Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 28 Jun 2023
The second concert in the ASO’s Matinee Series is subtitled Elegance, and this surely describes the artistry of pianist Daniel de Borah. At the piano, he is elegance personified, and his performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.27 in B Flat, K.595, with the ASO under the baton of esteemed Graham Abbott in the delightfully refurbished Elder Hall is an object lesson in how it should be performed.
The concerto begins softly in the strings with more robust woodwinds. As sense of expectancy emerges as de Borah shifts on the piano bench and places his hands gently on the keyboard. Then emerges the gentlest of sounds from the piano, all perfectly articulated with crystal clear clarity. Abbott implements a sensible dynamic plan that allows the orchestra to confidently shine without ever overshadowing the piano. Abbott and de Borah rarely look at each other – just a sideways glance here and there – but the understanding between them is unmistakeable, and the result is a sublime balance between soloist and orchestra.
Like the Mozart, Haydn’s Symphony No.92 in G, the so-called Oxford, begins gently…and elegantly. The real interest in the piece comes in the third movement – the minuet and trio. Abbott chooses a moderate pace that allows the individual sections in the balanced orchestra to be clearly heard when they have something interesting to say. The horns and bassoons (just two of each) in particular sound generous and tuneful. Joshua Oates (principal oboe) is especially fine, and timpanist Andrew Penrose is precise, punctuated, and expressive throughout (and constantly checking his tuning. The Hall can be cold!). The presto final movement is bright and cheery, and guest concertmaster Elizabeth Layton in concert with Abbott ensure the strings remain light and graceful.
The ASO’s matinées are a welcome oasis in a busy week. Nothing taxing. Just classy music, played by classy musicians in a comfortable amount of time and a relaxed atmosphere.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Jun
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 23 Jun 2023
Styled Skyward, the third concert in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s flagship Symphony Series was in every respect a soaring achievement of surprise, programming, and performance.
‘Don Juan’ Symphonic Poem, Op.20, is one of by Richard Strauss’ most enduring works. Scored for a large orchestra, its thematic material allows almost every instrument to reach skyward and have its moment in the sun. The piece parallels the life journey as depicted in Nikolaus Lenau’s epic poem Don Juans Ende of the infamous sexual libertine Dion Juan as he strives for but never finds what he would consider to be true love. His journey is characterised by great anticipation and excitement followed by crushing disappointment, to be repeated again and again. The arc of the music follows these highs and lows, and guest conductor Tarmo Peltokoski plumbs it for every dramatic effect possible. His gesturing is generous, with wide sweeping arcs of his arms, but is studied and razor sharp with intent and meaning. The orchestra plays with animation and overt excitement with the strings almost (but not quite) consuming everything in their path and the woodwinds and horns sounding as good as they ever have.
The Strauss almost saps one’s energy, but Li-Wei Qin’s performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No.1 in C Hob.VIIb:1 catches and refreshes us with his exquisite phrasing and dynamic control of the simple but luxurious melodies. Scored for a much smaller orchestra than the Strauss, the concerto can sound merely sweet and gentle. It is those things, but it also has a vigorous beating heart not too far below the surface, and Li-Wei Qin found it. He attacks the downbeat in the moderato first movement almost as strongly as the great Jacqueline du Pre does in her legendary recordings of the Dvořák cello concerto. Li-Wei Qin’s playing is quite eye-opening, and the audience brought him back for no fewer than three curtain calls when it was over. Peltokoski was less effusive in conducting the Haydn, but the communication between he and Li-Wei Qin was palpable. Indeed, Li-Wei Qin at times conducted with his bow hand!
The second half of the program is full of surprise. It begins with a performance of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s Ciel d’hiver (Winter Sky). Like the Don Juan, it is a single continuous movement, and although it doesn’t illustrate a poem, it could easily do so as it traverses bleak but mysterious themes redolent with melodic fragments and layers . Then as it finishes, with barely a pause, Peltokoski immediately segues into Symphony No.7 in C, Op.105, by Sibelius.
The ASO has the distinction of having recorded all the Sibelius symphonies under conductor Arvo Volmer in 2007 in the Adelaide Town Hall, and although the personnel of the orchestra have significantly changed since then, the spirit of Sibelius looms large. Symphony No.7 is also a one movement composition, and like Ciel d’hiver it evokes primary life-forces. It has been described as being “like a great planet in orbit”, and noting that Ciel d’hiver began its life as a movement from a larger piece titled Orion, it was apt, but surprising, that Peltokoski should ‘link’ the two compositions as if they were part of the one work. Again, he extracted the very best from the brass and horns, and in many respects the evening belonged to the brass and woodwind. At only 22 years of age, he demonstrates a deep understanding of the music that might usually be expected from someone with many more years of experience. Peltokoski is a wunderkind.
This concert was something out of the proverbial hat. The large audience left riding high on emotion and with great appreciation.
Kym Clayton
When: 23 Jun
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Musica Viva. Adelaide Town Hall. 8 Jun 2023
Garrick Ohlsson speaks from the stage at various times during his recitals to give the audience the benefit of his deep thinking and reading about the music he plays. What he says is not necessarily revelatory or exotic, but it is interesting and gives us a teasing glimpse into what a musician at the top of his piano game thinks about. Ohlsson is at his eloquent best at the keyboard. Anything that he really has to say about the music is said by way of his playing, and it is awe inspiring to experience.
Ohlsson is playing two programs on his current Australian tour for Musica Viva, and the program enjoyed by the Adelaide audience comprised works by Debussy, Barber, and Chopin, as well as a new work by contemporary Hobart-based composer Thomas Misson that was privately commissioned for Musica Viva to be performed by Ohlsson. He commented there was an inherent risk in agreeing in advance to première a new work by a living composer, because you couldn’t be aware of what it would be like. As a performer you are aware of the composer’s previous compositions, but couldn’t know what was next. Thankfully, Ohlsson cheekily quipped, Misson’s new work Convocations (composed this year) was “pretty good”. And indeed, it was. Many modern compositions are episodic in nature, with tenuous connections between the individual sections, and Convocations is of that ilk. At its heart is a six-note tone row and the sections explore and vary the motif. It starts almost in French impressionistic style, and soon a repeated note in the right-hand tugs us out of its meditation-inducing impact. As it progresses, we sense the piece’s connections with the other compositions Ohlsson performed before it: Debussy’s Suite bergamasque, L.75 (1905), and Barber’s mighty Piano Sonata in E-flat minor, Op.26 (1949).
The expansive stage of the Adelaide Town Hall was sober: no decorations, just the Steinway concert grand piano flanked by two suspended Musica Viva banners and the imposing Walker & Sons pipe organ providing the backdrop. The austerity of the setting was however apt – it focussed all attention on Ohlsson and the music. The four-section Suite bergamasque fares best when played with simplicity and clarity without indulging in overstressed displays of technical prowess and wallowing in Debussy’s poetic melodies. Ohlsson did just that, and his thoughtful and refined approach included personal interpretive touches such as more rubato in the iconic Clair de lune section than one might otherwise be accustomed.
The feeling of reverie induced by the Debussy was soon dashed by the fire of Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata in E-flat minor. It is a masterpiece of the twentieth century and was met with immediate critical acclaim when it premièred in 1949. It is still greatly admired although, sadly, it is infrequently included in recital programs. Technically it is punishing, and demands virtuosity of the first order. Often, a pianist signals this through intense body language at the keyboard, but not Ohlsson, who appears seemingly at ease. He scarcely shifts in his seat, and his shoulders barely move from the same vertical plane. He has incredible forearm strength but can also execute the most delicate filigree and pianissimo passages with ease. Ohlsson’s performance is accentuated by clarity, and this is especially evident in the final fugue movement, in which he exposed and laid bare the individual voices and the relationships between the variations. The ease with which he tossed off the final cadenza made the audience draw breath.
Ohlsson is unquestionably one of the world’s best living interpreters of Chopin, arguably the best. His performance of the Variations brillantes, Op.12 (1833), was poetic and refined. There were no surprises, except what is difficult was made to appear simple. Ohlsson then played the slow third movement of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No.1 in C minor, Op.4 (1828) and remarked to the audience that it was the most impressive movement from the sonata which was a “student effort” of Chopin, but that he was still a “very good student”. The concert concluded with a masterful display of Chopin’s Scherzo No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.31 (1837). It is one of Chopin’s most recognisable works, and as Ohlsson was racing to its triumphant conclusion the audience was readying itself for an explosive display of appreciation at what was truly a masterful display of pianism by one of the world’s best.
Kym Clayton
When: 8 Jun
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Thebarton Theatre. 8 Jun 2023
I’ve attended Henry Rollins performances for over 30 years now; first he was a member of Black Flag, then fronted the Rollins Band, then as a spoken word performer. Rollins is always switched on in full performance mode when he is in public, and he is as practiced and determined in crafting his persona as any great actor. The discipline, the resolve, is part of his thing. This much Rollins (even with the passage of time I could not allow the familiarity of calling him Henry) allows us to understand as he assures us he would have toured earlier had Covid allowed it. He loves coming to Australia and the feeling is reciprocated; this is a massive list of dates he has signed on for.
He hits the stage at 8 pm on the dot, as advertised. There is no introduction though he speaks in general terms about his life and career for the first few minutes, no doubt aware that many in the audience have not seen him before. As he speaks, he rocks back and forth on his feet, for two hours and twenty-five minutes precisely, noting at one point as he does that he takes no pauses, not even a drink of water. This is something he wishes us to understand and note in turn. He considers it a strength; that he can master his body and direct it to his whim for that time. His stance is one wing low, he holds his body at an angle to the microphone, his delivery powerful and pushy, yet not so demanding as it was when he was that angry young man, though the anger remains. It is, perhaps, a little smoother, focussed, less jagged, or as he describes it later, more concerned with the bigger picture of things, not individuals so much as poverty, inequality, the dislike of ignorance and intolerance, and he makes a special plea for the rights of trans and LGBTIQ+.
As the words rush out and he builds in intensity the topics tumble; some ideas on the American love for guns, and a refusal to condemn nearly half the American population as stupid, before he ponders out loud the wisdom of “carpet bombing a Nascar event” and whether reducing the population of the US to a mere one million people would be a good thing. It sounds nihilistic, yet he immediately reverses direction: “It would work but we can’t do that.” He builds into the first of his big stories for tonight, a tale from the American Midwest when he is bailed up by a chronically jealous husband who accuses him of having spirited his wife on board the tour bus.
One of the major themes for tonight is, understandably, mortality, and the story emerges of his parents, divorced, broken, and largely dismissed. Are they, though? It is clear that in not being able to tour the world he has had plenty of time to consider life’s cycle. Age and the passing of time is his dominant theme, and he talks of death. Rollins possibly considers it a weakness to care about his biological parents, and so in telling the story of his mother Iris and her second husband Les, Rollins invests no emotion, even with the passing of his mother and her final scene, a tale which involves the ducks of Rock Creek, Washington. Curiously, perhaps, this tough guy persona which Rollins enacts for himself seems the least likeable aspect of his character. Tonight it seems possible to perceive its use as a deflection, a device to shield himself. Even when he describes learning to be a street fighter as the singer of Black Flag (it is usually allowed he gave as good as he got in the many fights) he claims to have been not so good. This self-effacing claim is the shrug of irritation. He wants you to know he is a fighter; he wants you to know ‘he ain’t that good’. It is the classic shrug. He speaks of fame (“for a brief moment there back in 1983” he laughs) and tells a story of being stalked by a fan, whom he dubs ‘Finland Boy’. Another shrug.
As the show winds up, he invokes the spirit of a hero, Iggy Pop, and he considers the strength of solitude and living alone; his interactions seem largely to be limited to touring the world and being approached everywhere for selfies by his fans. His message in this final part of the show is then ‘old people stand aside and let the young take over’. Yet he gives no sign he really believes it to be true. It is he – 62 years young – standing on stage challenging the world to take him on. Does the world need another pissed off middle aged white guy (orange is the new black and 60 is the new 40, yada yada) shouting his version of the truth? Apparently so since the Thebarton Theatre was damn near full.
To see Henry Rollins in full flight is to see a human dynamo, his output apparently undimmed through time. As he rushes towards the close, he tells the story of the young woman who takes a selfie with him and immediately sends it to her father; within seconds a reply is received. Rollins, a servant of time and of no one else reads the cell phone screen: “If only your grandfather was alive to see this.”
Alex Wheaton
When: 8 Jun
Where: Thebarton Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Tour Bookings: henryrollins.com/tour
Continues throughout June and July to the locations in the Northern Territory, Queensland, the ACT, Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania.
Australian String Quartet. Adelaide Town Hall. 22 May 2023
The power of music is indisputable. It can brighten our mood, heighten our awareness, and transport us fleetingly to distant places. It can allow us to discern different possibilities, perhaps even give us a glimpse of the ideal. The musical selections in the ASQ’s current national touring program – Utopias – do all those things, and some.
Styled Utopia, the program comprises three diverse compositions: Arcadiana, by Thomas Adès; String Quartet No.15 in D minor, K.421, by Mozart; and String Quartet No.9 in E-flat major, Op.117, by Shostakovich. Through the medium of the string quartet, each composition shows the composer at work trying to articulate something that is more superior than what has come before, whether it be pure music that is in some sense better constructed, or the depiction of a concept that represents a preferred or more idealised state.
Each of Arcadiana’s seven sections is, we are told, a different study of the nature of paradise. As such, the music is abstract, and the instruments are used in ways that elicit other-worldly sounds. The music making doesn’t beg to be observed visually. Rather, it’s a purely aural experience and the novel sound-world entices you into yourself almost in a meditative state, and the next twenty minutes drifts on by. At the conclusion, there was nothing but hushed silence throughout the Adelaide Town Hall with not a sound coming from the large audience for a full five seconds as they returned to the moment from wherever their minds took them. And then the applause was effusive. In lesser hands, Arcadiana may not have had the same effect. The ASQ played with sublime musicality, it’s as simple as that.
Mozart’s String Quartet No.15 is an example of a composition that is close to perfection – something from musical utopia if you wish. The ASQ approached it with tenderness, as if it were a delicate thing that needed to be managed with abundant care. The musicians were able to find and expose the innate simplicity in the piece, giving it a freshness and clarity that is somewhat uncommon. From an audience perspective, one sensed we were glimpsing Mozart at the peak of his powers.
In his String Quartet No.9, like in many other of his compositions, Shostakovich expresses his anguish at the consequences of war. He himself dedicated the quartet “In remembrance of the victims of fascism and war.” The piece is sober and grave, but it also has a sense of yearning as its varied melodies and rhythms inextricably move us towards something more positive. Arguably, Shostakovich was denied his utopia in his lifetime, but this quartet, which is the one most frequently played, glimpses him idealising it. Again, the musicians of the ASQ approached this moving composition with unnerving artistry.
The true beauty of this program was not to be found only just in the superlative musicianship of the ensemble. The skilful programming was at the heart of its success. Bravo ASQ.
Kym Clayton
When: 22 May
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed