James Huon George & Philippa McAuliffe. Urrbrae House. 30 Jul 2023
There is a relatively extensive repertoire for the harp and piano, but it is something that is infrequently heard in Adelaide, and so what a delight to have a concert devoted to this pairing of instruments.
Philippa McAuliffe (harp) and James Huon George (piano) are both recent honours graduates of the Elder Conservatorium and both have their eyes firmly set on careers as professional musicians with international studies on their near horizon. They, like other talented and ambitious emerging musicians, are carefully searching out and creating performance opportunities for themselves in order to hone their craft. And so to today’s concert.
Presented in the peaceful and gracious ambience of the historic Urrbrae House, George and McAuliffe have curated a selection from the repertoire (duets and solos) that takes us for a stroll around Europe, through Italy, France, Germany, and Spain. The program includes pieces by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Fauré, Debussy, Destenay, Poulenc, Alkan, Renié, Beethoven, Granados, and Salzedo.
The program begins with Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concertino, Op.93, which is the most substantial piece and cornerstone of the program. Originally scored for harp, string quartet and three clarinets, the piece is perhaps better known and appreciated as an arrangement for harp and chamber orchestra. Today we heard a version for harp and piano reduction, and it delightfully captured the flavour of the original. McAuliffe and George allowed the harp to be dominant throughout with careful balancing of dynamics in the dialogue. The ‘finale spagnolo’ was particularly well performed, replete with percussive taps to the body of the harp.
Not to be left out, George also percusses the casing of the piano in the Rumba by Salzedo, which concluded the program. This exciting piece was paired with Salzedo’s Tango, and George and McAuliffe allowed the compelling Latin rhythms to come through easily and clearly.
The compositions by Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Salzedo bookended a dizzying selection of pieces in French, German and Spanish styles.
Although George wisely left the lid of the piano closed, the acoustic of the room at times blurred the harmonics of Debussy’s Rêverie and perhaps less pedalling might have resolved the matter, at least partially. The Romance sans paroles, Op.17 by Faure, did not suffer from this problem, and was performed with sweetness and clarity. The artists combined exceptionally well in Destenay’s Conte de veillée. Op. 30, and McAuliffe gave the piece an unexpected sense of light-heartedness, as if it intended to portray children playing games before going to bed. George’s work in the right hand was notable.
George performed two contrasting piano solos: Poulenc’s Nocturne No.1 in C, FP 56, and Alkan’s Prelude, Op.31, No.8. Both pieces rely on carefully executed ‘light and shade’, and in the Alkan George demonstrated moments of clarity and lucidity with his right-hand work, and heartfelt gloom in the left. Some performers have a natural affinity for some composers: perhaps Alkan is that for George?
McAuliffe performed Renié’s Pièce Symphonique en trois episodes with deep feeling, understanding and conviction. The sense of emotion associated with the loss of a loved one came through with incisive clarity. It was touching. There was nothing mawkish.
The arrangement of Beethoven’s song Adelaide, Op.46, for piano and harp is delightful, but it is one in which the dynamical balance between harp and piano is crucial. The harp does not mimic the human voice well, and the composition works best when the piano is played more softly than it was in this performance. Again, the acoustic of the venue tends to exaggerate the overtones produced by an undamped piano.
And then it is back to France with Renié’s delightfully sweet Les Pins de Charlannes, and then to Spain in what proved to be an interesting interpretation of Danza No.5 by Granados. McAuliffe and George chose to give the piece crisp phrasing which laid bare the rhythmic and percussive elements of dance styles from the south of Spain. The concert rounded out with the dance pieces by Salzedo, and the audience left with broad smiles on their faces.
Philippa McAuliffe and James Huon George are planning to reprise the concert later in the year at Baroque Hall in North Adelaide. It’s worth a second showing!
Kym Clayton
When: 30 Jul
Where: Urrbrae House
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 28 Jul 2023
After a measured performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D, Op.61, Pinchas Zukerman left the stage and ‘high fived’ the concert master and the other first violins who were closest to the front of the stage. Why? Probably because he was physically spent after conducting the orchestra as well as being soloist. Perhaps because legends have earned the right to be flippant, if they wish. He then returned for several bows before playing the uber tranquil Brahms Lullaby (Op.49 No.4 Wiegenlied) as an encore and insisted the audience hum along, which we did! At its conclusion, he acknowledged the tuneful crowd and sent them off into the cold night with that time honoured Aussie phrase “c’ya”! It put a smile on everyone’s face, including the members of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and the audience forgot that it was only 9:15pm after a 7:30pm start. A shortish concert because the first half of the program comprised only three short pieces (25 minutes in total) and no symphony.
The concert began with the Australian première of American composer Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst. It is an eclectic melody-driven composition which is pop and jazz infused. At times it feels post-modern, and then it hints at minimalism, and then at klezmer. It’s almost dizzying as it fluctuates styles, but that’s the nature of a ‘starburst’.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A minor, Op.33 saw Zukerman at his best in commanding the forces of the ASO. This was the first performance of this work by the ASO, and the program notes opine that Coleridge-Taylor’s music deserves to be heard more often by Adelaide audiences. The Ballade highlights the woodwinds which often announce moody but gentle and lyrical melodies. Julia Grenfell on flute and Dean Newcombe on clarinet are en pointe.
The ballade was followed by the more familiar Overture to The Force of Destiny by Giuseppe Verdi, and the audience particularly enjoyed Zukerman’s dynamic balance and acute phrasing that deepened the sense of drama and foreboding inherent in the opera.
But it was the Beethoven that brought the crowd, and of course Zukerman, one of the world’s best violinists. His conducting is passionate, with foot stamping and extravagant gesticulation with his bow. Just before the entry of the solo violin in the first movement, he plays a few bars along with the first violins and then authoritatively executes the mini cadenza as the solo violin enters. The ascending octaves are as sweet sounding as they can possibly be, and the sublime musicality of the tones he produces from his violin are a feature throughout the concerto. His cadenzas are uplifting. Full marks to concertmaster Kate Suthers and the section principals, because their thorough and sensitive preparation paves the way for Zuckerman to put his magical artistry on display.
But it was all over in such a (comparatively) brief time!
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Jul
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Musica Viva. Adelaide Town Hall. 26 Jul 2023
Chopin’s Piano is Musica Viva’s current Australian touring program, and tonight’s performance marks the end of the tour. It is a musical play based on Paul Kidea’s superb book of the same name. First published in 2018, the book “…traces the history of Chopin’s 24 Preludes through the instruments on which they were played, the pianists who interpreted them, and the traditions they came to represent.” Chopin composed the Preludes during a stint on Majorca where he domiciled with his lover George Sand and her two children while they sought respite from the Parisian winter. Pianos were rare on the island and he acquired a small one built by a local craftsman. It is this piano and its provenance that is the spine of the story: how it lay forgotten in Majorca for seventy years until it was re-discovered and acquired by the famous harpsichordist Wanda Landowska in 1913; how it eventually became plundered Nazi loot in World War II; how it was re-found, lost again, and then slipped away into the mists of time.
Kildea’s book is wonderful – it is fascinating, scholarly, and quite moving at times – but its dramatisation (by himself and Richard Pyros), and especially its realisation for the stage (directed by Pyros), is not.
The dramatisation is performed by pianist Aura Go and actor Jennifer Vuletic. Between them they play multiple characters, including George Sand, Chopin of course, Franz Liszt, Wanda Landowska, Peggy Guggenheim, and others. The characters are differentiated by different accents adopted by Go and Vuletic – some more successful than others – costuming, and of course the text. Throughout, Go performs the Preludes, but they are frequently interrupted by the action inherent in the narrative, particularly in Act 1. This reviewer ached for them to be played without distraction, but that wish was only granted well into Act 2 following the interval.
Most frustratingly, the acoustics of the Adelaide Town Hall all but destroyed any chance of enjoying Vuletic’s fine acting and Go’s sensitive playing of the Preludes themselves. Both performers were amplified, and the outcome was persistently echoey to the point that it was frequently impossible to hear their dialogue clearly. If one had not read the book, or had been forewarned by someone who had, it would have been extremely difficult to follow the narrative. This reviewer had read the book, but still found it a challenge to keep abreast of the performance.
As already mentioned, both Vuletic and Go were impressive, but this was not enough. At times the episodic text got in the way: too much happening far too quickly. Unfortunately, poorly thought out and executed production elements damaged the concert: the performance space lacked intimacy; the acoustics were punishing (with no apparent sound engineering ‘fixes’); recordings of other music that was played as a part of the unfolding story were almost inaudible; and the lighting struggled to be empathetic to the action. These conspired to drape a pall of dissatisfaction and irritation over the proceedings. If Chopin’s Piano is to see the light of day again, a lot of work needs to be done on the production side.
When it was over, Chopin was still a winner, and the audience left gently humming his timeless melodies.
Kym Clayton
When: 26 Jul
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 7 Jul 2023
Tonight’s audience for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Symphony Series 4 concert – styled Embraced – were ecstatic about the performance of Dvořák’s Symphony No.9 in E minor, From the New World. Guest conductor Elena Schwarz was brought back three times to receive and acknowledge the enthusiastic applause, cheering and whistling for both her prowess at the podium and the musicianship of the ASO.
From the New World is a crowd favourite – it was last performed by the ASO in 2019 (too soon perhaps?) – but the concert also included a world première performance of a new Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra (styled Dare to Declare) by currently Adelaide-based composer Anne Cawrse and performed by percussionist Claire Edwards who is Australia’s very own magician with a mallet. The concerto was commissioned by the ASO (with much thanks to the orchestra’s Miriam Hyde Circle), Cawrse wrote it for Edwards to perform, and Schwarz is known and respected for enthusiastically championing new music. Three remarkable women shared the stage (with the spirits of three others watching on), and as they received congratulatory flowers following their performance, the special moment was not lost on the audience. The ASO most certainly punches above its weight.
Following what is now a tradition – the performance of the musical Acknowledgement of Country Pudnanthi Padninthi (also a commission by the ASO) – the program segued into an enthusiastic and robust performance of Kodaly’s Dances of Galánta, which was last heard from the ASO in 2014. In five sections, the dances are infused with gypsy folk-music rhythms and traditional sounds dominated by the woodwind, brass, and percussion sections of the orchestra. Dean Newcombe on clarinet and Joshua Oates on oboe especially impress.
The Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra is written in three sections, with each celebrating the achievements of an influential Australian artist: poet and Aboriginal rights activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker), painter Clarice Beckett, and musician Peggy Glanville-Hicks. These three women ‘dared to declare’ who they were and made indelible impacts on their art forms. There is not an insubstantial catalogue of concertos for marimba, but they do not often appear on the concert stage, let alone get repeat performances by orchestras (as do the Dvořák and the Kodaly). Cawrse’s contribution to the catalogue is an absolute joy, and knowing a little about the influences behind it, adds to the enjoyment. However, it also stands as pure music and seeing Edwards in full flight expertly work the instrument is quite something. She is animated, agile, passionate, joyful, and exudes an abundance of musicality. The styles of the three sections vary greatly, with gently rising and insistent scale passages in Oodgeroo punctuated by delicate percussion from the orchestra, through to rich melodies in Clarice with rich empathetic phrases from the horns and brass, and bold dance tunes rising emphatically from the marimba as it is struck with heavier mallets in the final Peggy section. The dance rhythms in Peggy closed the loop with the Kodaly.
Schwarz’s interpretation of the mighty From the New World symphony is nothing out of the ordinary, but her dynamic development is noteworthy. She solicits the gentlest softness in the famous second ‘largo’ movement, and the violins almost sound choral under the direction of guest concertmaster Elizabeth Layton. One almost went looking for an off-stage choir. At its conclusion, Schwarz rightly drew attention to Peter Duggan’s exquisitely nostalgic playing on the Cor Anglais, and the audience left with a familiar ear worm to enjoy for hours to come.
Kym Clayton
When: 7 Jul
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 28 Jun 2023
The second concert in the ASO’s Matinee Series is subtitled Elegance, and this surely describes the artistry of pianist Daniel de Borah. At the piano, he is elegance personified, and his performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.27 in B Flat, K.595, with the ASO under the baton of esteemed Graham Abbott in the delightfully refurbished Elder Hall is an object lesson in how it should be performed.
The concerto begins softly in the strings with more robust woodwinds. As sense of expectancy emerges as de Borah shifts on the piano bench and places his hands gently on the keyboard. Then emerges the gentlest of sounds from the piano, all perfectly articulated with crystal clear clarity. Abbott implements a sensible dynamic plan that allows the orchestra to confidently shine without ever overshadowing the piano. Abbott and de Borah rarely look at each other – just a sideways glance here and there – but the understanding between them is unmistakeable, and the result is a sublime balance between soloist and orchestra.
Like the Mozart, Haydn’s Symphony No.92 in G, the so-called Oxford, begins gently…and elegantly. The real interest in the piece comes in the third movement – the minuet and trio. Abbott chooses a moderate pace that allows the individual sections in the balanced orchestra to be clearly heard when they have something interesting to say. The horns and bassoons (just two of each) in particular sound generous and tuneful. Joshua Oates (principal oboe) is especially fine, and timpanist Andrew Penrose is precise, punctuated, and expressive throughout (and constantly checking his tuning. The Hall can be cold!). The presto final movement is bright and cheery, and guest concertmaster Elizabeth Layton in concert with Abbott ensure the strings remain light and graceful.
The ASO’s matinées are a welcome oasis in a busy week. Nothing taxing. Just classy music, played by classy musicians in a comfortable amount of time and a relaxed atmosphere.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Jun
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed