Rendez-Vous captures Baroque origins with HIP Company and The Marais Project at Government House Ballroom

A lone voice on stage and a wandering minstrel in the aisle captured the folkloric origins of Baroque music for Rendez-Vous, a HIP Company collaboration with Sydney-based The Marais Project at Government House Ballroom on Saturday. Soprano Suzie Bishop opened solo with Nos esprits libres et contents (Our free and content spirits), arranged and accompanied by lute player Tommie Andersson from Antoine Boesset’s 17th century original. Fellow soprano Bonnie de la Hunty struck up a duet with Bishop as string players Jenny Eriksson and Krista Low (viola da gamba), and Sarah Papadopoulos (violin) gently chimed in, the ambience akin to a casual house party despite their formal attire. Perth’s HIP Company marks five years of historically informed performance this year, coinciding with 25 years for The Marais project, their coast-to-coast celebration focused on pivotal French composer Marin Marais (1656-1728), his teachers and successors. De la Hunty led out Etienne Moulinie’s Objet le plus beau (Most beautiful object) over barely there lute; a lucid and limpid vocal delivery with embellishments smooth as a running stream. Earthy strings contrasted and complemented soprano in continuo and accompaniment, closing out in a comforting cadence. Eriksson and Low next turned to dance in Jean de Sainte-Colombe’s Concert XI, a stately sarabande full of ornament gathering pace for a brisk gavotte in echoes of entertainment from ages past. The full ensemble returned for two traditional ditties; the first, Une jeune fillette (A young girl), a vignette of a devotee at prayer, pairing Bishop and Eriksson with lute in attendance; their warm and welcoming tone amplified by violin in Andersson’s arrangement. De la Hunty led a seamless transition to Ma Belle si ton ame (My Beauty, if your soul), soaring across the vaulted reaches of the ballroom in a pastoral tale of young love played out with tempo and tone in deft balance. A darker side of bucolic passion emerged in Jean Planson’s Puisque le ciel veut ainsi (Because heaven wills thus); sopranos carolling a lover’s lament over delicate lute, violin and viola da gamba support. Andersson took up theorbo for Marais’ Suite for two viols and continuo in G major, the plus-sized instrument filling out the palette with plangent bass notes, karmic and calming in the prelude. A minuet to follow was a pleasing party piece for the threesome before a gavotte stepped up pace in more vigorous bowing from Eriksson and Low, with timely hints of counterpoint. Pastoral vibes returned for Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Feuillages verts, naissez (Green foliage, be born) in happily harmonious soprano duet over lute and viola da gamba; a paean to nature’s joys, beautiful yet brief. A more sombre mood in violin, lute and viola da gamba set up J’avois cru qu’en vous aymant (I thought that in loving you) with Bishop tolling out floridly emotive strains, appealing to ancient lore in pursuit of love’s labours lost. An instrumental interlude by the aptly named Jean-Fery Rebel, Sonata No.6 in B minor, combined a sinuous violin lead and portentous chords, keening out a spell to match the “Grave” title of the opening movement. The finale then shunned the shade in cascades of sound, boldly stated with gusto in viola da gamba. Three arrangements by De la Hunty closed out the program; the first, from the prolific Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, launching an ebullient soprano duet matched in lively continuo and accompaniment for Qu’un coeur est heureux (How happy a heart is). An early traditional number, A la claire fontaine (By the clear fountain), returned to folksong in a lovelorn duet spiced with regret and hints of Celtic melancholy. Sans frayer dans ce bois (Without fear into these woods) then brought relief in youthful exuberance, laughing at imagined danger; resolving to a gentle cadence with smiles all round. Fast forward several centuries, an encore of Colchiques dans les pres (Autumn crocuses in the meadows), Erkisson’s arrangement of a nursery rhyme by Jacqueline Debatte and Francine Cockenpot, had sopranos tolling out over softly undulating strings to close. HIP Company next presents a Christmas celebration on December 18 at St Mary’s, South Perth.