Not a dry eye in the house as a cappella legends say farewell after 40 years.

Great Hall, Sydney Universtity

January 15, 2014

It’s been a good few months for catching vocal legends in Sydney. The Tallis Scholars were here celebrating 40 years back in November and now the Hilliard Ensemble have reached the same milestone. But whereas Peter Phillips has been able to refresh his vocal forces along the way, the Hilliards have been at it, relatively unchanged, for many, many years – indeed, countertenor David James has been in the group for the full 40!

If, like me, you have been listening to their extraordinary catalogue of iconic albums on EMI, Hyperion, Coro, Harmonia Mundi and ECM since the mid-1980s (from Pérotin to Pärt with countless composers old and new along the way), the announcement that this will be a farewell tour feels awfully like the end of an era. The opportunity to catch them live one last time, then, is not to be missed.

The setting of Sydney University’s Great Hall with its generous acoustic and faux-Gothic gloom was nigh on ideal for a program that ranged from the medieval through to the ‘ink still wet on the page’...