of these lovely pieces.

Michael Milton led a six–piece ensemble comprising strings and harpsichord, plus Tim Keenihan tootling on a bright, sweet piccolo trumpet, for the final Vivaldi Gloria.

Four matching pairs of singers managed all the solos and choruses between them – just as well as many other goes at this old indestructible with quadruple the choir.

Let’s add the power of song to our list of renewable energy sources.

Syntony’s Alchemy series proceeded from elements Earth and Air to Fire, on its way to Water (November 17) and ultimately Gold (December 22), with no dross to be discarded enroute.

Thorough preparation, empathetic blend of voices from the upper reaches (Bridget Warnes, Emma Horwood) to the lower (Timothy Marks) framing the core of Matthew Rutty and Ben Wittall, and significant repertoire ensured that their high musical standards were maintained.

Projected images illuminated the side walls and a threatening fiery glow loomed from the altar. It looked good and sounded even better.

Alas. The only illumination was on the stage. The audience was literally left in the dark, unable to read the explanatory texts in the program. Let there be light. Please.

Syntony’s 2007 season, focusing on the elements of alchemy, featured Earth in its opening concert with music from Dunstaple to Britten, although leaning fairly heavily towards composers of the 16th and 17th centuries.

With the group’s naturally sensitive musicianship and ability to produce the elusive deft touch and delicate hues par excellence at the drop of a hat, the program might have been leavened to good effect with more representation from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. It was significant that their most effective items were Saint-Saens’s subtle rose-tinted Les fleurs et les arbres and Calme des nuits and Britten’s occasionally acerbic, often witty Five Flower Songs in which Britten’s genius for word-painting was illuminated with skill and brilliant elan.

On the other hand, one occasionally felt the need for greater mass and depth of sound in the items by Schutz, Lassus and Byrd, although there was no denying the beauty of line and curvature of phrase Syntony brought to these works.

Alongside their fussy lighting changes, it was questionable whether Syntony’s six singers constantly swapping and changing roles was ultimately successful.

With only one voice to a part, the resulting alterations to timbre, balance and cohesion were often dramatic but also confusing. No one doubts the need for some such alterations, but, by the end, one began to wonder if the real Syntony would emerge and identify itself.

From the ethereal opening of Hildegard von Bingen’s De Virginibus by soprano Bridget Warnes, through to Arvo Pärt’s self-abasing Memento, Syntony’s four men and two women were in their finest form ever.

Sounds a bit churchy, doesn’t it? A program of choral works deriving from chant, the oldest know form of Christian music. But although the texts of Syntony’s Chant concert were all sacred, the settings conveyed moods and emotions with relevance to the secular world — love, grief, jubilation, despair — and the capacity crowd sat rapt. Chunks of Nine Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter (Sunday hymns) by 16th century Anglican exemplar Thomas Tallis gave the singers respite from the greater complexities of his pupil William Byrd in Ave Verum Corpus.

Among the many outstanding moments were the ending of Robert White’s Lamentation, and the big noise a few voices made for the riotous "Alleluia" of Ascendit Deus by Peter Phillips.