Kultshural persoots

It's all damned_colonial's fault. saluqi and I went to see the Tallis Scholars last night, which was exceedingly nice. Beautiful voices singing gorgeous Renaissance music is definitely something to be appreciated. Those Catholics were pretty canny with their recruiting methods, it must be said.

The concert chamber at the ANU (Llewellyn Hall) was ok for the purpose, although hardly in the same league as some nice cathedral hewn from the native stone. The voices came across clearly, with no icky echoes (good going for a brutalist concrete shell), although there wasn't much warmth in the sound, and I think that 10 voices weren't enough to "fill" the space as much as might be desirable. Still, the sound wasn't at all dead, and it'll be interesting to see what the venue is like with a bigger choir or a moderately sized instrumental ensemble.

The singers were great, and really tackled the stuff wonderfully, with the exception of one soprano who seemed to think she was starring in La Bohème. When she reined it in, she was fine, but that didn't happen often enough (especially since the hall dynamics lifted the higher voices more anyway). Also, it's possible she was responsible for the clunkiest set of gracenotes ever heard in Allegre's Miserere. I personally think they would have been better omitted, but oh well. The reason we couldn't tell who sung that part was that half the choir was offstage to sing one of the sections. Ok, having the interchange between the three sections is kind of important, but I can't help thinking there might have been a better way of achieving it. Perhaps other venues would have a bit more flexibility in that regard.

There was some woman behind us who said after the Miserere, "That was worth the price of admission. I've heard what I came for now!" We managed to not crack up, but I'm glad she obviously got to hear her favourite track from The Renaissance's Greatest Hits. (Actually, there aren't that many pieces from that period I can identify by name myself, but to imply nothing else was worth listening to...!)

For me, once they got the Miserere out the way, the rest of the programme was fantastic.  It was even better because Screechy the Soprano got retired for a large part of it, so there were only 8 voices on stage (the other sopranos were just fine). The alto guy and the bass looked like twins. Slender men in their late 30s, receding hairlines cut to a No. 2, although Mr Bass had longer sidies. He was fab. The tenors were good, and the baritone was the smallest one of the breed that I have seen in my life. The Palestrina was lovely. The last piece they did for their encore was just divine. Now, that was worth the price of admission. And I can't remember who the composer was, dagnabit (perhaps Lotti?). The arrangements seemed beautifully put together by the director.

Anyways, a great evening out, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to see them. It was good enough that even though saluqi and I were varying degrees of exhausted and stressed before going out, the music managed to do its uplifting thing for us both. Yay that.

On an entirely unrelated note, first class for Tai Chi this year for me. Since I missed the last lesson of the last term, I was worried that I'd be el crappo. Yay, I wasn't. There should be a term for "feeling-of-delight-one-has-on-realising-one-isn't-the-worst-in-a-class". Get to work, you neologists! Also, this is the biggest workout my knee has had since its op. It's a bit achy now, but ok. Yay that too! :-)