Sistine Chapel

Throughout the 60 minutes of this Australian Chamber Choir performance, Michelangelo’s influence was never far away.

The gorgeous acoustics of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Middle Park suited the otherworldly choral performance of this seasoned troupe of 18 singers. Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus opened the program, cutting through the coughs and chair scrapings and transporting the audience heavenwards – Sistine Chapel-like – towards the painted ceiling of this beautiful church.

Following on from Palestrina was another of Allegri’s predecessors, Josquin des Prez, whose Ave Maria begins with a single voice gradually joined by three others in a kind of reverential round. Two madrigals by Jacques Arcadelt, set to poems by Michelangelo, were a fitting tribute to the enduring artistic and musical inspiration of the Sistine Chapel.

Throughout the 60 minutes of Sunday’s performance, Michelangelo’s influence was never far away. Like his Creation of Adam – a masterpiece built on the shoulders of earlier old masters like Botticelli – Allegri’s Miserere was the culmination of a hundred years of artistic endeavour under the dome of the Sistine Chapel, and the focal point of the afternoon’s performance.

From its Gregorian-like chanting through to the purity of its high C – here delivered by the very talented Elspeth Bawden – Allegri’s masterpiece was done full justice. She and the other three soloists were positioned slightly apart from the rest of the choir to enhance the antiphonal effect of the piece.

The formal program ended with a stirring rendition of Allegri’s Christus resurgens ex mortuis, thus proving (according to conductor Douglas Lawrence in a cheeky aside) that Allegri was no one-hit wonder.

The art of choral singing is to produce a polyphonic wall of sound where no single voice stands out. Directed by its conductor’s assured but understated style, the Australian Chamber Choir is an exemplar of the craft of choral singing: one for which the addition of an orchestra would be altogether unnecessary.

The Australian Chamber Choir’s Sistine Chapel is available to stream on demand