The Giovanni Consort performed Josquin des Prez’s masterpiece in a beautiful unaccompanied programme from the French Renaissance including Jannequin’s La Guerre and music by Machaut.
Guest Conductor: Andrew Sutherland
"The Giovanni Consort is a jewel in the crown of Perth's musical environment. Their recent concert of French Medieval and Renaissance music in the appropriate ambience and warm acoustic of the Town Hall showed off the musical skills and presentational confidence of the group to good effect. The programme was imaginatively-devised, presenting a balance of sacred and secular that provided pleasing variety. Josquin's arching lines were beautifully projected, tenors and sopranos ascending to thrilling heights supported by a firm and vigorous bass line and a supple mixture of male and female altos.
In Machaut's ‘He! Dame de Vaillance’, three solo voices enacted a troubador song as if entering a baronial hall from different doors. The cycle of songs by Claudin de Sermisy alternated artful French equivalents to the early Italian madrigal with contemporary keyboard transcriptions performed with poise on a sweetly-piping chamber organ by Jangoo Chapkhana. The concert finished with the dramatic tour-de-force of Clement Jannequin’s 'La Guerre', a setting of warcries, curses and observations about battle that blends language and music to conjure the scene and sounds of conflict. This was brilliantly evoked by these fine young singers, directed by Andrew Sutherland, who has recently returned to Perth after a spell of performing and teaching in Sydney and the UK."
Prof. Nicholas Bannan
In Machaut's ‘He! Dame de Vaillance’, three solo voices enacted a troubador song as if entering a baronial hall from different doors. The cycle of songs by Claudin de Sermisy alternated artful French equivalents to the early Italian madrigal with contemporary keyboard transcriptions performed with poise on a sweetly-piping chamber organ by Jangoo Chapkhana. The concert finished with the dramatic tour-de-force of Clement Jannequin’s 'La Guerre', a setting of warcries, curses and observations about battle that blends language and music to conjure the scene and sounds of conflict. This was brilliantly evoked by these fine young singers, directed by Andrew Sutherland, who has recently returned to Perth after a spell of performing and teaching in Sydney and the UK."
Prof. Nicholas Bannan
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