Master Series No 7. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Festival Theatre. 28 Sep 2018
Expressions of tenderness and love through Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2 in F minor, and the terror of war through Shostakovich’s Symphony No 8 in C minor. The two halves of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Master Series No 7 concert could not have been more different, and nor could they have evoked more diametrically opposed responses. The evening is a roller coaster ride of emotions, and it is almost a blessing to leave the emotion laden confines of the Adelaide Town Hall for the spring chills outside.
Benjamin Grosvenor gives a fine performance of the Chopin, but it seems safe. His prodigious talent and technical expertise tame the contrasting moods of the concerto’s three movements and the result is a deeply satisfying gestalt. The larghetto second movement is achingly beautiful and Grosvenor is able to expose its inner transcendent qualities.
Maestro Mark Wigglesworth’s reading of the Shostakovich is simply extraordinary. It is a long work –around sixty minutes long – and the central challenge is to lay bare but not fall prey to its grim and raw psychology. This particular symphony, like many others of Shostakovich, is best appreciated when one knows the context in which it was written. Symphony No 8 is not so much a response to the horrors of World War II but an indictment of Stalin’s subjugation of his own people. Through the music we experience the ugly reality and grind of the everyday life of the oppressed Russians. We bear witness to their physical and mental torture and their longing for deliverance into something better. We catch glimpses of their battered but ultimately inextinguishable spirit and pride. All of this is experienced over an unrelenting hour that feels like an eternity and also like seconds.
Wigglesworth controls the aural landscape with almost ruthless passion; the orchestra itself has never sounded finer. The whole visceral experience has one gripping the seat and clenching one’s jaw. It is almost too much, and at the end the audience is silent for a full fifteen seconds. Then the applause starts, and it builds and builds and builds and persists. It is almost inappropriate to clap, but we do. Despite the subject material, it is a masterful performance.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Sep
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Musica Viva. Adelaide Town Hall. 27 Sep 2018
The first tour of the celebrated Borodin Quartet for Musica Viva Australia – there have been seven in all, not counting the current tour – was more than fifty years ago in 1965. It stands to reason that the current ensemble members are either very old, or there have been some changes in personnel.
The fact of the matter is there have been changes in the line-up over the years since its formation in 1945, but not as many as one would think. Despite the changes, there has been no change in the ensemble’s artistry. It is fair to say that in a rapidly changing world that worships fads and fly-by-nighters, the musical signature of The Borodin Quartet has remained a constant on the musical landscape and it is one of calmness, clarity, and constancy of purpose.
The Borodin’s concert included Haydn’s String Quartet in B minor, op 33 no 1, then Shostakovich’s String Quartet no 9 in E flat op 117, and concluded with Beethoven’s String Quartet no 13 in B flat op 130.
The Haydn is full of wit and humour, and the Borodin’s extracted grace and balance from the andante third movement. The economy in the physicality of their playing carried through into the Shostakovich to the extent that the allegretto third movement looked almost under-played. But looks are deceiving, and the composition’s inherent gritty nostalgia came through.
As masterful as the performances of the Haydn and Shostakovich were, the Beethoven stole the show. The sound production was superb and the cavatina fifth movement was the jewel in the crown of the concert. Its simple beauty and lyricism was laid bare for all to see and hear, and the absence of physical histrionics from the Bordin’s playing amplified the point.
Brava Borodins, and bravo Musica Viva!
Kym Clayton
When: 27 Sep
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Corinthian Singers of Adelaide. St John’s Anglican Church. 23 Sep 2018
This was my first Corinthian Singers concert and I now wonder why it took so long. This community choir is a gem, and Anniversaries displayed the breadth of their talents despite the last throes of winter ills conspiring to make the task a little bit harder.
The church has a warm acoustic that suits languorous harmonised melody lines but the longish reverberation time is a little less forgiving for rapid staccato singing. This contrast was evident from the start in the performance of Danny Elfman’s Alice’s Theme from Alice in Wonderland. The first two stanzas were beautifully clear and articulated but the up-tempo third stanza became blurred and less satisfying. Les fleurs et les arbres suffered similarly, but Calme des Nuits, both by Saint-Saëns, was precise with near perfect French pronunciation. Bravo!
The concert comprised some eighteen songs sung variously in English, French, Latin and Russian, and they all had a tenuous connection to an anniversary of some sort: anniversary of the death or birth of the composer or lyricist, or, amusingly and exceedingly tenuously, an obscure anniversary celebrating the time since the composer started to learn the piano! Musical Director Alistair Knight revelled in the humour of such contrivances but this did not distract him from the main game, which was to let eleven (not twelve?) voices and organist/pianist Peter Kelsall bring both secular and religious music to life. And that he did.
The programme mostly comprised songs from the mid-1800s onwards, including one composed by Knight himself – a setting of the hymn Ubi Caritas. It was contrasted with an abridged setting of the same hymn by contemporary Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo (who is perhaps best known for his composition Dreamweaver for choir, piano, and strings). The juxtaposition was a high point of the concert.
Many songs on the programme were sung unaccompanied, and the highlight was the hymn Mother of God incessantly in prayer composed by Rachmaninoff. Impressively, it was sung in Russian and the audience was suitably in awe.
This was an almost perfect way to spend seventy-five minutes on a Sunday afternoon.
Kym Clayton
When: 23 Sep
Where: St John’s Anglican Church
Bookings: Closed
Master Series 6. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Festival Theatre. 21 Sep 2018
The programming for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Master Series 6 – A Time for Heroes – lives up to its name and is an eclectic mix of evocative warring themes and militaristic machismo.
Guest conductor Mark Wigglesworth is right at home with the score and conducts Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 (Eroica) from memory. His interpretation is expansive and acutely empathetic to the Beethoven’s desire to express both the nobility of man contrasted with base self-indulgence and hubris.
The concert begins with Mars, the Bringer of War from Holst’s The Planets suite. The piece needs no introduction and Wigglesworth imbues it with uncommon menace by exaggerating the contrast between various instruments and strongly articulating the early rhythmic pulse.
This is the perfect introduction for Walton’s Henry V suite. Its five sections are accompanied by dramatic recitations from Shakespeare’s historical drama Henry V by accomplished actor Mark Leonard Winter. His performance of the famously stirring St Crispin's Day speech is a highlight and one felt the hair on the back of one’s neck stir when he ardently exclaimed “And gentlemen in England now a-bed/ Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here/ And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks/ That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.” Winter is uneven in his performance (nerves?) and not every speech rises to the same heights as St Crispin. However, it matters not at all and the audience shower him with applause fit for a king.
But, Beethoven wins the day, and Wigglesworth ensures the audience leave humming its glorious melodies.
Kym Clayton
When: 21 Sep
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Musica Viva. Adelaide Town Hall. 23 Aug 2018
Ray Chen is to the violin what Franz Liszt was to the piano. He is technically accomplished (almost frighteningly so), mesmerising to watch, astonishing to listen to, provocative, good looking with piercing eyes, and is a consummate performer and communicator. He’s the complete package and his fan base runs from the young to those in their ‘sere and yellow’.
Chen strode onto the Adelaide Town Hall with almost the swagger of arrogant youth. With the 1715 ‘Joachim’ Stradivarius violin firmly clutched in hand and accomplished French pianist Julien Quentin at his side, Chen cut a fine figure. Sharply dressed in an Armani suit (one of his sponsors no less), glistening patent leather black shoes, Nehru-collared crisp white shirt and edgy coiffure, Chen’s physical appearance proclaimed he was here on business and with something to say.
And say it he did.
The programme encompassed Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No 1 in D, Grieg’s Violin Sonata No 2 in G, De Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole (arranged for piano and violin by Paul Kochanski), Monti’s Csárdás and Hindson’s Violin Sonata No 1 (which is receiving its world première on this Musica Viva tour.)
Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.1 is a sonata for violin and piano – they are partners in a dialogue in which dominance and leadership switches backwards and forwards between the two instruments. On many occasions Chen allows the violin to almost imperceptibly emerge from the piano’s line (as if he were playing the piano’s part) to lead the conversation and, with a knowing smile from Chen, Quentin instinctively allows the focus to shift to the violin.
Grieg’s Violin Sonata No 2 is a relatively early work (written before his Piano Concerto) and brims with Norwegian folk melodies and rhythms. Grieg once admitted that the composition struggles with the constraints of the classical sonata form, but the result is nonetheless pleasing. It was written during his honeymoon (!) which may explain the almost ecstatic joy of the melody driven allegro animato third movement, and Chen and Quentin’s outgoing and expressive performance allows its inherent fun to reach out to the enthusiastic audience.
This effervescent affirmation of life also features in Hindson’s Violin Sonata No 1. Hindson attended the concert and spoke briefly from the stage about the composition explaining why he gave it the soubriquet ‘Dark Matter’. He explains that the piece was written during the final days of his father’s life and as he reflects on life itself he reasons that the value of a person’s life can be measured not in absolute terms but by the impact that it has had on others and the world around. It is the same way that dark matter pervades our universe and is unseen, except for the lasting effect it has on other things. And so the sonata explores these imponderables. It begins with a serenely contemplative first movement that is introspective and almost reminiscent of a Brahmsian lullaby, except that it develops and as the layers are slowly peeled away something quite deep and ethereal is revealed. Meditation is shattered by the final and second movement which features enormous leaps, extreme shifts from the very softest sounds to forte explosions, waves of rolling chordal accompaniment on the piano, and savage pizzicato on the violin. It is as if the very fabric of space-time is being torn asunder. The composition was commissioned with Chen and Quentin in mind to give its première, and they may very well have claimed it for themselves and laid the standard for years to come.
The second half of the program features de Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole, in which Chen and Quentin’s playing almost mimics the human voice at time. Chen is almost haughty in the Canción and Jota movements, with flourishes of his bow and flashing eyes raging at his environment. It is as if he is fighting against being transported by the music to some other place. Throughout Quentin was the consummate partner who augments and refines the overfall soundscape.
Chen and Quentin thrill the audience with their own arrangement of Vittoria Monti’s ever popular Csárdás. It includs foot stamps and emulations of bird twittering! Chen and Quentin have the large audience clapping along (almost in time!) and finally exploding into euphoric applause at the end.
Wonderful stuff!
Bravo Chen, bravo Quentin, and bravo Musica Viva!
Kym Clayton
When: 23 Aug
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed