VDB Releases on International Label

Van Diemen’s Band’s international profile took another step forward last Friday with the release of the long-awaited recording of Handel’s Opus 3 on the Swedish BIS label.

Recorded in SACD format by Grammy-nominated German engineer Hans Kipfer in Hobart’s St Canice church, the album has already been featured by the BBC’s Radio 3 In Tune program in the UK. The international airplay is helping to bring the Tasmanian ensemble to the attention of classical-music lovers around the world.

“It’s one of those breakthrough moments for Tasmania’s musical culture, and for the Australian arts scene generally,” said the group’s Artistic Director Julia Fredersdorff.

“We’re already known overseas through international distribution of our previous albums for ABC Classics but being taken up by one of the top labels in the world, for a project intended explicitly for a global audience, really takes us to a whole new level.”

“We’re thrilled, and especially so for our supporters, friends and audiences in Tasmania who’ve been with us from the beginning just over four years ago. This wouldn’t be happening without them!”

Conducted by the eminent French Baroque specialist Martin Gester, the VDB line-up for the sessions in late 2019 brought together many of Australia’s finest from around the country and overseas.

“Everybody wanted to be in this one for BIS,” said Fredersdorff. “Our Hobart core group was joined by friends from Brisbane, Bendigo, Melbourne and Sydney, plus Aussies who’ve made careers in Europe. Catherine Jones, the soloist in our début album Cello Napoletano, made the trip from her Lake Como home (this was pre-Covid, of course!), and Georgia Browne packed her flutes for a fly-in from Paris. And when you hear their solos in this recording, you’ll understand why.”

Although Handel’s name is of course synonymous with his Messiah oratorio, the Opus 3 set is less well-known and recorded, leaving a gap in the discography for Van Diemen’s Band to fill.

“The set is a grab-bag of random material put together by a London publisher in the 1730s,” Fredersdorff explained. “It means no two concertos in the set have the same instrumentation, so the sound varies from piece to piece. There’s even a beautiful chamber organ solo in one of them, for which we featured an instrument by the German maker Kirschner that we hope to buy someday soon.”

For Fredersdorff, the biggest revelation of the recording is the quality of its sound. “You hear straight away why BIS is so respected,” she said. “We know that most worldwide listening will occur through streaming, but if you want to do yourself a favour you’ll try to access a high-quality lossless download. Better still, buy the SACD; BIS has done a beautiful cover design with multi-lingual booklet, and the aural experience is out of this world.”