Music / Four Candles for Advent, Polifemy. At Wesley Uniting Church, November 23. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

It was very pleasant to relax and listen to an hour of 16th and 17th century sacred vocal music from eight highly skilled singers.

Polifemy is an all-female unaccompanied singing ensemble directed by Robyn Mellor. It has been performing in Canberra since 2008, with Mellor the only original member.

There is an Advent tradition of lighting a candle on each of the four Sundays preceding Christmas with each candle in turn representing Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

Mellor selected groups of three or four motets around each of those themes to cleverly break up the concert into four sections, with a short break between each to rearrange the music and light the next candle. An effective piece of theatre to punctuate the concert.

The material was a mix of well-known renaissance composers such as Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina and John Taverner with 10 other Italian, German and French composers of the period who are of wonderful obscurity in the modern world.

A notable work in the concert was Angelus Domini ad pastores, composed by Sulpitia Ludovica Cesis, a lutenist nun from a convent in Modena, which bounced along with an infectious dance rhythm.

There was little, if anything, which could be criticised in this concert. It was sung beautifully with exemplary pitch and phrasing. It was cleverly put together with enough variety to maintain interest (and this in a genre of music that can sound very much the same). 

This is music that absorbs and lifts the listener, then lets you down gently at the end. Most satisfying.