Adelaide Festival. St Peter’s Cathedral. 3 Mar 2026
As part of the Adelaide Festival, French choir and orchestra Pygmalion are presenting three concerts. The first, Bach: Good Night World, was already a striking demonstration of the ensemble’s musical discipline and tonal refinement. Just when it seemed difficult to imagine a performance surpassing it, along came Vespro della Beata Vergine by Claudio Monteverdi (or more simply, Monteverdi’s Vespers).
At the conclusion of the concert the usually sedate and solemn cathedral erupted with sustained applause and cheering from a near-capacity audience. The entire hall rose to its feet and continued applauding for nearly ten minutes—a response that was entirely proportionate and appropriate to what had just been heard.
Conductor and founder Raphaël Pichon appeared relatively contained in Bach: Good Night World, but in Monteverdi’s Vespers he seemed to release both his and the ensemble’s full expressive potential. The performance unfolded with swelling intensity, and the magnificence of the work becoming almost overwhelming by its closing stages.
As is Pygmalion’s custom, the choir moved throughout the performance space. Initially this reviewer wondered whether the movement risked becoming excessive, but it soon became clear that it is carefully conceived. Nothing is arbitrary: the placement of singers appears to be carefully planned to exploit the cathedral’s natural acoustic and to expose different aspects of the score.
Many members of the audience found themselves with one or more singers—and occasionally instrumentalists—standing and performing only a few metres away. It was impossible to resist glancing around and observe them at close quarters, often with a kind of childlike fascination. The physical proximity heightened one’s sense of participation in the music-making. The emotional effect was unmistakable, and more than a few audience members could be seen quietly wiping tears from their cheeks.
The performance was generous in scope. The complete score was presented, including two additional liturgical elements: the antiphon Sancta Maria, succurre miseris (Holy Mary, help the wretched), sung in response to the psalm Lauda Jerusalem, and Versiculum et responsorium after the Magnificat to conclude the event. The duration approached two hours without interval, yet the performance passed almost in the blink of an eye, as if time was irrelevant.
The evening revealed the full range of Pygmalion’s strengths: voices of exceptional clarity that carried effortlessly into every corner of the cathedral; immaculate diction, with choral passages often sounding as though produced by a single voice; and finely judged dynamic shaping, from controlled crescendi and diminuendi to penetrating sforzandi. Ensemble coordination was equally impressive, with voices and instruments aligned in precise rhythmic and expressive detail. Rapid shifts in metre and texture were navigated with ease, supported by disciplined breath control and thoughtful phrasing.
Equally striking was the evident attention to acoustical considerations. Pichon appears to have carefully calibrated the vocal production to suit the cathedral’s reverberant space, allowing resonance to enrich the sound without obscuring textual clarity or contrapuntal detail as can be the case with lesser choirs.
The solos and duets were consistently superb, and the principal singers offered exemplary models of liturgical singing—poised, focused and expressive.
It is difficult to imagine there is a better choir anywhere.
Kym Clayton
When: 2 to 3 Mar
Where: St Peter’s Cathedral
Bookings: Closed
