Music | The Barefoot Review

Symphony Series 3: Grandeur

2024-04-21T13:51:46+09:30

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

Symphony Series 2: Horizons

2024-03-25T21:52:52+10:30

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

Gladys Knight: Farewell Tour

2024-03-24T16:15:50+10:30

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

Víkingur Ólafsson: Goldberg Variations

2024-03-17T21:19:32+10:30

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

Recitals on the Fringe: Esmond Choi

2024-02-25T15:54:27+10:30

★★★★★

Recitals Australia. Esmond Choi, Piano. North Adelaide Baptist Church. 24 Feb 2024

A pair of stunning piano recitals by Adelaide pianist Esmond Choi has introduced Adelaide audiences to some quite incredible contemporary piano music.

The feature works in these recitals were George Crumb’s Metamorphoses Book I (2017), performed on 21 February, and Metamorphoses Book II (2019) on 24 February. Each book comprises ten short pieces totalling approximately 45 minutes’ duration.

Choi was inspired to perform Crumb’s Metamorphoses on hearing of the legendary American composer’s death, at age 93, in 2022. Choi is to be thanked for bringing Crumb’s unique and complex music to Adelaide, as it is so rarely heard.

Each book is subtitled Ten Fantasy-Pieces (after Celebrated Paintings) and each piece is intended to characterise a well-known painting by a significant artist, for example Paul Klee’s Landscape with Yellow Birds, Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night, Marc Chagall’s Clowns at Night, and Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory.

The pieces might be expressionistic, meditative, or agitated, and Crumb provided the performer with instructions as to the mood of each piece. For example, No. 6 of Book II, which refers to Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (Lady in Gold), is to sound “metallic, glistening, iridescent”, and No. 7 of Book II, which references Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, is to sound “savage, apocalyptic”.

The performance is to be accompanied by projections of the paintings, and these were shown on a large screen. As well as the piano, the instrumentation includes various percussion instruments and a toy piano. The performer must sing or whistle at various moments, and the piano is at times prepared with various objects and its strings plucked or stroked — Metamorphoses draws upon a wide range of sonic effects to characterise the artworks.

These are immensely challenging compositions for the pianist, and Esmond Choi demonstrated prodigious technical skill, great concentration, and most of all, a deep appreciation of both Crumb’s music and the artists’ oeuvres.

In the first recital, Choi’s performance of Book I was preceded by insightful renditions of two pieces by Olivier Messiaen from his Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus (1944) and Galina Ustvolskaya’s Piano Sonata No. 3 (1952). Ustvolskaya, who was championed by Shostakovich, is little known now, and her unique music is dark and disturbing. It was worth attending this recital just to hear Choi’s finely nuanced performance of this sonata.

In the second recital, Choi’s performance of Book II was preceded by Franz Liszt’s brief, unusually quiet and ultimately haunting Nuages Gris (1881), Messiaen’s Je Dor, Mais Mon Coeur Vieille (from the Vingt Regards), Toru Takemitsu’s Litany – in Memory of Michael Vyner (1989), and the piano transcription of JS Bach’s Nun Komm her Heiden Heiland (BWV 61). This recital program honoured the passing of Crumb through these elegiac meditations on death.

Choi’s accomplished readings of these diverse and demanding works, combined with his thoughtful programming, made these recitals unforgettable.

These recitals were presented as part of Recitals Australia’s classical music festival within the Adelaide Fringe, comprising ten concerts by recipients awarded the Recitals Australia Elder Conservatorium Fellowship Program. As well as being a Fellowship recipient, Choi is a master’s candidate at the Elder Conservatorium in the University of Adelaide.

Recitals on the Fringe continues with performances from Haiwei Yang, Piano, Katelyn Crawford, mezzo-soprano/soprano, and Gemma Vice, flute, until the 9^th of March.

Chris Reid

When: 24 Feb to 9 Mar

Where: North Adelaide Baptist Church

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au

Symphony Series 1: Majesty

2024-02-11T23:04:07+10:30

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 9 Feb 2024

The ASO’s first Symphony Series concert for the year carried the title Majesty and the program included three works: contemporary Scottish American composer Thea Musgrave’s Rainbow, Tchaikovsky’s monumental Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor, Op.23, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.3 in A minor, Op.56 (Scottish). Majesty might describe aspects of the Tchaikovsky and the Mendelssohn, but the term doesn’t easily describe the Musgrave.

Stephanie Eslake’s program notes draw a longish bow at linking the three compositions and she interestingly refers to the Tchaikovsky as being the “elephant in the room”. It was performed by Ukrainian born Australian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk with such explosive flair and joie de vivre that the audience erupted in spontaneous and sustained applause at the end of the first movement. So, what made it so special?

Gavrylyuk has been described by Roger Woodward as “…the most compelling pianist of his generation” and his performance tonight of the Tchaikovsky was just that: compelling. Gavrylyuk and guest conductor Douglas Boyd set a fast pace and the elegance inherent in the piano part, especially in the first movement, could easily have been obscured in the deluge of sound. In less capable hands, that likely would have happened, but Gavrylyuk was able to articulate critical phrases and have them rise above the might of the orchestra. Watching him perform demands one’s full attention: he unleashes novel interpretations; his body language sensitively announces every emotion he feels in the music; his artistry and musicianship at the keyboard is to be marvelled at. He's the full deal. Of the three movements, the second was performed in a more conventional way. When it was over, the audience to a person knew they had heard something special. Elephant in the room? Indeed.

Musgrave’s Rainbow is unashamedly programmatic in nature, and paints a soundscape of the emergence and disappearance of a rainbow through a rainy storm event. The orchestral colours are diverse, and there is an underlying sense of chaos out of which transient melodic motifs rise and fade away as quickly as they arrived. The piece was composed in 1990, and this performance was the first by an Australian orchestra.

Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony was composed some years after he toured Scotland, and as Eslake puts it, it is a “gripping memoir” of his travels. That does not mean to say the piece is infused with hints of Scottish tunes, for it is not. Rather, it is Mendelssohn’s response to some of the things that he saw, including the crumbling grandeur of Holyrood Abbey where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned. As he walked around Scotland it is not hard to believe that Mendelssohn would have been impressed by the rugged and wild natural beauty of the landscape, and as in Musgrave’s Rainbow, Mendelssohn’s Scottish recalls nature at its awesome best. The ASO’s woodwinds were at their very best throughout the concert.

Kym Clayton

When: 9 Feb to 10 Feb

Where: Adelaide Town Hall

Bookings: Closed

Fragmentation

2024-02-05T21:12:36+10:30

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Grainger Studio. 2 Feb 2024

The Adelaide Symphony orchestra’s 2024 program includes a number of themed series, including the Sanctuary Series, so named because the music is presented as an immersive experience that focusses upon the deeply relaxing and meditative qualities inherent in the program. Indeed, the audience can choose between standard seating or yoga mats and has no choice about how and when to applaud the orchestra – applause is forbidden, and one’s enjoyment is expressed through silent but deeply felt appreciation. The ASO has been presenting such programs for several years, and there is one more in August this year. They are popular, and deservedly so. The pomp and circumstance of traditional orchestral concerts is stripped away, and it’s all about giving flight to one’s own personal response to what is heard.

Fragmentation featured four compositions, all of which are based on lyrical ‘fragments’ to create larger works. In some respects, each is like a dream, where the source musical material is deceptively simple and comparatively brief but seems more expansive.

The highlight of the program was a beautifully rendered performance of Graeme Koehne’s The Persistence of Memory. Receiving its world première in 2014 by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, it was written in memory of Guy Henderson who served as principal oboe of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for some 31 years (1967-1998). Written for oboe and string orchestra, it begins delicately with a single violin and cello which announce a hauntingly serene melody that is soon taken up by the ensemble and developed by the obo, played most beautifully by Joshua Oates.

Interestingly, the Koehne was enveloped by Wagner. The concert began with an Australian première performance of Salvatore Sciarrino’s recent composition Languire a Palermo (Languishing in Palermo), composed in 2018. It is constructed around a melodic fragment composed by Wagner during a visit to Sicily in the early 1880s and is described by Sciarrino as capturing the “sounds of Sicily”. It is an eclectic work but unforgiving: its success turns on precise phrasing, managing delicate changes in contrasting tempi, and purposeful dynamical balancing. Conductor David Sharp managed most of these demands.

The Sciarrino gave way to a lush performance of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. The piece had almost enigmatic and deeply personal significance for Wagner himself, but this didn’t entirely come through and the performance perhaps lacked a little heart.

The Koehne was followed by Gavin Bryars The Porazzi Fragment composed by Gavin Bryars. Towards its conclusion, the piece quotes a brief unpublished piano theme composed by Wagner, but which was never used by him. Like the Koehne, the music is nostalgic and lamenting, but intensely soothing and an entirely appropriate conclusion to a satisfying and immersive concert.

Kym Clayton

When: 2 Feb

Where: Grainger Studio

Bookings: Closed

Eternal Beauty

2023-12-11T22:00:47+10:30

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Grainger Studio. 8 Dec 2023

“Welcome to this unique listening experience…” is emblazoned across the large projection screen high above the orchestra, and unique it is. Gone are the usual rituals associated with a performance by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra: the orchestra files into the auditorium in silence, as does the conductor (David Sharp), to no applause; the lights are dimmed; half the audience are recumbent on yoga mats (many having just finished work and have come directly to the Grainger), and the another half sitting in ‘conventional’ seating; talking is at a minimum, and only in hushed whispers; the projection screen advises us there should be no applause, for anything, that latecomers will not be admitted – not even at a ‘convenient‘ pause in the program, and that anyone leaving the auditorium for whatever reason will not be readmitted.

Rules, rules, rules. But we all accept them (indeed, we welcome them!) and know they are essential preconditions for what will be a very different and intensely relaxing musical experience. And the delightful program all but guarantees it.

With the audience settled, the lights dim, and we become aware of our own breathing and hearts beating. We all become more acutely aware of silence, which is such an important element of any music. The silence itself becomes music (think John Cage’s composition 4’33”), and then the gentle strains of The Swan of Tuonela are uttered by the orchestra. It is part of Jean Sibelius’ tone poem Lemminkäinen Suite, Op.22 and includes one of the best-known solos on cor anglais ever written. The harp has a key part to play as well, and the total effect is painfully soothing.

Where the plaintive and enigmatic sounds of the cor anglais voice a swan in the Sibelius, the oboe voices a cuckoo in Frederick Delius’s On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring. The elevated and almost-lonely sounds from the oboe conjure images of solitude in a leafy and dappled-light forest, and one’s sense of relaxation becomes even more heightened.

Erik Satie wrote three Gymnopédies, and the ASO performed two of them: No. III - Lent et grave, and No. 1 - Lent et douloureux. Originally written for piano, they are spectacularly well known and have been arranged for various ensembles. The original piano versions are beautifully written: they are sparse with every note chosen for a reason; nothing more is needed, and nothing that is included is superfluous. The arrangements used by the ASO preserved the simple beauty of the melodies and rhythms, but for this reviewer the arrangements became ‘busy’ at times and self-conscious. But the deep relaxation continued, and the combination of harp and piano was elevating.

Like the Gymnopédies, Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte was also originally written for solo piano, but it is better known in its orchestral version (which Ravel himself wrote.) It works best when played slowly, as the composer intended, and conductor David Sharp did just that. A few initial shaky notes by the horns did nothing to detract from the dreaminess and fragile beauty of the piece.

The concert rounded out with a soulful performance of Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate. This is very contemporary work (composed in 2002) and is written in Pärt’s so-called ‘tintinnabular’ style (his term) which is substantially grounded in arpeggiated tonic triads with tonally divergent and sometimes beautifully dissonant motifs from other keys. Again, comparative sparseness of harmonizing notes is important, and a sense of fragility pervades even though there is contradictory overall sense of backbone and substance.

David Sharp seems to have an affinity for minimalist compositions, and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is on a winner with its Sanctuary Series. Just as the ASO’s matinee concerts in the Elder Hall are lunchtime oases, so too the Sanctuary concerts are twilight havens from which to escape the working week.

Kym Clayton

When: 8 Dec

Where: Grainger Studio

Bookings: Closed

Smoke And Mirrors

2023-11-28T16:19:37+10:30

Adelaide Wind Orchestra. Elder Hall. 25 Nov 2023

The Adelaide Wind Orchestra is a musical gem on the Adelaide art music landscape, and they will soon be playing on the world stage at the prestigious International Conference of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles to be held in South Korea in July 2024. In fact, the Adelaide Wind Orchestra is one of only a few ensembles world-wide to be invited to perform. Yes, the Adelaide Wind Orchestra is that good, and their recent concert – entitled Smoke and Mirrors (named after the opening piece of the concert) – demonstrated why they are held in such high regard internationally.

The program followed a standard structure to be expected from regular symphony orchestra: an overture to open followed by a concerto, and finishing with a symphony. The overture Smoke and Mirrors, by American composer Erica Muhl, is a stand-alone work (it is not an introduction to a larger work), and it is very exciting. Muhl says of her composition that it is a paraphrase of musical ideas from many of her compositions arranged in achronological order. As such, the piece comes across as being somewhat episodic and lacking a cohesive schema, but the episodes are just electric! At times it is sci-fi inflected and futuristic in the thoughts it evokes in the mind of the listener, and at other times it is inward looking and brooding. The various sections are sometimes linked by exceptionally melodic and surprising statements from flutes and chimes. When it was over, guest conductor Kate Mawson took a restrained bow, and one was free to draw breath again!

Smoke and Mirrors was followed by an astonishing performance of Jennifer Higdon’s remarkable Percussion Concerto. Originally written for a full orchestra (that is, with strings as well), the composition won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and it’s easy to see why. In any concerto, there is an obvious dialogue between the soloist and the rest of the orchestra. In Higdon’s composition, there is a three-way dialogue between the percussion soloist, the percussion section of the orchestra, and the rest of the orchestra itself, and the result is fascinating. However, the main interest from an audience member’s perspective is watching the sheer theatricality and physicality of the percussion soloist at work. On this occasion it was Sami Butler, who is the Associate Principal Percussionist with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and his performance was electrifying. (Why hasn’t the ASO itself programmed this work? Why?)

Butler had numerous instruments set up in four locations across the full width of the Elder Hall stage. Let’s face it, marimba, xylophones, drum kits etc all take up a lot of room, and Butler had to move quickly and precisely between them over the duration of the single movement work. The nature of the music is eclectic. Like Smoke and Mirrors before it, the concerto doesn’t have a structure that a listener can easily latch onto in order to try and find meaning. Very soon, the listener abandons all attempts at this and lets the myriad of musical ideas take over and transport them to an almost otherworld sonic landscape all the while marvelling at Butler’s sublime musicality. His purely solo sections – we might call them cadenzas – were totally absorbing, and the emerging smiles on the faces of the members of the orchestra were only exceed by those of the transfixed audience.

Connor Fogarty’s Symphony for Wind Orchestra stood in stark contrast to the overture and the concerto. It frequently presents musical ideas that remind the listener of other things. Fogarty, in his program notes, states that the second movement is inspired by John Adam’s iconic piece Short Ride in a Fast Machine, which indeed it does, and the final movement evokes Shostakovich. Throughout, the playing by the orchestra is first-rate: luscious sounds from the tubas and other bass instruments, mournfully beautiful phrases from the woodwinds, delicate linking motifs from the harp that provide connection and meaning, sweet clarinets, lively flutes, expectant oboes, cheerful but majestic brass, and percussion of course to thread the various elements together.

Fogarty was in the audience and graciously received appreciative applause from the audience as well as from the conductor Bryan Griffiths, who did such a splendid job bringing the entire concert together.

Yes, the Adelaide Wind Orchestra is good, and they will be featuring music by Fogarty and other Australian composers, including Anne Cawrse, David John Lang, and Holly Harrison in their performances in South Korea. They deserve the support of the South Australian art music loving public, and you can start by visiting their website.

Kym Clayton

When 25 Nov

Where: Elder Hall

Bookings: Closed