Arts Projects Australia. Festival Theatre. 8 Feb 2017
Ludovico’s music is not classic concert music. It most likely will survive neither the ravages of the passing years nor the fickleness of changing fashions, but in the here and now it has something that draws appreciative crowds of devotees in their thousands. Last night’s near-capacity audience at the Festival Theatre was captivated, and for a brief two hours and ten minutes had their cares massaged away in what was a meditative yet provoking sensory experience.
Einaudi’s music is best appreciated in the concert hall, because it is about more than the music. Listening to it is one thing, but seeing it performed and perforce having to concentrate without yielding to the distractions of one’s home when listening to it on CD, draws you into another dimension which gives the music an altogether different meaning. Einaudi’s music is not programme music – it is not written with a story in mind – yet it coerces one’s mind to create a narrative; to search out meaning. But there is no meaning, it is just uncomplicated absolute music that ‘draws’ you in. It is truly the stuff of deep introspection, and it is special. In some respects it reminds me of the effect that the Mahler’s symphonies have on me: eventually you forget that you are actually listening to it – you know it’s there but it has taken your mind on a journey to some other place.
Einaudi’s ensemble is comprised of himself at the grand piano and five other sharp-looking musicians all dressed in black who play guitars, acoustic violin, acoustic (and electric) cello, electronic keyboards, samplers and other special effects gadgetry, an array of hand percussion, and rhythm and bass guitars. It’s difficult to know whether they are fine musicians because of the amplification, overall simplicity of the compositions and arrangements, and the improvisation, but their combined impact is substantial. Curiously, each composition is ephemeral: barely seconds after it is over, or after one brief musical idea passes into another (not always elegantly or comfortably), it is forgotten. It was a thing of the moment, but the moment was sublime.
A feature of the performance are provoking visual images that were projected onto the entirety of the expansive upstage wall behind the ensemble. The connection between the image and the music at the time was never obvious, but that was entirely the point. The music and the image combined to oblige the conscious mind to seek meaning, and everyone’s meaning was surely different, and the result was a unique reflective experience. At times the images appeared to be ancient naïve maps. Then they became glimpses of ancient texts, and then reminiscences of geometrical theorems. And then there were harsh, obtrusive and almost blinding lighting effects that were the psychological equivalents of ‘control-alt-delete’: one’s mind was shocked out of its current state, reset, and thrown into the next musical idea.
It is not classic, but the experience was, and won’t be forgotten for a while. Einaudi designs musical experience, as much as he composes musical compositions.
Kym Clayton
When: 8 Feb
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Royal School Of Church Music. Wesley Uniting Church, Kent Town. 8 Jan 2017
Malcolm Archer is an important figure in the world of cathedral music (organ and choir), and his credentials are second to none. He has composed for HM Queen Elizabeth II and has been Director of Music in no less that St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He has performed across the globe and is a recorded artist.
Promoted by the Royal School of Church Music, it would have been reasonable to assume that this particular concert would be ‘churchy’, but it was anything but. Yes, it did feature some of the music of the greats from the classical and romantic eras, but it also included works from modern-day composers (including Archer himself) and gave the large audience a fabulous survey of organ music in all its majesty.
Beginning with Mendelssohn’s Sonata No.3 in A and following on with Bach’s very impressive Three Chorale Preludes from Orgelbüchlein, the programme then sprinted to more contemporary compositions. Without daring to ‘bag’ Bach and Mendelssohn, it wasn’t until Cesar Franck’s Chorale No.3 in A minor that the concert really ‘took off’.
Franck’s Chorale No.3 is a stunning example of the shifting of the epicentre of organ music from Germany to France, and what an earth moving experience it is! The Chorale amply demonstrates the sheer majesty, power, complexity and capability of the pipe organ. Curiously the Chorale almost anticipates the blues music of the late 19th century from the deep south of the USA! Archer’s extraordinary technical skills and expert registration of the organ allowed the individual voices to shine through clearly. No mean feat.
As Archer quipped, how on earth does one follow Franck’s Chorale in a recital? You can’t better it so, do something totally and weirdly different, and he did. Trotter’s humorous arrangement of Leroy Anderson’s much loved Sleigh Ride was just the ticket, and Archer’s two helpers – one on rhythm sticks and the other on sleigh bells – got the very large audience into a toe tapping mood. Archer’s mischievous ‘neigh’ at the end drew much applause and laughter (although he was likely out of key!)
Archer’s performance of Vierne’s Carillon de Westminster was superlative. It’s a relatively simple composition and hardly virtuose, but in the hands of someone less skilled and musically aware than Archer, it has the potential to stall in the blocks. Not so with this performance, which was beautifully understated with precisely executed syncopated rhythms and rolling broken chords in which every note could be clearly heard.
The final piece was an impromptu improvisation (!) of Christmas carols that the audience nominated there and then. Archer has no time to plan how he would bring together famous tunes like Joy to the World, White Christmas, Jingle Bells and Mary’s Boy Child to name a few. The result was mesmerising and it almost sounded like a composition of original themes.
This is the first concert I have attended in the Wesley Uniting Church, and the Dodd pipe organ is a spectacular focal point. So much the better to hear it in the hands of someone of Malcolm Archer’s musical stature. He is a true master.
Kym Clayton
When: 8 Jan
Where: Wesley Uniting Church
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 9 Dec 2016
Handel’s Messiah needs no introduction. Everyone, seemingly, is acquainted with it. On the way home in the tram after the performance, a young Japanese international student was peering intently at the cover of my programme while I was reading it. You could tell that he wasn’t quite sure what “Adelaide Symphony Orchestra - Handel’s Messiah” meant, but the cover attracted his attention. Perhaps it was the striking picture of the stained-glass window? I googled Hallelujah Chorus on my smart phone and a performance on YouTube by the Royal Choral Society in 2012 headed the list. I started to play it for him and within seconds his face lit up with a beaming smile. He knew it. Of course he did– it’s famous the world over – but the Messiah is of course much more than the iconic and much loved Hallelujah Chorus.
Handel's Messiah is a true classic. It has withstood the test of time since its composition two hundred and seventy-five years ago in 1741, and it is likely to endure for centuries more to come.
This evening’s performance by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra was one of the best that I have heard, including recorded performances on CD or vinyl. The orchestra was not overpowered, especially in the strings section, and the playing and conducting was precise, assured. The precision, clarity and dynamic control of the choir was for the most part thrilling, and the four soloists were perfectly matched to the vocal and dramatic demands of their arias.
Under the direction of maestro Stephen Layton, who is no-less than the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the City of London Sinfonia and Director of Music of Trinity College, Cambridge, the whole thing was really very, very good, and much greater than the sum of its parts.
The four soloists all hail from the UK. Tenor Gwilym Bowen’s first gentle strains in Comfort ye seemingly rose from nowhere and filled the Adelaide Town Hall with warmth and conviction. Bass-baritone Robert Davies was simply outstanding and his execution of The people that walked in darkness was world class and almost a show stopper. There were no gravelly tones or loss of clarity or strength in the lower register. He was benevolence personified. Soprano Eleanor Dennis sang Rejoice greatly with assuredness and with a gentle vibrato that for the main suited the aria. Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston sang the alto line and her performance of O thou that tellest demonstrated exquisite diction and surprising clarity in the concluding phrases in the lower register.
The Adelaide Chamber Singers are a world class choir, and have indeed won international awards, and their well-timed and almost perfectly synchronised delivery of choruses such as Surely He hath borne our griefs, And with His stripes we are healed, and All we, like sheep demonstrated their celebrity in abundance.
I know that my Redeemer liveth followed the awe-inspiring Hallelujah Chorus and the combination of soprano, chamber organ and cello was sublime. Dennis was at the top of her game.
Surprisingly, Layton chose to abandon the chamber organ in favour of the imposing Walker pipe organ in the final Amen chorus, and the result left us with goose-bumps. Layton, the soloists, the choir, and the reduced-sized Adelaide Symphony Orchestra thoroughly deserved the protract
ed and enthusiastic applause from the capacity audience.
Kym Clayton
When: 9 Dec
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Master 9. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 2 Dec 2016
The programme was named after the main item on the bill – Symphonie fantastique, Op 14 by Hector Berlioz – but the whole thing was fantastic! The programme also included an ASO Adelaide premiere performance of Olivier Messiaen’s Le tombeau resplendissant and Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor, Op 47.
Messiaen is not everyone’s cup of tea and his best-known and most frequently played work is Quartet for the End of Time which was written when he was a prisoner of the Nazis in WWII. Le tombeau resplendissant is however for a full orchestra and is written in a grand style and showcases numerous instruments, especially the wood wind. Maestro Nicholas Carter conducted without a baton and the tension was evident in his hands as he elicited the closely packed harmonies and intricate rhythms from the orchestra.
Grace Clifford is still an Aussie teenager and the world of the violin and the concert platform is very much her oyster. In 2014, at the age of 16, she won the ABC Young Performer of the Year award and she has never looked back. Her performance of the Sibelius violin concerto this evening was sublimely understated, and demonstrated her (and Carter’s) deep understanding of the Finnish master’s symphonic intent. Clifford and Carter combined beautifully to allow the solo violin and orchestra to complement each other and not to compete. Clifford’s virtuosity and technical competence ensured that the piece constantly pointed beyond its often-dispiriting melodies to something more hopeful.
Carter was at his best with the Berlioz. Full of wonderful melodies, Carter ensured that the lightness that had been achieved in the Sibelius carried over into the Berlioz. The temptation to load the more recognisable and well-loved melodies with misguided heaviness was rejected, and instead the brightness and often gentleness of the musical colours was evident, especially in the second movement waltz section, in which Suzanne Handel and Carolyn Burgess were excellent on harp. In the adagio third movement the musicality of both Geoffrey Collins (flute) and Dean Newcomb (clarinet) was marked, and the entire brass section, in the allegretto non troppo fourth movement, was at their best.
This was another satisfying concert from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, but I don’t want either the Sibelius or the Berlioz that were both last heard in 2012 to be repeated any time soon!
Kym Clayton
When: 2 Dec
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 27 Nov 2016
This was the third of three concerts showcasing the colossal talents of Pinchas Zukerman and his trio. It was a chamber music concert that has been without equal in Adelaide for some years. The programme was unashamedly grounded in entertainment, and it showcased the almost incalculable possibilities of the romantic duo, quartet (without actually playing a quartet!) and octet repertoire for strings.
The Debussy Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor is beautifully understated and Amanda Forsyth (cello) and Angela Cheng (piano), who are members of the Zukerman trio, convincingly demonstrated that less can be so much more. The sparseness of the score felt anything but.
César Franck’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in A is one of the finest examples of the repertoire, and with perfectly disguised strength Pinchas Zukerman entirely filled the Adelaide Town Hall with the composition’s rich and eminently hummable melodies to the almost ecstatic delight of the large Sunday afternoon audience that couldn’t have cared less that Australia was at last wreaking its vengeance on the Proteas down the road at the Adelaide Oval.
Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings in E flat, Op 20, is a giant of the repertoire and was written when he was only sixteen. Despite the composer’s youth, the work comes across as a highly mature composition. At times, it is almost a ‘duelling banjos’ between two separate quartets, while at other times it has all the hallmarks of symphony for strings. Joining Zukerman and Forsyth were six members of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra: Natsuko Yoshimoto, Cameron Hill and Michael Milton on violin, Imants Larsens and Michael Robertson on viola, and Simon Cobcroft on cello. Zukerman and Forsyth led the ensemble with precision and controlled stylishness. Cobcroft showed why he is a worthy nominee in the category of Individual Professional Performance in the 2016 Adelaide Critic’s Circle Awards. Larsens was animated and demonstrative and clearly expressed his unabashed enjoyment of the moment. The final notes were greeted with thunderous applause and wolfwhistles, and the octet was brought back for several bows.
Pinchas Zukerman surely would have left Adelaide in no doubt that we loved him and his trio and would welcome them back at the drop of a hat.
Kym Clayton
When: 27 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed