Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 23 Nov 2016
The Zukerman Trio is a world class ensemble, comprising the iconic Pinchas Zukerman (violin), after whom the trio obviously takes its name, Amanda Forsyth (cello) and Angela Cheng (piano).
This evening they presented a program designed to showcase their individual talents, which they clearly have in abundance, as well as the rich diversity of the repertoire available for this particular trio of instruments. The program comprised Seven Pieces for Violin and Cello (Op 39) by Reinhold Glière, Piano Trio No 2 in E minor (op 67) by Dmitri Shostakovich, and Piano Trio in B flat (D898) by Franz Schubert. Collectively the three compositions traversed the romantic, neo-baroque and modern nationalistic idioms, and immersed us in spiky dance meters, consonance contrasted with ear-catching dissonance, and deeply affecting melodies that would fade gently to an excruciatingly silence.
The trio played without affectation. Vigorous passages were executed with the same calm and authority as the most delicate phrases. There were glimpses of ‘attitude’ as Forsyth looked briefly but deeply in Zukerman’s direction, or when Cheng would arch her back and then lean heavily into a forté section to set the synchronisation, or when Zukerman would deliberately sit forward in his chair and stare absorbedly at his music.
But, the music doesn’t stand alone or speak for itself. It needs to be interpreted and lifted from the page. The Zukerman Trio’s performance was decidedly and abundantly competent, but it needed more spirit. There was a glimmer of ‘chutzpah’ in the Glière, and more so in the Jewish folk melodies of the Shostakovich, but their performance of the Schubert was clinical and at times heavy handed. It lacked the requisite light and shade, and playfulness.
Despite one’s misgivings and musings as to why the Adelaide Symphony banners should be suspended over a trio rather than a full orchestra, the audience expressed great appreciation and some were driven to a standing ovation and to wolf whistling, and left with the uber-melodic strains of Schubert still in their ears.
Kym Clayton
When: 23 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Musica Viva. Adelaide Town Hall. 9 Nov 2016
Trio Dali comprises three 20-something soon-to-be-superstars of the world of chamber music. Jack Liebeck (violin), Christian-Pierre La Marca (cello) (“Crispy” to his friends, apparently) and Amandine Savary (piano) play with courage and sublime musicality.
Throughout the performance Liebeck and La Marca exchanged telling glances at each other: one looked at the other as if to seek confirmation they were ‘on track’ with what the other expected, or anticipated, and of course they always were. Meanwhile Savary, who formed the apex of the musical triangle, sat upstage of them at the Steinway and weighed into the non-verbal discussion with authoritative phrasing and influential dynamics. The three worked beautifully together, and the sum of the parts was greater than the parts themselves.
La Marca demonstrated beautifully graceful long lines in the adagio cantabile of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E flat, op 1, no 1, and with Liebeck produced remarkable drone-like sounds in the scherzo. Savary was liberal in her pedaling throughout, but the sound was always clean. Liebeck injected unexpected humor and ‘attitude’ into the finale, and at the end the trio was saluted with generous and deserved applause from the enthusiastic audience.
Australian composer Roger Smalley’s Piano Trio was composed in 1991 and, according to the composer, invokes material from a Chopin Mazurka. It is an adventurous (modern) composition with ambivalent emotional content. The first movement has you on edge with its denatured sliding intervals from the strings that are neatly brought together by the piano. The dramatic scherzo second movement led into a vehement third movement full of pathos and anguish that was well explored by Trio Dali. This all gave way to a more contemplative final section that gently drifted to conclusion. The interval buzz was that the Smalley was interesting, but the Beethoven “did it” for the audience. But the best, at least in the mind of this reviewer, was left for after the interval.
Chausson’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op 3 – like the Beethoven – is an early career composition, and Trio Dali handled it with deftness, assurance, and vivacity. Where Trio Dali might have searched for a perfect expression of the emotional content of the Smalley, with the Chausson they found it and laid it bare. They found the inherent melancholy in the third movement but crucially they also exposed its sense of hope and promise. Savary beautifully executed the complex sections that required her to intertwine her hands as she accompanied the yearning violin of Liebeck.
Musica Viva have again graced the imposing Adelaide Town Hall stage with a wonderful chamber program delivered by inspiring and talented young artists.
Kym Clayton
When: 9 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Town hall. 3 Nov 2016
The Tallis Scholars are Renaissance choral music specialists, and they are at the pinnacle of their craft. Quite simply, they are without equal, and much of it is down to Peter Philips, their founder and conductor.
Philips has a sense of theatre. He has the choir file in and form a gentle crescent on the stage, and as it happened they were nearly in order of height. In what almost resembles a Mexican wave, they open their music scores one after the other, doing it all in reverse order when they file off at the end of the first half of the programme. When it is all over, and they depart the stage for the final time at the concert concussion, Phillips’ conductor’s score is left on his music stand centre-stage, illuminated by a bright spotlight from above. It is the score of the awe-inspiring Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis – that remarkable composer from the time of Elizabeth after whom the ensemble is named.
These are just little things that drive home the sense of occasion and make one realise that a performance by The Tallis Scholars is a special thing; something to cherish.
Philips places the members of his ensemble judiciously in relation to each other. For some pieces he has some of them stand in different places, presumably to facilitate them singing a different ‘voice’. In Arvo Pärt’s unusual Which Was The Son Of, Philips positions all the tenors and basses in the centre and flanks them on both sides with the altos and sopranos. The male ‘centre’ focuses our attention on the fact that the subject of the composition is the (male) genealogy of Jesus Christ (according the Gospel of Luke). It is perhaps the least successful piece of the evening. In John Taverner’s As One Who Has Slept, a quartet of voices is sent to a back corner of the stage and provides a liturgical drone effect common to Taverner’s music, underlining his attachment to the Russian Orthodox faith. It is a highlight of the evening.
But all roads point to the Spem in Alium – the finale of the evening – and everything else in the program which precedes it, and it is all exquisite, is doomed to take second chair. The ten Tallis Scholars are joined by thirty members of the internationally renowned Adelaide Chamber Singers. Their combined forces produce a world class performance and Philips remarks as much at the end of the performance. Of course he is right to say so.
So what does one do for an encore? How does one follow Spem in Alium? Well the answer is you don’t, you simply repeat it, at least some of it, and that is exactly what happened.
The audience leaves in a state of sublime contentment.
Kym Clayton
When: 3 Nov 2016
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Festival Theatre. 29 Oct 2016
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 is a crowd pleaser, and thirty year old Australian and internationally renowned pianist Jayson Gillham’s performance at the piano earned him three well deserved standing ovations from the large Festival Theatre audience. Maestro Jeffrey Tate graciously remained in the wings and allowed Gillham to enjoy the applause by himself, but Tate deserved it just as much. Between them they found a sublime balance in dynamics, phrasing and pace. Gillham’s generously sized but beautifully controlled dexterous hands were never required to coax anything more than exactly what was needed from the majestic Steinway. Gillham was especially fine in the second part of the second movement, and his sensitivity transported the audience to another place. The clarity was palpable largely due to judicious use of the pedal. Once it was over, and the exuberant applause and wolf-whistling was spent, Gillham tossed off a piece of Bach as if he was at the beginning of a recital, and not at the end of a mighty Beethoven concerto. Gillham certainly has a long and bright future in front of him, and pray we see more of him in Adelaide.
The evening began with a standard reading of Wagner’s Prelude to Act 1 of The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, which is all about the brass and stately themes. Tate ‘gets’ Wagner and he lets the music speak for itself. Absent were exaggerations in dynamics and hastened tempos in bridging sections. It all came out as it should, as if we were settling back to enjoy the entire opera: it was measured and assured, and pointed towards something full of promise.
As good as the Wagner and the Beethoven were, the main event was after the interval and came in the form of Richard Strauss’ majestic tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life). Coming in at around forty minutes - as much as the overture and the concerto combined - there is more than ample opportunity for the conductor and orchestra to create an undisciplined mashup, but Tate led the forces of the enlarged Adelaide Symphony Orchestra on a clear and conquering path towards musical nirvana. Allegedly autobiographical, Ein Heldenleben has a programme but one’s enjoyment of it is not contingent on understanding the nuances of the programme. Who really cares that the solo violin, which was exquisitely played by concertmaster Natsuko Yoshimoto supposedly represents Strauss’s own wife. It really doesn’t matter, and nor does it matter that the played-through movements lack any substantial musical unity, apart from the gorgeous leitmotifs that act as musical glue. Ein Heldenleben is not everyone’s cup of tea, but, like Wagner, Tate ‘gets’ Strauss and its myriad voices sang brightly with delicately balanced passion.
This was a lesson in balance reached from the vantage point of deep understanding.
Kym Clayton
When: 29 Oct
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 7 Oct 2016
Tasmin Little is a passionate conversationalist: throughout her clear and nuanced reading of Delius’ Violin Concerto she moves backwards and between inviolable concentration and almost casual dialogue with whichever section of the orchestra takes her fancy. The result is as good as you can get, and she extracts panoply of finely wrought emotions from her 1757 Guadagnini violin.
Acclaimed principal guest conductor Jeffrey Tate provides Little with great support from the podium. The dynamic balance between orchestra and solo violin is finely poised, but none more so than between the sections of the orchestra. Each and every musical idea that brings one section of the orchestra into prominence over the others is clearly heard, and it is a delight.
Such carefully constructed balance is ever apparent throughout Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. Tate put to the sword the unfair quip that Wagner is full of beautiful moments but interminable minutes (or words to that effect!). The audience wishes the performance would never end. Tate observes what the piece has to offer, and carries the orchestra along in search of it.
Brahms’ Symphony No.3 is a fascinating composition. The entire four movements end quietly and peacefully, and at its end there is not the immediate and abrupt burst of applause from the audience that is typical of symphonies that end with a flourish. Rather, the audience is lulled into a contemplative state and Tate’s gentle yet persuasive conducting of the Adelaide Symphony certainly has that effect; especially in the inner two movements.
This performance is characterised by delicate and seemingly effortless balance. Bravo Tate!
Kym Clayton
When: 7 Oct
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed