Adelaide Festival. Adelaide Town Hall. 14 Mar 2025
One of the last events in the 2025 Adelaide Festival featured two of the world’s best artists – pianist Daniil Trifonov and baritone Matthias Goerne. In the first half of the program Trifonov performed the complete Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album, Op. 39 (from memory), and after the interval they both presented Schubert’s glorious song cycle Schwanengesang (Swan Songs). Trifonov was originally scheduled to perform Schubert’s Piano Sonata No.21, also composed in the last year of his short life, but this was substituted by the Tchaikovsky for unstated reasons.
Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album, Op. 39, composed in 1878, is a collection of 24 short piano pieces inspired by Robert Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, Op. 68. Tchaikovsky intended the work to provide accessible yet artistically meaningful music for young pianists, unlike technical exercises. The pieces offer vivid character, storytelling, and emotional depth, making them engaging for both players and listeners.
Each piece depicts a distinct scene or mood. While not arranged in a strict key sequence as one might find in a set of preludes, the pieces progress with a diversity of tempo, character, and difficulty. They range from simple, folk-like melodies to more expressive and technically intricate compositions. Although written for young pianists, the suite presents challenges that require both technical control and musical sensitivity, with many of them demanding nuanced phrasing and dynamic contrast. Trifonov demonstrated his masterful technique with staccato mischievousness in The Hobby Horse and silky-smooth legato in Sweet Dream, crisp and steady rhythm in March of the Wooden Soldiers, and finely managed pedal control throughout. His performance of In Church was eerily but sublimely contemplative. Trifonov has remarkable forearm strength and is consequently very economical in his body physicality. Although the writing is comparatively unpretentious, it still requires the pianist to vividly tell stories, and Trifonov is clearly a storyteller of the first order.
When it was finished, the audience erupted in generous and sustained applause knowing they had witnessed a pianist at the very top of the game breathing life and purpose into a work that is infrequently presented on the professional concert stage.
Schubert’s Schwanengesang (Swan Songs) is a posthumous collection of songs published in 1829, the year after the composer’s death. Unlike his earlier cycles, Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827), Schwanengesang was not originally conceived as a unified song cycle. Instead, it consists of 14 songs set to texts by Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine, and (in some editions) Johann Gabriel Seidl. Despite this, the collection is often considered a cycle because of its cohesive emotional and musical themes, making it a profound final statement from Schubert. In that sense, the collection is very much Schubert’s ‘swan song’ in the colloquial meaning of the term, and the title Swan Song was coined by his publisher, not Schubert himself.
Unlike in Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, which comprise structured narrative cycles telling stories of love, rejection, heartbreak, alienation and despair, Schwanengesang is a thematic collection and lacks a single protagonist. However, its songs explore various facets of love and farewell. The Rellstab songs (e.g., Liebesbotschaft, Frühlingssehnsucht) evoke themes of nature, romantic yearning, and passion, often with an undercurrent of melancholy. They are lyrical and nature-focused, often portraying love through external imagery like flowing water and springtime breezes. In contrast, the Heine settings are psychologically intense, full of irony, despair, and supernatural elements (e.g., Der Doppelgänger involves ghostly self-confrontation), and they introduce a more tragic, haunted atmosphere, reflecting betrayal, memory, and death.
Schubert’s music enhances the emotions in each poem through harmonic shifts, melodic expression, and piano writing. The rippling arpeggios of Liebesbotschaft suggest a murmuring brook, while the dark, relentless chords in Der Doppelgänger create a chilling sense of dread. Die Stadt uses impressionistic, eerie piano textures to depict fog-covered waters. Trifonov perfectly navigated varied textures and moods, from the delicate arpeggios to stark, unaccompanied chords. He maintained Schubert’s long lyrical lines while all the time balancing the vocal melody. Goerne superbly handled the lyrical beauty and tremendous emotional depth of the songs, and his legato phrasing especially in Ständchen was honeyed. Goerne’s broad dynamic range is remarkable, with evenness across the very soft to the very loud. Like Trifonov, Goerne is a master storyteller, and it is easy to see why he has been so successful in opera.
Together, Trifonov and Goerne maintained a natural and unforced flow between songs all the time respecting the varying poetic and musical characters. They each fed off the other and ensured that Trifonov’s accompaniment supported Goerne’s compelling delivery and never overpowered.
A superb concert.
Kym Clayton
When: 14 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 13 Mar 2025
As part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express Series at the Elder Hall, Finnish piano virtuoso Paavali Jumppanen performed two behemoths from the piano literature: Pierre Boulez’s Piano Sonata No.2, and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106 (Hammerklavier). We are reliably informed this is the first time these two works have been presented together in an Australian concert hall, and it is no surprise. Neither work is for the faint hearted, and Finnish virtuoso Paavali Jumppanen is clearly not that. The two compositions, when paired in a single performance, present an Everest of a challenge to the performer, and Paavali Jumppanen is both Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay rolled into one. Not only are the two works fiendishly difficult to play, but they also make huge demands on the listener.
Scholars have sometimes compared the two compositions due to their extreme technical demands, structural complexity, and radical rethinking of musical form. Both works push the limits of what was considered possible on the piano in their respective times, embodying an uncompromising, forward-thinking approach to composition. (The Beethoven was composed in 1818 and the Boulez in 1947-48.)
Both sonatas demand virtuosic technique and stamina. The Hammerklavier is one of Beethoven’s most difficult piano works, requiring extraordinary control, power, and endurance. It expands the classical sonata form to monumental proportions and includes a fugue in the final movement that pushes counterpoint to almost breaking point. Boulez’s Piano Sonata No. 2 is also notorious for its extreme technical challenges, including rapid tempo shifts, complex rhythms, and dense textures. Although titled a sonata, it barely follows the expected path and incorporates serialism and pseudo-randomness. The Beethoven is tonal, melodic, and formal, whereas the Boulez is atonal, melodies are ephemeral and never developed, and there is no attempt at harmony. Like the Beethoven, it too breaks with rules and traditions that were current at the time they were composed.
To play them requires not only exquisite technique, which Jumppanen has in abundance, but also a deep understanding of musical structure and form, even knowing that both are sacred cows about to be slaughtered. The Beethoven is deeply expressive and dramatic, and both lyrical and grand, whereas the Boulez is cold and severe. Their connection lies in their boldness – each piece, in its own era, was a radical redefinition of what a piano sonata could be.
When Jumppanen first came on stage he fixed his eyes on the Steinway, barely acknowledged the audience, and launched into his performance. He was playing before he was barely seated! For those in the audience who had prior experience with the Boulez, which was listed first in the program, it was clear that he wasn’t playing it, and nor was it the Beethoven. A few short minutes later he finished and directly spoke to the audience announcing that he played an encore first, because he often forgot to do so! (It was Debussy’s Etude No.7.) Looking back on what was to come, there could be no encore after performing both the Boulez and the Beethoven, which together account for nearly 80 minutes of the most intense, athletic, intellectual and dynamic pianism one could ever wish to experience. Jumppanen used music for the Boulez, and the page turner (the inimitable Esmond Choi, a local star in the making) was up and down every thirty-five seconds. Using the printed music is perfectly understandable: how could one possibly remember it? The human mind constantly seeks structure against which to organise thoughts and remember, but the Boulez defies all that. On the other hand, Jumppanen played the Beethoven from memory, all eleven-hundred-and-sixty-plus bars of it, coming in at around forty-six minutes!
At the end of the concert, barely before the sounds of the crushing final fortissimo B-flat major chord began to fade, the audience leapt to their feet almost as one and enthusiastically applauded, cheered, whistled and shouted “bravo!” at what was undoubtedly an extraordinary pianistic and musical feat. One member of the audience within earshot of this reviewer could be overheard to remark that this was surely the highlight of the festival. A big call, but a big and important concert too! People will talk about this one for months to come, and rightly so.
Kym Clayton
When: 13 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 12 Mar 2025
The Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) is a nationally and internationally respected classical music performance training academy for Australia’s best young musicians who are well along the path to establishing themselves as musical forces to be reckoned with. Simone Young AM, who should need no introduction, has opined that “ANAM is an extraordinary institution: intense, demanding, challenging and immensely rewarding to be involved with. The musicians are totally engaged and committed.”
ANAM’s recent concert – A Viennese Matinée – as part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express Series is a palpable testament to Young’s assessment. The concert presented a tantalising taste of the musical culture of Vienna, that most musical of cities, and included works by Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven, and J. Strauss. The program was performed by six ANAM students, including three with Adelaide connections, and two of ANAM’s faculty, including Paavali Jumppanen, who is ANAM’s Artistic Director and an internationally celebrated piano virtuoso in his own right, and violinist Zoë Black.
Schubert’s sublimely beautiful Notturno for Piano Trio, Op.148 (D.897) was performed by Jasmine Milton (violin), Jack Overall (cello) and Paavali Jumppanen (piano). The piece begins delicately with bell like tones on the piano and gentle pizzicato on the strings, before the drama starts with an emphatic tutti. The pace was more measured than what is often presented allowing musical technique to be more exposed and scrutinised, but Jumppanen kept a tight rein, and both Milton and Overall, never faulted. A delightful start to the program!
Maria Zhdanovich (Flute) and Georgia White (clarinet) then performed duet arrangements of dances from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. The arrangements were finely balanced and elegant, and the articulation of both performers was exceptional. It’s as if the two pieces were always intended for flute and clarinet alone.
The main item on the program was Beethoven’s monumental Violin Sonata No.9 in A major, Op.47, but arranged for string quintet, featuring Zoe Black and Jasmine Milton on violin, Jamie Miles on viola, and Ariel Volovelsky and Jack Overall on cello. Scholars believe that it is likely that Beethoven himself arranged the work for string quintet in order to draw out the emotion and drama that he intended but could not find it with the piano and violin alone. Interestingly, the usual combination of instruments for a string quintet at the time included two violas, not two cellos, which gives the piece an earthier sound with much more gravitas. However, most people know the Kreutzer in its usual form for violin and piano, and many members of the audience, regardless of their appreciation in hearing the quintet format, stated their preference for the original! The original has a delicateness to it at times, which feels lost when the dialogue between two instruments becomes a cross-conversation between five. Sections of the audience applauded after each of the first two movements, but the applause at the end of the finale was thunderous!
The program concluded with Arnold Schoenberg’s arrangement of Johann Strauss II’s Emperor Waltz Op.437. Originally scored for a full orchestra, Schoenberg’s arrangement for a reduced chamber ensemble underlines his belief that it promotes “a clarity of presentation and a simplicity of formal enunciation often not possible in a rendition obscured by the richness of orchestration”. Indeed, one might suggest the listening experience becomes more challenging, as melody lines and accompaniment become more exposed. In some ways, the reverse was experienced in the listening of the expanded version of Beethoven’s Kreutzer! The full ANAM ensemble clearly enjoyed performing the arrangement, and the final movement was especially appealing in its clarity.
ANAM is an organisation to be cherished and supported at every opportunity. Our Australian musical landscape is the richer for it.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 11 Mar 2025
As part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express Series at the Elder Hall, French-German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt presented a one-off concert of virtuosic gems that was bookended by two Bach suites for Solo Cello. On a warm early-Autumn afternoon, the Elder Hall was near capacity, such is Altstaedt’s celebrity. A single bench seat was located centre stage and there was an air of anticipation as the large audience waited for Altstaedt to make his eagerly awaited entrance.
With tousled hair (think Albert Einstein or Mischa Maisky) and all-black loose-fitting informal clothes, Altstaedt strode onto the stage with his 1749 Guadagnini cello in hand, sat down, and with no fuss immediately commenced his recital with JS Bach’s Suite for Cello No.1 in G major, BWV1007. There can’t be too many people who are not at least vaguely familiar with its seductively haunting Prélude. It’s a classic ear worm, and with his Guadagnini tuned slightly lower to A415 (rather than the modern standard of A440) in keeping with a baroque era fashion, the pensive melody with its tripping arpeggios danced lightly throughout the expanse of the acoustically splendid Elder Hall.
Altstaedt cut a lonely figure on the stage, almost vulnerable, but here was a musician who is at home with Bach. Rather than being exposed to the intricacies of the dances that comprise the suites, Altstaedt makes them his own with razor sharp intonation and phrasing, and immaculately controlled dynamics. His pianissimo has devastating impact. Each of Bach’s six cello suites follows the same pattern of movements, with the Sarabande dance being the centre piece. In both Suite No.1 and Suite No.5 in C minor, BWV1011, which ended the concert, Altstaedt drew out the dreaminess and sensuousness of the Sarabandes. His readings were transporting.
Between the Bach bookends were two modern compositions for unaccompanied cello, and their contrast with the Bach was both stark and exciting.
Henri Dutilleux’s Trois Strophes sur le nom de Sacher, composed as a tribute to the Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, was first performed in 1982 by the iconic Mstislav Rostropovitch. It requires the G and C strings to be tuned a semi-tone lower, which gives the sound of the instrument a somewhat darker colour on open strings. Altstaedt laid bare the liveliness and glittering tonal palette and striking rhythms of the three movements, especially in the concluding Vivace.
Altstaedt addressed the audience in between each composition and took the opportunity to outline interesting aspects including about the different tunings. Introducing Sándor Veress’s Sonata for Cello Solo, he opined that it is rarely played and that Veress has, by and large, been undeservedly overlooked as a composer. The sonata feels spontaneous, and there is an innate tension between logical development and form over what almost feels like extemporisation at times. As with the Dutilleux, Altstaedt finds threads that are not self-evident to someone who has little or no prior experience with the piece and uses them to shape a compelling performance. The applause for the Veress was exuberant, insistent, and richly deserved
The striking contrast between the two Bach Suites and the modernist pieces by Dutilleux and Veress made for an almost mesmeric concert that was made all the more special for being performed by one of today’s finest exponents of the cello. Not too many are wolf-whistled at concert end!
Kym Clayton
When: 11 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 28 Feb 2025
By any measure, Innocence is a remarkable and enthralling piece of theatre. At the very start it grabs your attention – demands your attention – with the moody and foreboding overture that demonstrates a composer at the very heights of her compositional powers. It demands your attention when the curtain rises to reveal one of the most imposing sets you will experience on any stage. It sustains your attention as the set starts to slowly rotate, with only moments of pause throughout the next one-hundred-and-five non-stop minutes. It amplifies your attention as you bear witness and listen to one of the most harrowing stories unfold.
Hyperbole? Not at all. If anything, the above understates the impact Innocence has on the audience. Many Adelaide Festivals have a grand opera touted as their centrepiece, but this one blows them all away. The claim is real. Innocence is legacy of former festival Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy, and it is difficult to see how current Artistic Director Brett Sheehey AO can better this.
Innocence is presented by the Adelaide Festival in association with State Opera South Australia, and is a co-commission and co-production of Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, San Francisco Opera, Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Finnish National Opera, Ballet Helsinki, and in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera New York. With such impressive resources behind it, one is entitled to expect nothing less than artistic excellence of the highest order, and one’s expectations are met by the bucket load!
Innocence, with music by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and libretto by Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barrière, explores themes of trauma, memory, and reconciliation. Set in a contemporary world, it centres around the aftermath of a shooting at an international school that occurred years earlier. The opera follows a group of people – students, teachers, and parents – who gather to reflect on the events and confront the haunting memories of that tragic day.
At its core, Innocence delves into how the past, particularly moments of violence, shapes the lives of individuals and communities. The narrative structure weaves together the perspectives of the characters, uncovering their inner conflicts, guilt, and the difficulty of moving forward. The shooting, which initially seems like a singular catastrophic event, is revealed to have far-reaching and complex emotional repercussions for all involved.
With its experimental score, the opera uses sound, atmosphere, and minimalism to create a deeply immersive experience. The music and vocal lines are often dissonant and frequently include uncomfortable intervals – it frequently evokes thoughts of Alban Berg’s music. The characters are caught in a web of fragmented memories and shifting identities, questioning the very notion of innocence in the face of overwhelming tragedy. Every character in the opera is touched in some way by the horrors of the shooting and feels guilt: the survivors because they survived; those indirectly impacted because they wonder why those more directly affected can’t put it all behind them. Human emotions are multifaceted and run deep.
Every character in Innocence is complex, and every member of the cast reaches deep inside their artistic being to bring Innocence to life, and they succeed admirably. No-one really stands out – it is a true ensemble piece. The singing is uniformly excellent, but the parochial audience especially enjoyed the commanding and warming tones of Teddy Tahu Rhodes. The text is sung in multiple languages, including English – a nod to the setting of the International School – and the surtitles are absolutely essential, but they are well designed and only a glance is needed to understand what is transpiring on stage.
Ultimately, Innocence is not just about remembering a violent act but also about the possibility of healing and the fragile nature of collective memory.
In interview, director Simon Stone describes Innocence as an “extraordinarily therapeutic opera about the need for honesty in the process of grief, and honesty in the process of recovering from a trauma” and as an “incredibly beautiful exploration of the scars we carry with us and the need to sometimes reopen wounds to make sure we can heal them properly the second time round.”
Stone is correct, and his vision for the opera comes through clearly, infusing everything with meaning and purpose. No member of the audience leaves the performance without being impacted and without questioning their own understanding of what it is to experience loss and subsequently grieve in a way that is visceral, inimitable, authentic and that provides an assured platform upon which to re-establish one’s sense of purpose and being.
The set has to be seen to be believed. It comprises a large two-story structure set on a revolve. Each of the two levels comprise a series of interconnected rooms that variously become a reception venue for a wedding including an impressive commercial kitchen, a café, classrooms in an international school, bathrooms, storage rooms, antechambers, balconies and the like. There is free movement between the levels via a staircase, and each room is independently and tastefully lit to make it easier to quickly see who is singing and where. The colours evoke mood at all times. When a room revolves out of sight and reappears some minutes later it has been transformed into something else. It is all done effortlessly and, crucially, unnoticed – the large backstage crew do a remarkable job, and fully deserve being brought onto stage and singled out as part of the final curtain call. The stage managers are to be commended.
French conductor Clément Mao-Takacs is more than a musician and expert conductor. He is clearly a creature of the theatre and understands the need for music and the elements of stage to work hand in glove. Like Escher’s hands, one produces the other – they are co-dependent. Mao-Takacs ensures the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is empathetic to everything that happens on stage. The music never dominates at the expense of the acting or singing, and individual instruments are allowed to feature just to the right degree. Frequently dissonance sounded consonant!
Christie Anderson, as chorus master of the combined Adelaide Chamber Singers and State Opera South Australia Chorus, again weaves her magic. The chorus is almost entirely out of sight but is heard as clear as a whistle. Impressive.
The text “I loved my brother. I love him still.” was sung by the bridegroom (Sean Panikkar), the brother of the mass murderer, in the purest and most heartfelt tones. Similarly, the single line “Let me go” was sung in the most disarming and sweet manner by the ghost of Markéta, one of the slain students to her grieving and inconsolable mother.
These two short sung texts are the most harmonic in the entire opera. They are brief beacons of love and hope, which is what Innocence is ultimately about.
Innocence is not to be missed. It is unique.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Feb to 5 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au