By Clive O'Connell
MUSIC
CHRISTMAS WITH THE AUSTRALIAN BOYS CHOIR ★★★
Australian Boys Choir
Melbourne Recital Centre
December 11
At the heart of this concert from Noel Ancell's distinguished choir and its offshoots – Vocal Consort, Kelly Gang, Junior Singers and Tyros – stood the exemplar of Christmas music for treble ensembles: Britten's A Ceremony of Carols of 1942, the harp part provided by veteran Mary Anderson.
On either side came the customary all-in-together carols like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and O Little Town of Bethlehem while the various choirs revisited seasonal favourites – a sensibly-paced Ding Dong! Merrily on High, that stalwart medieval march Personent Hodie, and Katherine Davis' euphonious Carol of the Drum.
Naomi Heyden took the younger set through three pieces, both Rutter's Star Carol and Mary Donnelly's One Little Candle deftly managed, if a tad over-soft.
Beginning each half of the program, Ancell directed his senior singers in two new works: Vocal Consort member Timothy Mallis' brisk and clear-speaking response to Lewis Carroll's Christmas Greetings poem, and Matthew Orlovich's Christmastide – one of the concert's highpoints for its striking rhythmic and harmonic hurdles, accommodated with considerable success by these choristers in a cappella mode.
Geoffrey Urquhart alternated easily between piano and organ, rarely stressed apart from a busy Rutter setting of The Twelve Days of Christmas.
Ancell took most of the Britten at a steady pace, his Australian Boys Choir up to the mark for nearly all its content. His various soloists merited exposure, particularly the Spring Carol duo.
The only question-mark came during the taxing In Freezing Winter Night where the slicing discords in the first pages sounded pallid.