Wesley Chapel, Forrest, ACT
October 7, 2018

Among the many pleasures of life in Canberra is the ongoing program of concerts at the Wesley Music Centre in Forrest. Its pleasant, leafy setting is within walking distance of the Kingston Markets and Foreshore and the shops and restaurants of Manuka. Virtually every week there are three or four short concerts which attract a committed and discerning audience of Canberra locals and visitors.

Most of the concerts feature the impressive roster of local artists – another of Canberra’s unsung pleasures: its musicians! – with the occasional incursions of visitors. Such was the case this past weekend when two young chamber choirs – the chamber singers of the local choir Luminescence hosting the visiting Consort of Melbourne – combined to perform a rarely heard work by Frank Martin, his Mass for Double Choir.

Roland Peelman conducts Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir in Canberra. Photograph © Peter Hislop

The Swiss-born composer, but Dutch-based Frank Martin (1890-1974) is known to us in Australia by only a handful of works today, notably the Petite symphonie concertante Op.54  (1946) for harp, piano, harpsichord and strings. This was a commission from that great...