Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 9 Feb 2024
The ASO’s first Symphony Series concert for the year carried the title Majesty and the program included three works: contemporary Scottish American composer Thea Musgrave’s Rainbow, Tchaikovsky’s monumental Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor, Op.23, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.3 in A minor, Op.56 (Scottish). Majesty might describe aspects of the Tchaikovsky and the Mendelssohn, but the term doesn’t easily describe the Musgrave.
Stephanie Eslake’s program notes draw a longish bow at linking the three compositions and she interestingly refers to the Tchaikovsky as being the “elephant in the room”. It was performed by Ukrainian born Australian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk with such explosive flair and joie de vivre that the audience erupted in spontaneous and sustained applause at the end of the first movement. So, what made it so special?
Gavrylyuk has been described by Roger Woodward as “…the most compelling pianist of his generation” and his performance tonight of the Tchaikovsky was just that: compelling. Gavrylyuk and guest conductor Douglas Boyd set a fast pace and the elegance inherent in the piano part, especially in the first movement, could easily have been obscured in the deluge of sound. In less capable hands, that likely would have happened, but Gavrylyuk was able to articulate critical phrases and have them rise above the might of the orchestra. Watching him perform demands one’s full attention: he unleashes novel interpretations; his body language sensitively announces every emotion he feels in the music; his artistry and musicianship at the keyboard is to be marvelled at. He's the full deal. Of the three movements, the second was performed in a more conventional way. When it was over, the audience to a person knew they had heard something special. Elephant in the room? Indeed.
Musgrave’s Rainbow is unashamedly programmatic in nature, and paints a soundscape of the emergence and disappearance of a rainbow through a rainy storm event. The orchestral colours are diverse, and there is an underlying sense of chaos out of which transient melodic motifs rise and fade away as quickly as they arrived. The piece was composed in 1990, and this performance was the first by an Australian orchestra.
Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony was composed some years after he toured Scotland, and as Eslake puts it, it is a “gripping memoir” of his travels. That does not mean to say the piece is infused with hints of Scottish tunes, for it is not. Rather, it is Mendelssohn’s response to some of the things that he saw, including the crumbling grandeur of Holyrood Abbey where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned. As he walked around Scotland it is not hard to believe that Mendelssohn would have been impressed by the rugged and wild natural beauty of the landscape, and as in Musgrave’s Rainbow, Mendelssohn’s Scottish recalls nature at its awesome best. The ASO’s woodwinds were at their very best throughout the concert.
Kym Clayton
When: 9 Feb to 10 Feb
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Grainger Studio. 2 Feb 2024
The Adelaide Symphony orchestra’s 2024 program includes a number of themed series, including the Sanctuary Series, so named because the music is presented as an immersive experience that focusses upon the deeply relaxing and meditative qualities inherent in the program. Indeed, the audience can choose between standard seating or yoga mats and has no choice about how and when to applaud the orchestra – applause is forbidden, and one’s enjoyment is expressed through silent but deeply felt appreciation. The ASO has been presenting such programs for several years, and there is one more in August this year. They are popular, and deservedly so. The pomp and circumstance of traditional orchestral concerts is stripped away, and it’s all about giving flight to one’s own personal response to what is heard.
Fragmentation featured four compositions, all of which are based on lyrical ‘fragments’ to create larger works. In some respects, each is like a dream, where the source musical material is deceptively simple and comparatively brief but seems more expansive.
The highlight of the program was a beautifully rendered performance of Graeme Koehne’s The Persistence of Memory. Receiving its world première in 2014 by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, it was written in memory of Guy Henderson who served as principal oboe of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for some 31 years (1967-1998). Written for oboe and string orchestra, it begins delicately with a single violin and cello which announce a hauntingly serene melody that is soon taken up by the ensemble and developed by the obo, played most beautifully by Joshua Oates.
Interestingly, the Koehne was enveloped by Wagner. The concert began with an Australian première performance of Salvatore Sciarrino’s recent composition Languire a Palermo (Languishing in Palermo), composed in 2018. It is constructed around a melodic fragment composed by Wagner during a visit to Sicily in the early 1880s and is described by Sciarrino as capturing the “sounds of Sicily”. It is an eclectic work but unforgiving: its success turns on precise phrasing, managing delicate changes in contrasting tempi, and purposeful dynamical balancing. Conductor David Sharp managed most of these demands.
The Sciarrino gave way to a lush performance of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. The piece had almost enigmatic and deeply personal significance for Wagner himself, but this didn’t entirely come through and the performance perhaps lacked a little heart.
The Koehne was followed by Gavin Bryars The Porazzi Fragment composed by Gavin Bryars. Towards its conclusion, the piece quotes a brief unpublished piano theme composed by Wagner, but which was never used by him. Like the Koehne, the music is nostalgic and lamenting, but intensely soothing and an entirely appropriate conclusion to a satisfying and immersive concert.
Kym Clayton
When: 2 Feb
Where: Grainger Studio
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Grainger Studio. 8 Dec 2023
“Welcome to this unique listening experience…” is emblazoned across the large projection screen high above the orchestra, and unique it is. Gone are the usual rituals associated with a performance by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra: the orchestra files into the auditorium in silence, as does the conductor (David Sharp), to no applause; the lights are dimmed; half the audience are recumbent on yoga mats (many having just finished work and have come directly to the Grainger), and the another half sitting in ‘conventional’ seating; talking is at a minimum, and only in hushed whispers; the projection screen advises us there should be no applause, for anything, that latecomers will not be admitted – not even at a ‘convenient‘ pause in the program, and that anyone leaving the auditorium for whatever reason will not be readmitted.
Rules, rules, rules. But we all accept them (indeed, we welcome them!) and know they are essential preconditions for what will be a very different and intensely relaxing musical experience. And the delightful program all but guarantees it.
With the audience settled, the lights dim, and we become aware of our own breathing and hearts beating. We all become more acutely aware of silence, which is such an important element of any music. The silence itself becomes music (think John Cage’s composition 4’33”), and then the gentle strains of The Swan of Tuonela are uttered by the orchestra. It is part of Jean Sibelius’ tone poem Lemminkäinen Suite, Op.22 and includes one of the best-known solos on cor anglais ever written. The harp has a key part to play as well, and the total effect is painfully soothing.
Where the plaintive and enigmatic sounds of the cor anglais voice a swan in the Sibelius, the oboe voices a cuckoo in Frederick Delius’s On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring. The elevated and almost-lonely sounds from the oboe conjure images of solitude in a leafy and dappled-light forest, and one’s sense of relaxation becomes even more heightened.
Erik Satie wrote three Gymnopédies, and the ASO performed two of them: No. III - Lent et grave, and No. 1 - Lent et douloureux. Originally written for piano, they are spectacularly well known and have been arranged for various ensembles. The original piano versions are beautifully written: they are sparse with every note chosen for a reason; nothing more is needed, and nothing that is included is superfluous. The arrangements used by the ASO preserved the simple beauty of the melodies and rhythms, but for this reviewer the arrangements became ‘busy’ at times and self-conscious. But the deep relaxation continued, and the combination of harp and piano was elevating.
Like the Gymnopédies, Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte was also originally written for solo piano, but it is better known in its orchestral version (which Ravel himself wrote.) It works best when played slowly, as the composer intended, and conductor David Sharp did just that. A few initial shaky notes by the horns did nothing to detract from the dreaminess and fragile beauty of the piece.
The concert rounded out with a soulful performance of Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate. This is very contemporary work (composed in 2002) and is written in Pärt’s so-called ‘tintinnabular’ style (his term) which is substantially grounded in arpeggiated tonic triads with tonally divergent and sometimes beautifully dissonant motifs from other keys. Again, comparative sparseness of harmonizing notes is important, and a sense of fragility pervades even though there is contradictory overall sense of backbone and substance.
David Sharp seems to have an affinity for minimalist compositions, and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is on a winner with its Sanctuary Series. Just as the ASO’s matinee concerts in the Elder Hall are lunchtime oases, so too the Sanctuary concerts are twilight havens from which to escape the working week.
Kym Clayton
When: 8 Dec
Where: Grainger Studio
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Wind Orchestra. Elder Hall. 25 Nov 2023
The Adelaide Wind Orchestra is a musical gem on the Adelaide art music landscape, and they will soon be playing on the world stage at the prestigious International Conference of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles to be held in South Korea in July 2024. In fact, the Adelaide Wind Orchestra is one of only a few ensembles world-wide to be invited to perform. Yes, the Adelaide Wind Orchestra is that good, and their recent concert – entitled Smoke and Mirrors (named after the opening piece of the concert) – demonstrated why they are held in such high regard internationally.
The program followed a standard structure to be expected from regular symphony orchestra: an overture to open followed by a concerto, and finishing with a symphony. The overture Smoke and Mirrors, by American composer Erica Muhl, is a stand-alone work (it is not an introduction to a larger work), and it is very exciting. Muhl says of her composition that it is a paraphrase of musical ideas from many of her compositions arranged in achronological order. As such, the piece comes across as being somewhat episodic and lacking a cohesive schema, but the episodes are just electric! At times it is sci-fi inflected and futuristic in the thoughts it evokes in the mind of the listener, and at other times it is inward looking and brooding. The various sections are sometimes linked by exceptionally melodic and surprising statements from flutes and chimes. When it was over, guest conductor Kate Mawson took a restrained bow, and one was free to draw breath again!
Smoke and Mirrors was followed by an astonishing performance of Jennifer Higdon’s remarkable Percussion Concerto. Originally written for a full orchestra (that is, with strings as well), the composition won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and it’s easy to see why. In any concerto, there is an obvious dialogue between the soloist and the rest of the orchestra. In Higdon’s composition, there is a three-way dialogue between the percussion soloist, the percussion section of the orchestra, and the rest of the orchestra itself, and the result is fascinating. However, the main interest from an audience member’s perspective is watching the sheer theatricality and physicality of the percussion soloist at work. On this occasion it was Sami Butler, who is the Associate Principal Percussionist with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and his performance was electrifying. (Why hasn’t the ASO itself programmed this work? Why?)
Butler had numerous instruments set up in four locations across the full width of the Elder Hall stage. Let’s face it, marimba, xylophones, drum kits etc all take up a lot of room, and Butler had to move quickly and precisely between them over the duration of the single movement work. The nature of the music is eclectic. Like Smoke and Mirrors before it, the concerto doesn’t have a structure that a listener can easily latch onto in order to try and find meaning. Very soon, the listener abandons all attempts at this and lets the myriad of musical ideas take over and transport them to an almost otherworld sonic landscape all the while marvelling at Butler’s sublime musicality. His purely solo sections – we might call them cadenzas – were totally absorbing, and the emerging smiles on the faces of the members of the orchestra were only exceed by those of the transfixed audience.
Connor Fogarty’s Symphony for Wind Orchestra stood in stark contrast to the overture and the concerto. It frequently presents musical ideas that remind the listener of other things. Fogarty, in his program notes, states that the second movement is inspired by John Adam’s iconic piece Short Ride in a Fast Machine, which indeed it does, and the final movement evokes Shostakovich. Throughout, the playing by the orchestra is first-rate: luscious sounds from the tubas and other bass instruments, mournfully beautiful phrases from the woodwinds, delicate linking motifs from the harp that provide connection and meaning, sweet clarinets, lively flutes, expectant oboes, cheerful but majestic brass, and percussion of course to thread the various elements together.
Fogarty was in the audience and graciously received appreciative applause from the audience as well as from the conductor Bryan Griffiths, who did such a splendid job bringing the entire concert together.
Yes, the Adelaide Wind Orchestra is good, and they will be featuring music by Fogarty and other Australian composers, including Anne Cawrse, David John Lang, and Holly Harrison in their performances in South Korea. They deserve the support of the South Australian art music loving public, and you can start by visiting their website.
Kym Clayton
When 25 Nov
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Musica Viva. Adelaide Town Hall. 15 Nov 2023
What does it mean to compose a piece of music for a specific artist? For that is what Australian Composer May Lyon has done for the exciting duo Noa Wildschut (violin) and Elisabeth Brauss (piano). Lyon’s composition, Forces of Nature, experiences its world premiere performances throughout Wildschut and Brauss’s debut tour of Australia with Musica Viva. It is a relatively short composition of around twelve minutes in duration, comprising two movements without pause that, in the composer’s own words evokes “…the summer melt of ice sheets, and an erupting volcano.” Coincidently, that is potentially what Iceland is facing at the moment! As a piece of program music, it is reasonable that one might ask whether the music does indeed evoke in the mind of the listener the events and phenomena that the composer states are the inspiration for the music. More interestingly, it is worth asking whether knowledge of the composer’s programmatic intentions enhances one’s enjoyment of the music, or whether it is almost a precondition. For this reviewer, and judging by the reactions of other audience members, it is a case of the latter. The first section of Forces of Nature comprises musical content that is ephemeral: phrases come and go with eery transience, and there is little that is easily able to be recalled. The second section is more accessible, with more robust phrases that are discordantly jaunty and perambulating, but when it’s done, little remains in the listener’s conscious mind. That aside, the excellent Musica Viva printed program notes discuss the thought processes behind the composer writing specifically for Wildschut and Brauss. It makes for interesting reading, but ultimately it is the lasting impact the music has on the listener that really matters.
This world première was sandwiched between four other works – it was a generous program and one that tested the mettle of the performers.
The concert included Schumann’s Violin Sonata No.1 in A minor, Olivier Messiaen’s Thème et variations, Debussy’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor, and Enescu’s Violin Sonata No.3 in A minor.
The Schumann is a deceptively ‘uncomplex’ sonata – at least from a listener’s perspective – and it takes great care and skill to expose its delicacy and innate musicality. Wildschut and Brauss established and maintained a carefully constructed dynamic balance within and across each of the three movements, and the almost elusive ending was played to perfection, and left the listener wanting more.
By a short nose, the Messiaen was the highlight of the concert. It was played with superb phrasing and such careful attention to changing dynamics that it comes across with the sublime majesty that Messiaen surely intended. The near silence in the closing notes left the audience fearing to breathe, and again, wanting more.
The Debussy follows on perfectly from the Messiaen, and for a brief moment one could almost believe they were movements from the same composition. The almost Iberian influences in the closing section of the first movement segued neatly into the lightness of the second movement which Wildschut and Brauss exemplified. They really know how to combine to underline any delicacy in what they are playing.
The final work of the program is Enescu’s exciting sonata. Where the violin and the piano are often doubling the same notes, the opposite is mostly true in the Enescu. The two instruments take quite different paths, yet the secret is to ensure the dialogue continues, and Wildschut and Brauss communicate so well together that it almost seemed a ‘walk in the park’ for them, despite the physical demands of the piece.
Noa Wildschut and Elisabeth Brauss are a near perfect combination, and a fine example of how acute communication skills are at the heart of successful ensemble playing.
Kym Clayton
When: 15 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed