Original SCUNA logo

2nd Term Concert
1 August 1969
University House

SCUNA history » Concerts » 1969 2nd Term Concert » Review

Review

 

Picture of newspaper clipping. Transcription follows.

Music by W.L. Hoffman

Steady singing

Last night's concert by the ANU Choral Society was one of the most successful of their recent presentations.

Principally this was because all the choral singing of the programme was unaccompanied; no attempt being made to include works with instrumental accompaniment gave the performance a unity which has sometimes been lacking in the past.

The major item was the 'Mass in G Minor' for double choir and soloists by Vaughan Williams. This lovely work is one of the composer's most effective ventures into 'a capella' choral writing, but it is notoriously difficult to 'bring off' in performance. Last night both choir and soloists opened rather uncertainly and the 'Kyrie' was somewhat tentatively realised. There were also some vagaries of pitch in the following 'Gloria'.

However, after that the singing settled down to a steady competence which projected the model beauties of the 'Credo', and conveyed much of the hushed wonder of the reflective opening to the 'Sanctus'.

Christopher Burrell conducted with understanding and although the moving devotion of the music was not fully apparent it was still an eminently satisfactory performance. My only reservation would be that the introduction of Gregorian plainsong settings from the 'Missa de Doctoribus' (appropriate though they may have been for the occasion) did tend to disturb what the programme-note rightly called the "remarkable unity and symmetry" of the work.

- Canberra Times, 2 August 1969