Adelaide Baroque. Nexus Arts. 31 May 2024
In staging Old Worlds and New, Adelaide Baroque presented a rare and utterly delightful concert of medieval and early renaissance style music.
Adelaide Baroque is renowned for its thoroughly informed and authentic performances of music of the baroque era, and its members frequently collaborate with other musicians. For this concert, members of the Adelaide Baroque Orchestra, led by violinist Ben Dollman, were joined by the Early Modern Trio of Aaron Brown (violin, rebec), Philip Griffin (oud, guitar, tzura) and Tunji Beier (hand percussion), together with Maryam Rahmani (santur, kamancheh and voice).
Aaron Brown is a specialist in medieval music and composes music drawing on medieval forms and flavours, as well as performing some original pieces. This was the era of Moorish Spain — Al-Andalus — where Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities coexisted and whose culture spread through Europe to the middle east.
Brown takes the danceable rhythms of medieval music and recreates them as modern jazz rhythms. His Ecclesia is based on Sequence for St. Ursula by the legendary abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179), and it combines sequences of solos for violin, oud and drum supported by the strings of Adelaide Baroque. The gentle sounds of Maryam Rahmani’s santur, an instrument similar to a hammer dulcimer, can be heard throughout.
Brown’s Lament for Tristan, based on a troubadour song drawn from a fourteenth century Tuscan manuscript, opens with a mournful, characteristically medieval violin solo that segues into a hypnotic contemporary jazz piece performed by the ensemble. The style of music shifts back and forth between eras as Brown performs another solo in contemporary style, and there is a jazz guitar solo by Philip Griffin.
In many works, the arrangements for the ensemble create dialogues between instruments, and involve sequences of alternating instrumental solos in the manner characteristic of jazz ensembles, but the style of the music never loses its medieval, often courtly flavour. The sound of the early violin is quite different to that of its modern counterpart, and Brown also uses a rebec, another early bowed string instrument. The use of traditional instruments in contemporary music adds to this most seductive and unique musical hybrid.
Kalenda Maia, by troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (c1155 – 1205) is in the form of the estampie, a medieval dance, and features solos for violin and recorder. Cominciamento di Gioia (Origins of Joy), arranged for recorder, played by Brendan O’Donnell) and a small frame drum, played by Tunji Beier, is from another, anonymous, estampie.
The slow, meditative A Chantar, by Beatriz, Contessa de Dia (1140 – 1212), was originally a vocal work, but is arranged for santur and oud, accompanied by tinkling percussion. Rahmani also performed a delightful solo on the santur to accompany her own voice in her Improvisation on Traditional Persian Melody.
Brown’s Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream begins with Philip Griffin reading a text from the Book of Daniel in which Nebuchadnezzar dreams of the great tree that shelters the world. The music that follows the reading is based on the opening melody of the thirteenth century Play of Daniel, a liturgical drama written by students of the Beauvais Cathedral in northern France.
The concert booklet provided extensive details of the nature and sources of the music and its historical context, and Brown’s compositions and arrangements are based on extensive research. This enchanting concert provides just a taste of the kinds of music that might have been heard in the medieval era, and so the concert constituted an absorbing history lesson.
The performances throughout were excellent. The whole ensemble combined wonderfully, sharing a common appreciation of Aaron Brown’s finely crafted compositions which bring medieval music into the contemporary era and continue the evolution of musical composition and performance that characterised medieval times.
Chris Reid
When: 31 May to 1 June 2024
Where: Nexus Arts Venue
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 12 Apr 2024
Grandeur was the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s third concert in its flagship Symphony series, and it was very satisfying.
The ASO’s Symphony Series usually follow a tried-and-true format, along the lines of an introductory piece, by concerto and a symphony. The pot boilers get rolled out, because the audience love ‘em and they keep ticket sales ticking over, and occasionally there is a new composition. Grandeur didn’t follow this format: there was no symphony or concerto, although there was a new composition (a world première in fact!) and another modern piece (an Australian première) which were both uncomfortable bedfellows for the two high baroque pieces that were performed (one of them was indeed ‘grand’!) There was no obvious narrative to the program although Stephanie Eslake’s entertaining and instructive program notes tried to create musical glue where there really wasn’t any to bind the program together. Her notes were more a post hoc intellectual exercise than anything else.
Experiencing Grandeur was akin to sitting down with one’s own collection of CDs and sampling at random. But that can be enjoyable, and Grandeur was too.
Dobrinka Tabakova is a contemporary Bulgaria-British composer, and her recent composition for small string ensemble Barbican Glade was commissioned to to mark London’s Barbican Centre’s 40th birthday. The ensemble and conductor were already on stage as the audience entered the Town Hall auditorium and they began the concert without any acknowledgement. Esteemed British conductor Stephen Layton drew the purest unfussed tremolo-free tones from the strings and the overall effect was drone-like, almost inscrutable. This was an Australian première, and it would seem reasonable to expect that Barbican Glade will grace our concert halls again, and again.
In stark contrast, this was followed by JS Bach’s Cantata No.51 Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen! (Exult in God in every Land), and it was sung by the ever-popular Australian Soprano Sara Macliver. Although Macliver was overpowered at times in the first Aria section, her glorious voice perfectly joined forces with the orchestra for the second, third and fourth sections, before she was joined by principal trumpeter David Khafagi and they both excelled in a coloratura climactic final Alleluja.
As the first half of the comparatively short program began with a première, so did the second with Before the Law by Adelaide composer Jakub Jankowski. In this case, the ASO commissioned the work, and this was its world première! And what a remarkable work it is, and like the Tabakova, it deserves to be heard again, and around the world. Jankowski has set to music an extract in the form of a parable from Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial, in which a protagonist seeks to gain access to law and legal process but is thwarted in doing so by a ‘gatekeeper’. The message is that the legal system is too difficult for an average person to negotiate or indeed fully comprehend. This is all very topical with high profile national and international court cases being splashed across our daily newspapers almost on a daily basis. Why Jankowski chose this as source material is not known, but the parable has been referenced in a number of other artistic works , including by American composer Arnold Rosner who arranged the text for a baritone singer and orchestra. Rosner’s work is excellent, but Jankowski’s version is altogether different. It features a soprano voice (Sara Macliver again) who sings the text associated with the protagonist, and the gatekeeper as well as a narrator. The three voices are differentiated through various musical choices: instrumentation, tempo, dynamics, and rhythm. In particular, Jankowski has the the soprano voice the gatekeeper through an electric megaphone, which gives the text a raucous and cruelly authoritative character. Macliver’s clarity is suboptimal on a few occasions when she is again stretched by the full orchestra, and it becomes necessary to consult the printed program for the words she is singing. But her performance is electric and her powerful and lyrical voice can easily be heard above the swelling orchestra. Jankowski doubles the voice with wind instruments in the composition’s latter stages and the effect is made even more eery and distant as the soprano is joined by seemingly detuned brass as she slowly leaves the stage making ‘white noise’ sounds into the megaphone. At times it sounds other worldly and Kafka’s message of unreachable justice rings loudly in our ears.
Jankowski’s Before the Law is as theatrical as it is musical. It thrives in the concert hall and would likely be less impactful as a recording, but it can be heard again on ABC Classic radio on 3 May at 1pm. This reviewer will certainly be tuning in. It deserves to be listened to again. Jakub Jankowski has already had a number of compositional successes, and this is another.
Jakub Jankowski is one to watch out for.
The program finally became “grand” with a well-articulated reading of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. The Fireworks has all the musical hallmarks of a so-called ‘pot boiler’: it’s fun to listen to, and to watch, and it has memorable tunes that easily become ear worms. Unfortunately, we don’t hear it all that often in our concert halls. Layton controlled the might of the orchestra to preserve the tight phrasing and control the rapidly changing dynamics that are needed for this piece to truly take flight and soar it did.
This was a perfect concert program for Layton: major vocal works, Baroque, and British-infused compositions. He did it so well.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Apr
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 22 Mar 2024
The physical horizon is almost mystical. It is always there, but always out of reach and ever changing and morphing from one reality into another. And so was the musical program for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Horizons concert, the second in this year’s popular Symphony Series. The eclectic program featured Mendelssohn’s concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op.27, Bruch’s ever popular Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op.26, Sofia Gubaidulina’s Märchenpoem (Fairytale Poem) – a highlight – and Debussy’s La Mer. So many musical colours, textures and changing moods! But the plethora of styles and the episodic nature of the program’s narrative was almost a weakness, but not quite!
The concert began with Pudnanthi Padninthi by Buckskin and Goldsmith (arranged by Mark Ferguson), which is now the customary musical Acknowledgement of Country. With a different conductor leading the orchestra almost every time it is played, it invariably has a different ‘feel’ each time. This gives one pause to reflect about the music itself and the changing nature of country and the unique relationships between it and those who walk it and call it home.
Goethe’s two poems Calm at Sea and Prosperous Voyage were the inspiration for Schubert’s song Meeres Stille (Calm Sea), D.216, Beethoven’s cantata for chorus and orchestra Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt, Op.112, and Mendelssohn’s overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op.27. Mendelssohn’s non-vocal setting is evocative of the deep fear and apprehension sailors experience when becalmed at sea, and the joy when this gives way to winds that propel one towards the emerging land in the horizon. Although it never feels as satisfying as Mendelssohn’s popular Hebrides Overture, South Korean guest conductor Shiyeon Sung led the orchestra in a balanced reading that was at times jaunty, with the woodwinds in fine form.
Emily Sun was the soloist in Bruch’s Violin Concerto No.1, and she brought the audience to its feet at its conclusion. The heart of the concerto is the adagio second movement and Sun allowed the elegance of its simple melody to come to the fore. Sun and Shiyeon Sung never allowed it to become oversentimental, and Sun’s fine technique was especially on display in the final movement with elegantly controlled double stopping in the first brisk dance-like theme.
Sofia Gubaidulina (b.1931) is one of the most significant Russian composers alive. Throughout her long life, she has earned many accolades, awards, and prizes, and her prolific musical output ranges across orchestral, concerto, vocal, instrumental, and chamber compositions, as well as numerous (Russian) film scores. For tonight’s concert the ASO chose Gubaidulina’s orchestral tone poem Märchenpoem, which she wrote for a children’s radio program based on a Czech fairy tale, The Little Piece of Chalk. Although the Bruch concerto was the audience’s favourite for the night, Gubaidulina’s Märchenpoem came a close second, and Shiyeon Sung captured the piece’s vivacity and allowed all featured instrumental voices to shine.
The concert concluded with Debussy’s La Mer, which brought us full circle to the nautical theme enunciated at the start of the concert in the Mendelssohn. La Mer was not fully appreciated when it premièred and was criticised for lack of obvious form and melody, but that is perhaps precisely what is needed to evoke thoughts and feelings of an ever-changing ocean and shifting horizon. Again, Shiyeon Sung allowed each of the three substantial sections of the composition to speak for themselves without over labouring the changing harmonies and episodic melodies.
This concert can be enjoyed again on ABC Classic at 1pm on Sunday 21 April. It’s worth enjoying again to reflect on the fact that the concert features a female virtuoso soloist, a female conductor, a female concertmaster, and a significant composition by a notable but underperformed (in this country at least) Russian female composer. Well done ASO!
Kym Clayton
When: 22 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Frontier Touring. Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre. 21 May 2024
This might be one of those times I despair for the Australian concert scene to ever make a full recovery post-Covid. I think it will, but it is a long haul when Gladys Knight plays her farewell gig to somewhat less than a full house. Gladys Knight is class, all class. She is 80 and she still has the voice; even if she doesn’t have all the moves she’ll give it a try. This was not a pension-me-off tour, not by any means. I’ve seen Brian Wilson when he couldn’t remember his own name, let alone why he was on stage or why the Beach Boys were singing his songs. Gladys Knight was not like this.
But I get ahead of myself. Local singer songwriter Sean Blackwell was the opening act, supported by his brother Drew and singer Kirsten. So that’s two acoustic guitars and three vocals to spread a little magic over Sean’s countrified but not-too-folksy tunes. He starts with Holiday, and this man can sing. The guitars hit a groove and lock into it, and this signals the only real problem. Occasionally brother Drew will provide a layer in the sound with some lovely string finger work, a filigree embellishment, but all too often they hit the spot in 4/4 time; one, two, three and strum down hard on the fourth. Vocally, it’s similar. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, chorus, chorus, chorus. Blackwell needs an arranger to work over his songs. Set closer Smile is the bees knees.
After a longish pause and some slow handclapping from the crowd Gladys Knight is led onstage. She doesn’t care that she’s 15 minutes past advertised start time and if she does she does not show it. She’s been performing for so long she can work the crowd to her way of thinking inside three minutes and that’s about what it takes before she is milking the rapturous applause.
Gladys Knight & The Pips began performing in the early 1960s, continuing through the 1970s and ‘80s with a number of record companies: firstly, Fury Records, then her career really taking off with Motown (from 1966, with Nitty Gritty, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Neither One Of Us) and then going stellar with Buddah Records (from 1973) then Columbia. Popular opinion has it that Knight came into conflict with Diana Ross, and that her career may have suffered as a result. Nonetheless, she stayed classy, and the move to Buddah brought riches – Midnight Train To Georgia, Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me, I’ve Got To Use My Imagination all being featured numbers in a set which was a pastiche of so many of her hits.
And the voice! At 80 the voice remains good, not strong but strong enough, not perfect but unmistakable; she could pull a note and tease it out, holding it until the crowd acclaimed her skill. It’s a trick she used once, twice, thrice, and only a performer with clarity and such good timbre could expect to get away with. She may be slower, she may have needed a chair after 40 minutes onstage, but this was the real McCoy.
All too soon we got to the downplayed opening chords of …Grapevine, signalling the terminal phase of the concert, but not before we’d had a superb sounding Licence To Kill, from the James Bond movie of the same name, the nine piece band blaring into the riff, guitarist briefly coming to the fore. For me this was a highlight, I am much more a fan of punchy and upbeat soul music than I am of the more assured r ‘n’ b or funk. The latter stages of the set explored more of the beautiful gospel which brought us to these latter interpretations, and for a few minutes it seemed Knight let down her guard, moving away from a tightly scripted performance to briefly interact with her three back vocals in a slow motion call and refrain during a cover of Donnie McClurkin’s Stand. Another highlight for me.
And then the inevitable conclusion: Midnight Train… was always going to gently take us away at the end of the show - as an evocative and quintessential American song which says so much about aspiration and love. Although originally recorded by Cissy Houston, it remains a fitting tribute to a performer of such unique stature such was the gloss she was able to give the number in its recorded version. Classy to the end.
Alex Wheaton
When: 21 Mar
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Continuing around Australia and New Zealand until 4 Apr: Details
Adelaide Festival. Adelaide Town Hall. 15 Mar 2024
Every now and then, one is fortunate enough to experience the truly sublime in a concert. It happens infrequently, but when it does, the experience is transformative and becomes etched into one’s memory, indeed soul. Víkingur Ólafsson’s performance of JS Bach’s The Goldberg Variations as part of the Adelaide Festival is one such event.
Ólafsson hails from Iceland where he received his initial musical training, and later attended and graduated from the prestigious Juilliard School in New York. In his mid-twenties he established and started recording for his own indie-record label (Dirrindí). He has since embarked on a stellar international career as a concert pianist and has amassed an impressive array of important awards, accolades, and enthusiastic reviews. He is one of the finest pianists alive, and his performances are underscored by acute understanding of the music he plays and the ability to play it with crystal clear clarity and resolute purpose. He is indeed remarkable.
Bach’s Goldberg Variations comprises a theme (the so-called “aria”), thirty variations centred on the bass line (of the aria rather than its melody), and finally a recapitulation of the aria. It was composed originally for a two-manual harpsichord, and Bach indicated those variations to be played using one hand on each manual. (Indeed, they were composed with that in mind, but they are playable on a single manual instrument or piano, but with attendant difficulty.) Ólafsson swept these difficulties aside and gave a masterful display of exquisite technique and made the cross-hand work look easy.
The Goldbergs, as it is affectionally known, is one of the pillars of the keyboard repertoire, and many pianists have recorded the work or performed it or both. Some examples are famous, such as recordings by the legendary Glenn Gould who shot to fame with his iconic 1955 recording. Since then, the Goldbergs have been re-expressed in many different instrumental arrangements – some work, others don’t – but those that do keep the counterpoint clear and unfussed. In 2018, the Australian Chamber Orchestra performed an arrangement in the Adelaide Town Hall by Bernard Labadie for a baroque ensemble. That arrangement worked well. In 2022, pianist Andrea Lam performed the Goldbergs in the Adelaide Town Hall and Paul Grabowsky followed with his own improvised version (!). In the 2008 Adelaide Fringe Festival, Grabowsky joined forces with Clemens Leske Jnr to present the same program. The audiences admired Grabowsky’s extemporisation but made it reasonably clear that they preferred the Goldbergs ‘as written’.
The popularity of the composition remains solid, and the near capacity audience at the Town Hall to hear Ólafsson’s interpretation bears testimony to that.
Dressed in an elegant blue suit, the blonde headed Ólafsson took to the stage, bowed to the audience, sat at the Steinway, placed both hands at the centre and gently caressed every white key as his slender hands moved in retrograde motion across the full length of the keyboard. A not so private communion with the instrument that would produce magic for the next eighty minutes at his and Bach’s ministering.
The aria was played with simplicity and no fuss. After Ólafsson coaxed the tender melody he almost immediately went into the first variation. Later, the eighth variation saw his fine hand-crossing work on show, and one could almost see the delineation of the sinews and tendons in his hands as he weaved the fingers of both hands together. No loss of evenness. Persistent clarity. The repeated voices in the canon variations were acutely articulated, and the mathematical logic inherent in Bach’s scripting was laid bare before our ears. Before we were even are aware of it, we were at the last ‘variation’ which stands in contrast to the others. It is an explosion of energy, humour, and joie de vivre. It can be tempting to inject too much ‘life’ into it thereby risking the balance of the entire performance, but Ólafsson kept his head and segued into the repeat of the aria as if he was calling on an old friend.
Ólafsson can rightly consider The Goldbergs to be an ‘old friend’, as he is part way through a world tour in which he is giving in excess of eighty consecutive performances of the work. One can only wonder at what other intricacies and understandings he will discover in the work as his relationship with it deepens and matures (if that were even possible!).
At the conclusion of his performance, Ólafsson took multiple bows to the adulation of an ecstatic audience that rose as one to its feet. He spoke gently and thanked the audience for gracing his Australian debut, and that he couldn’t possibly consider an encore. How does one possibly top The Goldbergs? Perhaps the repetition of the aria was indeed Bach’s own prescription for an encore?
Víkingur Ólafsson’s performance of JS Bach’s The Goldberg Variations was simply astonishing.
Kym Clayton
When: 15 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed