Making music from sacred silence
Mr McFall’s Chamber of silence with contrasting occasional outbursts. The 50- minute work ‘Exil’ sets Psalm 23 ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ in German and four poems: three by Paul Celan and one by Hans Sahl, both Holocaust survivors.
The composer has written: “When a person goes into a church, synagogue or mosque where there’s no service going on there’s a special kind of silence. I want to turn that silence into music.”
And in the exceptional acoustic of St John’s this is exactly what he achieved: the soprano of Susan Hamilton floating, the spare gestures of the strings most meaningful and the alto or bass flutes the breath of human presence.
At one point the soprano’s voice is joined by a recording of her singing part of the psalm in Latin. The difference was striking and personalising: the English was “Lord, hear my prayer” but both the Latin and the German said “Lord, hear my voice.”
The work impressed in its restrained use of pure music, direct in its spareness. Special effects all contributed: glassy sul ponticello and harmonics, key noises from the flute, slapping the strings with the bow.
The ensemble were greeted by a long ovation before they started and the applause they received at the end was extended and heartfelt.
The only thing wrong was that too few of the musical people of Perth were there to experience such a great performance of deeply significant music.