O'Connell the Music

BUSH, BORSCHT & BONN

Selby & Friends

Ptimrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre

Wednesday September 2 at 2 pm

Nearing the end, I’m trying to find relevance in the titles of programs: an interest I’ve avoided for many years but which has come to be fascinating in recent times. For its latest touring program, the Selby & Friends ensemble – in this instance featuring piano Kathryn Selby, violin Susie Park, and cello Julian Smiles – will play trios by Australian senior writer Ross Edwards, Novgorod-born Anton Arensky, and Germany’s pride, Ludwig van Beethoven. Edwards’ work (of either 1998 or 1999, which has now been followed by a newly-composed score in this format) has featured on a Selby & Friends program before: back in 2021, when Selby and Smiles toured with Smiles’ Goldner Quartet (of happy memory) colleague, violinist Dene Olding. You’d have to assume that this translucent work of three movements, lasting about 15 minutes, represents the ‘Bush’ because the composer has certainly laboured to bring that national presence into his work. It’s followed by Arensky’s Piano Trio No. 2 in F minor of 1905. Nowhere near as popular as the writer’s first work in this form, it’s slightly more substantial, lasting about 35 minutes, and notable for its final set of six striking variations and muffled reprise. Perhaps this is where the borscht comes in,although that’s usually considered a Ukrainian dish. As for Bonn’s most famous son, his Piano Trio in E flat Op. 38 of 1803 is an arrangement of his highly successful Septet, with the piano taking over the string lines, the violin substituting for the arrangement’s preferred clarinet, while the cello takes up most of the original’s bassoon line. Whichever way you hear it, the Septet/Trio lasts for about 40 eloquent, mainly optimistic minutes. Tickets are $89 (concession $69), Seniors $87 (not any advantage, then, relying on that card), and students $69; and you have the Recital Centre’s $4-to-$8.50 money-grubbing transaction fee to shell out if you order by phone or online.

This program will be repeated at 7 pm.

MOSTLY MOZART – PLAY WITH FIRE

Australian National Academy of Music

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Thursday September 3 at 11 am

An incendiary morning from those artists-in-completion-mode working at the Australian National Academy of Music, directed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s associate principal cello (and ANAM alumnus/a), Sharon Grigoryan. Lots of fire to be heard, then, but not so much Mozart who is represented by one of his more obstreperous and brilliant-sounding symphonies: No. 35 in D, the Haffner of 1782. This happy score ends the program, and Haydn begins it with his Symphony No. 59, written in the Esterhaza residence years sometime between 1765 and 1769. It is nicknamed the Fire, because some of its movements were used as incidental music to a play called The Conflagration. After this follow several pieces with more obvious connotations. Manuel de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance from El amor brujo will be heard in its original 1915 gitaneria version; in the only performance I’ve heard, this calls for a chamber orchestra rather than the richly padded readings that come with the composer’s later re-vamps. We’ll hear the last of Debussy’s Preludes for piano, his 1913 Feux d’artifice, which you’d have to guess will be given to us in Colin Matthews’ orchestration. Or is it Peter Breiner’s version? Or that by Francis Gorge? Concluding the night’s semi-theme comes another glittering piano original in Scriabin’s Vers la flamme of 1914 – in Leytush’s odd orchestration, you’d suppose. Anyway, it will be a packed hour of music-making which Grigoryan may direct from the first cello desk. Tickets are simple: $59 standard, $52 concession (be still, my beating heart), students and Under 40s $49. Don’t forget the $4-to-$8.50 booking fee that the Recital Centre imposes, milking its clients of more cash with dubious justification.

ORGAN GALA

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Melbourne Town Hall

Thursday September 3 at 7:30 pm

These days, it’s not hard to guess what you’re going to get when you put an orchestra and organ together. Yes, it’s Saint Saens’ Symphony No 3 of 1886, the finale of which was used to risible effect in Chris Noonan’s 1995 Babe film. While the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Finnish-born Emilia Hoving, currently associate with the Royal Philharmonic, the attention-grabbing organist will be English-Australian Joseph Nolan whom I have never heard in action but who is a notable Widor expert. Before the blasts and rumbles from the Town Hall’s fabulous instrument under Nolan’s hands and feet, Hoving takes us through a farrago, beginning with Four Dances from Ginastera’s ballet Estancia, presumably the suite that the composer organized first in 1943. Continuing the earthy motif comes the Suite No. 1 that Guiraud arranged for publication in 1885 from Bizet’s Carmen opera of 1875. This involves the fate theme from the opera’s prelude, the Aragonaise before Act 4, the Intermezzo preceding Act 3, the heroine’s Seguedille, the Dragons d’Alcala interlude anticipating Act 2, and the Toreadors music from the Prelude and Act 4. Even more Latin colour arrives with the atmospherically rich 1994 Danzon No.2 by Mexican composer Arturo Marquez, nicely complementing Ginastera’s concluding Malambo. Bringing the Hispanic/pseudo-Iberian segment to a close, there’s a horn-led tour of the Athenian forest by way of Mendelssohn’s Nocturne extracted from his 1842 incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This event comes as part of a three-day Organ Festival sponsored by the MSO that also includes the Durufle Requiem (see below) and a recital from Nolan. Tickets for this particular concert range between $45 and $105, concessions $5 cheaper, Under 18s paying $20. Also, the MSO imposes an $8 transaction fee if you book online or by phone; you could try just turning up with cash in hand, although the current state of play (or so the organization would have you believe) is that there are 100+ seats available in both the stalls and in the gallery.

This program will be repeated on Saturday September 5 at 2 pm.

Melbourne Town Hall

Friday September 4 at 7:30 pm

This is the second major component of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra‘s short-lived Organ Festival. As you can tell from the title, it will involve the MSO Chorus but our local body will be joined by some visitors: the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus. If you know the Requiem, you’re aware that there are some sections reserved for two soloists; in this case, mezzo Sally-Anne Russell and baritone Simon Meadows. You’d also be interested to know that the MSO itself won’t be in attendance; the only musical support will come from English-Autralian organist Joseph Nolan. Well, that’s all fine; Durufle wrote his Requiem originally in 1947 for vocal forces and organ accompaniment (with a cello obbligato, apparently). Alongside this major work, we’re to hear Faure’s brief (barely six minutes) Cantique de Jean Racine, composed by a still-teenage Faure in 1865 for SATB choir and organ (or piano). Just before the 45-minute-long Mass for the Dead, the choirs will present some more Durufle in his Quatre motets of 1960, composed for a cappella SATB choir, although this disposition swells to seven lines in the opening Ubi caritas, six in the second all-female Tota pulchra es, and stays in the four regular parts for Tu es Petrus and Tantum Ergo – all of them based on the Gregorian chants so familiar to Catholics of a certain generation (mine). This event lasts a little over an hour, so tickets are cheaper than those for the preceding night’s program: standard moves between $50 and $84, concessions are a staggering $5 cheaper, and Under 18s still have to pay $20 – all of it encumbered with the MSO’s $8 transaction fee if you book online or by phone. And wouldn’t you know it? According to the MSO website, there are 100+ seats left in both stalls and balcony!

THOMAS DUNFORD

Melbourne Recital Centre, Utzon Music/Sydney Opera House & Van Diemen’s Band

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Friday September 4 at 7:30 pm

Sticking around for some solo recitals after his Musica Viva tour with cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, lutenist Thomas Dunford is being sponsored by three organizations, appearing three times in Tasmania (Hobart, Launceston, Burnie), once here, then once more in Sydney’s Utzon Room: an impressive five appearances in six days. What he’s performing here lasts about 75 minutes non-stop and it’s remarkably ‘clean’ – that is, relatively free of arrangements . . . well, except for the last piece which is our old friend, the Chaconne from Bach’s D minor violin Partita (written sometime between 1717 and 1720), and we’ve become used to that on a similar instrument, thanks to Segovia’s guitar transcription (which he recorded to generous acclaim – except from guitarists – in 1959). Dunford begins with Dowland; well, the performer’s British and why give us anything second-best? A praeludium, Fortune My Foe, A Fancy, Semper Dowland Semper Dolens, Mrs. Winter’s Jump, A Dream, The King of Denmark’s Galliard, Lachrimae, and the Frog Galliard make for an impressive opening bracket and one that is too tiring to date individually (ah, the delights of sloth). Then follow Kapsberger’s Toccata No. 6 published in 1604, Joan Ambrosio Dalza’s Calata alla Spagnola printed in 1508, a sarabande and chaconne by de Visee (although these could have been originally written for guitar; who knows without some solid provenance?), Les voix humaines by Marais presumably based on the original piece for viol(s) published in 1701, and the Bach to end. Tickets fall into four groups, ranging from $79 to $139, with concessions of $20 for the middle two, and $49 for Under 40s sitting in those same middle two seat groupings. You pay between $4 and $8.50 for booking online or by phone but, at time of writing (August 8), there are nearly 500 seats available and the Circle/Wings level is not being used. So I’d be tempted to risk turning up on the night at the box office with lots of small change.

NEW LIGHT

Flinders Quartet

Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre

Wednesday September 9 at 7 pm

It’s not the first all-female string chamber ensemble to feature in this country’s musical life – from memory, the Astra Society was an all-women orchestra – but the current members of the Flinders Quartet have a wealth of experience between them that speaks volumes for their interpretative maturity. For their latest program, the members – violins Elisabeth Sellars and Wilma Smith, viola Helen Ireland, cello Zoe Knighton – begin with some new lights working in the form with an as yet unnamed premiere construct from Australian writer Naomi Dodd, who was the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Cybec Young Composer in Residence for 2024 and who writes in an amiable, accessible semi-contemporary voice. Then we hear Grazyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 3, a three-movement score written in 1947 when the Polish composer was living in Paris and still able to pursue her career as a solo violinist. It comes in at an average of about 18 minutes. Finally, we hope to have a fresh vision of one of the string quartet repertoire’s staples; Beethoven Op. 127 in E flat. Sitting at the beginning to the composer’s late products in this form, this 1825 work is rarely heard; like the Bacewicz which precedes it, the piece is highly regarded but neglected – I believe I’ve heard it only once or twice in live performance. So this recital has considerable merit for its rare content. Tickets are $55, with a concession/student cost of $10 less. The transaction fee imposed by the Recital Centre for online or phone booking for both is $7; I’d be tempted to risk showing up on the night to avoid this charge, but the group is a popular one, enough so to fill the Salon.

JUSSEN BROTHERS PLAY POULENC

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Thursday September 10 at 7:30 pm

Dutch duo pianists Lucas and Arthur Jussen have made a considerable impact online, thanks to their tapes on YouTube which show the brothers as superlatively synchronised and empathetic in everything from Bach transcriptions to Bartok’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra. On this occasion, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra they are presenting Poulenc’s Concerto of 1932 which is an ideal vehicle for these musicians’ reliable dexterity and subtlety of inflexion in the work’s middle Larghetto movement. Before this, Nodoka Okisawa, chief conductor of the City of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, takes the MSO through Three Film Scores by Takemitsu which is a strring orchestra compendium of music for Jose Torres (1959), Black Rain (1989), and The Face of Another (1966); it lasts about 12 minutes. A bit more from Japan after interval in Takashi Yoshimatsu’s And Birds Are Still . . . for strings of 1997; an appealing, sentimental piece written with some eloquence in a smooth contemporary idiom. To end, Okisawa brings us back to Poulenc through his four-movement Sinfonietta of 1947 for small orchestra (double woodwind and brass without trombones/tuba, harp, timpani, strings). Janacek, it isn’t; closer to Dorian Le Gallienne, if more intentionally chic. Tickets follow the usual pattern: standard between $75 and $139, concession $5 cheaper, Under 18s $20 – and the MSO’s reansaction fee of $8 per order online or by phone. Whaddya know? The website tells us yet again that there are 100+ seats available on all three levels of the hall; when you’re on a good thing, stick to it – apparently.

This program will be repeated on Saturday September 12 at 7:30 pm.

BRAHMS REQUIEM AND SZYMANOWSKI STABAT MATER

Melbourne Bach Choir and Zelman Symphony

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Friday September 11 at 8 pm

Didn’t we hear the 1868 Brahms work from this body some years ago, in 2018?? Well, it’s eight years further on and tonight the Melbourne Bach Choir will be enjoying the support of the Zelman Symphony Orchestra rather than its own instrumentalists, all of them under the control of the choir’s artistic director Rick Prakhoff. On that previous occasion, the massive Brahms score was complemented by Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, as it is here. The night’s soloists will be soprano Helena Dix and baritone Warwick Fyfe for the Brahms, and both these artists with mezzo Belinda Paterson in the Polish composer’s 1926 score. Even with a necesssary infusion of new voices as generational change takes effect, you’d anticipate that enough survivors remain from the earlier performance. Of course, there was a time when the Requiem proved a staple for many choirs, particularly in this country’s major capitals; nowadays, it enjoys an occasional airing and is immensely rewarding for all concerned, especially the solo soprano with that wrenchingly fine Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit choir-escorted aria. Szymanowski’s work shows an expressive depth that proves most welcome from a composer who walks the fine line between diatonicism and dissonance. I hope the singers put in the extra mile and articulate the Polish text, in which language the composer conceived his score. But the program gives an intriguing contrast between some often opaque polyphony and striking, clear textures. Ticketing is more of a Brahmsian character tonight; the hall is divided into four grades, prices ranging from $69 to $119, top seats earning a $20 concession while the remaining three only attract a $10 reduction. Students pay between $59 and $99, depending on their cash flows. Everyone is susceptible to the $4-to-$8.50 Transaction Fee imposed by the Recital Centre, but I’d be tempted to avoid booking online or by phone as, at the time of writing (August 10), less than a third of the hall is occupied.

PIETER WISPELWEY WITH PIERS LANE – NIGHT I

Melbourne Recital Centre

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Tuesday September 15 at 7:30 pm

Here’s the first of three recitals from Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey and our own Piers Lane as the sometimes-requisite pianist. If the programs have a running theme, it comes from the scheduling of all three cello suites by Benjamin Britten, the first of them in C from 1964 ending tonight’s offerings. These works were written for Rostropovich and have no escorting line, so Wispelwey will be front-and-centre for this exposition. Mind you, Britten’s scores must be very familiar to him by now; he recorded all three in 1992, then again in 2001, taking another bash at No. 3 in 2008, and putting his talents to the British writer’s service once more with a re-visit of No. 1 in 2010. Tonight’s Britten is in nine movements, most pretty brief apart from the Fuga and Marcia. As for the pairing with Lane, that will give us Prokofiev’s 1949 Cello Sonata in C Op. 119; this is in three movements, was also written for Rostropovich, and lasts the same as the Britten suite – about 25 minutes. Furthering the voice of not-very-Soviet Russia comes the Shostakovich Op. 40 Cello Sonata in D minor of 1934 in four movements, not dedicated to Rostropovich, also coming in around the 25-minute mark on a good day. Wispelwey recorded both this and the Prokofiev sonata with Dejan Lazic in 2003. Lane also recorded them way back in 1988 with Alexander Baillie. Tickets, set on four levels of expense, move from a top of $139 to a low of $79; concessions of $20 are available only in the middle two grades; likewise Under 40s are restricted to the central gradations, both costing $49 for some inexplicable reason. You have to meet the Recital Centre’s Transaction Fee demands of anywhere between $4.50 and $8 but, at the time of writing (August 10), there are about 500 places available, and this recital is not using the Circle and Wings of the Murdoch space. Keep an eye on the Centre’s website; I’d be tempted to speculate in cash on the night.

PIETER WISPELWEY WITH PIERS LANE – NIGHT II

Melbourne Recital Centre

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Thursday September 17 at 7:30 pm

In the middle night of the three recitals being offered by Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey and partly-Australian pianist Piers Lane, the Britten theme persists with his Suite No. 2 from 1967, its five movements premiered the following year by dedicatee Rostropovich. The work’s impetus leads persuasively to a concluding Ciaccona, one of the composer’s most convincing Bach homages across the sequence of three suites. No. 2 lasts a few minutes less than the first of the composer’s essays in this form. On either side, Lane accompanies Wispelwey in two repertoire stalwarts. First is Schubert’s 1824 Arpeggione Sonata which the cellist has recorded three times: 1996, 2009, and 2019. Lane also recorded it – with cellist Tim Hugh in 2015. Although it wasn’t written for the cello, this instrument is the most commonly heard playing Schubert’s string line in the three-movement, 20-minutes-long work, so there’s no sudden desecration involved. To end the night, the musicians play Mendelssohn: Sonata No. 2 in D minor of 1843 which holds four movements and lasts for about 25 minutes. Wispelwey recorded this work in 2011 but, as far as I can tell, it will be new to Lane, who will doubtless take delight in the composer’s active keyboard part. Ticketing follows the same pattern as for the previous recital in this series: standard seats range from $79 to $139; concessions of $20 are available in the middle-of-the-range seating, while Under 40s pay $49 for the same spaces. Everyone has to pay the $4-to-$8.50 transaction fee if ordering online or by phone but currently there are a little over 450 stalls (the only part of the hall being used) on offer.

PIETER WISPELWEY WITH PIERS LANE – NIGHT III

Melbourne Recital Centre

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Friday September 18 at 7:30 pm

Concluding this series of three recitals featuring Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey and London-born pianist Piers Lane, we hear the last of Britten’s three cello suites, that from 1971 and the most scouring of them all in dramatic terms. This appears to be programmed at the centre of tonight’s proceedings; it might have been better placed at the end because the composer’s language and landscape are as fatalistic and final as he would ever achieve. As pointed out above, Wispelwey has recorded this work several times: in 1992, 2001 and 2008. In this respect, he has joined an illustrious crew including Steven Isserlis, Alexander Baillie, Truls Mork, Rohan de Saram, Julian Lloyd Webber and a slew of others whose names mean little to me. The duo work together at the evening’s start in the Cesar Franck Violin Sonata from 1886, heard here in (you’d have to assume) the famous transcription by cellist Jules Delsart which was heartily approved by the composer. Wispelwey recorded the work in 2002, as did Lane in 2017 with violinist Tasmin Little. Finishing the night, we hear Chopin’s Cello Sonata in G minor, finished in 1847 and quite solid in its four-movement structure (in particular, the hefty initial Allegro moderato) which takes about half-an-hour to accomplish. Wispelwey recorded the work in 1997, the second movement only in 2000, then the whole thing again in 2011. A limited research indicates that Lane hasn’t recorded it at all. Ticket prices have remained the same: they move between $79 and $139 in four divisions, with concessions of $20 available in the central two sectors; Under 40s can get $49 seats in those same middle ranks. You have to pay somewhere between $4.50 and $8 if you order online or by phone but currently (August 10) there are over 500 stalls spaces available (no Circle or Wings seats are being used). Makes you think.

HANDEL AND BACH

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Saturday September 19 at 7:30 pm

A rare Baroque outing for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, working under the direction of harpsichordist Kristian Bezuidenhout who was born in South Africa and raised here, now a London resident. The evening starts with Bach’s Suite No. 1 in C, probably written closer to 1724 than 1731 when all four of the composer’s orchestral suites were completed. This one calls for a pair of oboes, a bassoon, and your normal strings/continuo set-up. It has seven movements, lasts for a little over 20 minutes, and is the one that I know least. Bezuidenhout then gives us his own version of the Contrapunctrus XIV, the incomplete one (which this player has finished for us in his own sweet way) from Bach’s Art of Fugue that emerged between 1740 and 1746. A change of pace to Handel brings us the Overture to Admeto, a 1727 three-act opera, its quick opening pages calling for oboes and strings only. We then continue the D minor setting with the Concerto grosso Op. 3 No. 5 for two oboes, bassoon and strings/continuo; five movements in all, about ten minutes long, coming from a set of six concertos published in 1734 and compiled from different sources, then appearing without the composer’s authority – and today’s musicians complain about copyright crime. A little Bach filler follows with the Sinfonia from a 1726 cantata, Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht. This set of 84 bars turns out to be the first movement of the composer’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, complete with two horns, three oboes, bassoon and the usual body of strings and continuo; ah, the joys of recycling. Finally, Bezuidenhout takes his forces through Handels’ Water Music Suite No. 1 in F Major and Suite No. 2 in D Major of 1717, all fourteen movements with a few very familiar items among them: in Suite 1, the waffling horns-rich third movement, the elegant Air and buoyant Bouree alongside Handel’s idea of a Hornpipe; to follow, a more convincing Alla Hornpipe from Suite 2. Prices for seats are a nightmare: standard moves from $43 to $115 across five levels of differing auditory value (really?); concession holders and full-time students pay $5 less in all areas except the worst where there’s no price change; children pay $20 for all but the top-level seats; and don’t get me started on the Groups of 10 schedule which is not available in the cheapest sector. You’ve got to meet the Recital Centre transaction fee of between $4 and $8.50 if you order online or by phone; it’s unavoidable, more’s the pity, because today (August 11) there are only ten seats available across the Murdoch Hall.

CHAMBER MUSIC FOR STRINGS

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Iwaki Auditorium Southbank

Sunday September 20 at 11 am

This event from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chamber sub-grouping (no surprises there) has been curated by one of the body’s violas: Jenny Khafagi. The MSO musicians that she has involved swell to their largest number for the Brahms String Quintet No. 2, a highly appealing and summery work of 1891 which asks for two violas (Khafagi and Fiona Sargeant) alongside two violins (Matthew Tomkins and Freya Franzen) and a solitary cello (Rachael Tobin). Coming in at over thirty minutes in length, this work puts a formal capstone on a morning which, up to its appearance, has been American experimental in character, featuring two string quartets. First comes California-born and co-founder of the Bang on a Can collective David Lang‘s brief (about five minutes) wed; originally a memorial piece for piano from a set of eight written in the 1992-97 span, it was not much later co-opted for a 1997 production of The Tempest. What follows is a score that has appeared in local programs several times across the last few years; Caroline Shaw‘s Plan and Elevation from 2015 which was a product of her time (2014-15) as the inaugural music fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks estate. She gives musical interpretations of five aspects of the buildings and (mainly) grounds in the Harvard University research centre: The Ellipse, The Cutting Garden, The Herbaceous Border, The Orangery, The Beech Tree. All five movements add up to an average of 17 minutes. Tickets are $50 standard, $50 concession, Under 18s $20. For this event, staged on its own premises, the MSO is charging an $8 transaction fee for online or phone bookings. Sadly for those among us trying to avoid this ridiculous imposition, the Iwaki room is not large and sells out pretty quickly, especially to those of us who like to see orchestral musicians grappling with close-order, intimate music-making.

TOUR DE FORCE #3

Corpus Medicorum

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Sunday August 2 at 5 pm

Doctors and their medical accomplices are back for what I think is a final Corpus Medicorum musical exercise for this year, raising funds for research into lung cancer at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Conducted by Fabian Russell, the body presents a two-pronged program – concerto and symphony, omitting the once customary overture. Violinist Anna da Silva Chen is a member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and here gets the chance to bring her own insights to the Mendelssohn E minor Concerto which had – for this composer – a long gestation: 1838-44. It’s one of those works that most of us know very well but, despite the fact that every soloist has played it, there’s an inevitable pleasure in crossing those familiar pages once more. As for the symphony, settle in for the sprawling Bruckner 8 which can last for 80+ minutes. It’s the composer’s last completed symphony and it also took a long time to finish: 1884-92. You can experience the work in many editions as musicologists have built careers on their re-interpretations and re-formations. The forces required are extensive, no matter which of the two ‘original’ versions you use. A standard ticket costs you $70; concession $40 (that’s what I call considerate); student $30. You have to find some spare cash for the Recital Centre’s variable Transaction Fee of anywhere between $4.50 and $8. Currently (end of June), seats are readily available, so . . .

SHEKU KANNEH-MASON PLAYS FINNIS

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Thursday August 6 at 7:30 pm

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason played at the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, a show that was watched by millions and illustrated trans-Atlantic vulgarity with breathtaking cultural obtuseness. Still, if that’s a stepping-stone to stardom, seize it with both hands because such a chance won’t come again – rubbish: of course it will. Anyway, here he is, eight years after running through some royal lollipops, doing a tour of Australia and fronting the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor Jaime Martin in a new concerto, co-commissioned by the MSO with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Dresdner Philharmonie, and the London Symphony. This new score has been written by British composer Edmund Finnis (no: I don’t know him, either) and was premiered by our guest in LA last November. It was to have been played in Dresden a month ago but Kanneh-Mason hurt himself and couldn’t perform. So we’ll hear it second, before its London airing in October. So lucky. As a preface, Martin conduct’s Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres-mid d’un faune from 1894, after which not much was ever the same in music or ballet, although to look at Terpsichoreans today, you’d think that Nijinsky’s erotic thrusts had never existed. We complete the night with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor of 1888: always popular and reassuring, even with its Paul Hogan-reminiscent slow movement – a test for any principal horn. That andante will bring us a welcome sample of Australian monocultural adaptation – using the foreign-grown in service of our own once-great cigarette advertising industry; makes you proud of the Farrer electors (some of them). Tickets cost between $75 and $139; concessions are $5 cheaper; Under 18s pay $20. And then there’s the $8 transaction fee if you order online or by phone. You could probably get a seat from the box office on the night; the MSO website information about availability is much the same for whatever event you look up, which makes me suspicious.

This program will be repeated on Saturday August 8 at 2 pm.

ANAM 30TH GALA WITH SIMONE YOUNG

Australian National Academy of Music

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Friday August 7 at 7 pm

For some reason, the Australian National Academy of Music has only been in operation for thirty years. I would have sworn it was longer, with all those memories of having to trek out to the South Melbourne Town Hall in the organization’s heady early days. Well, not so early; I can’t remember the years when Trevor Green and Ronald Farren-Price began the exercise as its first artistic directors, as I only became aware of ANAM in the reigns of Frank Wibaut and John Harding, followed by the Dean brothers’ halcyon terms. Anyway, Paavali Jumppanen has been in control since 2021 and has settled his institution into its Abbotsford premises. From which domicile it is emerging for this celebration, the body’s orchestra here under the control of Simone Young, who was well into her career when ANAM opened. Tonight, she takes her young forces through, to start, Gubaidulina’s 1971 Fairytale Poem about a piece of chalk which eventually realizes its ambition of drawing landscapes rather than formulae. Then comes a test for first-desk players in John Adams‘ Chamber Symphony of 1992 for 15 soloists, similar to Schoenberg’s Op. 9. After interval (I assume) for inexplicable reasons, the orchestra will play the few seconds that constiutute the Epilogue to Gyorgy Kurtag‘s Beckett-based opera Fin de Partie of 2018.Then, we finish with something more or less traditional: Strauss’s Tod und Verklarung tone poem from 1889 which requires large forces, including two harps, and a belief in the Artist as Hero which is stretching it in this composer’s case. Entry ranges from $65 to $95, concessions $20 cheaper at all levels; Under 30s and Seniors pay between $55 and $85. You also have the Recital Centre’s Transaction Fee of anywhere between $4.50 and $8 which you’ll have to come up with, venal as the whole business is, because there are only a few seats left.

NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT & THOMAS DUNFORD

Musica Viva Australia

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Tuesday August 11 at 7 pm

Here is an eccentric duet appearing for Musica Viva Australia: German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt and French lutenist Thomas Dunford. As you’d expect, the pair combine for a program heavy in French Baroque – Marais (six pieces) and Forqueray (three) – with some excerpts from the Bach Cello Suites in G Major and C minor. For something closer to our time, we hear the Lento from Duparc’s 1867 Cello Sonata and that modernist carry-all, Spiegel im Spiegel, written by Arvo Part in 1978 for violin and piano with the string line able to be played on viola or cello; the piano bits on lute, I’m not so sure. Viol master Marais is represented by La Reveuse, Le Tourbillon and Le Badinage from Book 4 of the Pieces de viol published in 1717, Les Folies d’Espagne and Les Voix Humaines from the 1701 Book 2, as well as a Grand Ballet that seems to be a generic title possibly arising from something in that 1991 film Tous les matins du monde. As for Forqueray, his gamba trifecta – La Leclair, Fetes champetres, La Buisson – all come from the only source of his compositions: a volume of 32 pieces published in 1747 (two years after Forqueray’s death) by his son, Jean Baptiste. The ticketing is complicated. Adults can choose from four levels that range between $65 and $163; concessionaires and students enjoy reductions of $18, $15 and $12 in the top three levels; Under 40s get in for $49, while Under 18s pay $20. As well, you have to contribute anything between $4.50 and $8 for the Recital Centre’s Transaction Fee – hard to avoid as already (July 4) there are only about 100 seats still available.

NIGHT SONGS

Ensemble Liaison

Hanson Dyer Hall, Ian Potter Southbank Centre

Thursday August 13 at 7 pm

It might be under the auspices of the Melbourne Recital Centre, but this particular recital is being held next door in the new building (well, new to some of us) that is part of the Victorian College of the Arts/University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music complex. As for the night’s title, that comes out plainly in a 2009 called Nocturnes by Australian writer Iain Grandage. A two-poem setting for soprano, clarinet and piano, this will involve Sydney-based guest artist Chloe Lankshear as well as Ensemble Liaison regulars David Griffiths and Timothy Young. Before this, we hear Andre Previn’s brief Vocalise of 1995 for soprano (Lankshear), piano (Young) and cello – the Liaison’s Svetlana Bogosavljevic. Putting the singer to more extended use, the Ensemble (well, Lankshear and Young) presents Debussy’s 1887 Ariettes oubliees, six Verlaine settings of exceptional empathy, followed by the composer’s Cello Sonata of 1915, first in a projected series of six such works, now one of the string instrument’s repertoire staples. To end, the players perform Osvaldo Golijov‘s Three Songs for Soprano (and Orchestra) of 2002 which will probably be mounted in an arrangement, although the only one I can find is for string orchestra which is at cross-puposes with the composer’s large percussion battery in the original. Anyway, ticket details are simple: standard is $53, concession and student $42. As well, the Recital Centre is charging between $4.50 and $8 as a Transaction Fee if you order online or by phone. I’d front up on the night, preferably with fee-avoiding cash, even if the venue holds only 400, as opposed to next door’s Murdoch Hall catering for 1,000.

JAIME CONDUCTS MAHLER 6

Melbourne Symphony orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Thursday August 13 at 7:30 pm

Settle in for a long bout with this night’s title work; it can take up to 90 minutes to get through and you’d have to assume that Jaime Martin, chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, won’t introduce a substantial break along the way. The MSO itself should still be familiar with this score, having recorded it under Mark Wigglesworth for a 2005 release. Although . . . no: not many of those players from 21 years ago will have survived. What will be interesting – in a way – will be Martin’s choices on the two vexed questions about this score: in which order to play the two central movements, and whether to have two hammer-blows in the finale, or three as Bernstein did in his three recordings. Mahler dithered at length about the order of the Scherzo and Andante and his widow got involved in the argument after his death, claiming spousal authority – which you’d have to question, considering the lady’s credentials where facts are concerned. The composer himself cut the hammer-strokes from five, to three, then to two; Alma identified three tragedies in the composer’s life as being represented by these dull smashes, which strikes me as putting the cart before this 1904 horse. At all events, here is Mahler’s largest purely instrumental work in terms of resources needed (possibly four harps!) and it makes for a riveting narrative, which is hard to say about its successors. Before this, and possibly the only work before interval (shades of Stenz putting Ives’ The Unanswered Question before Mahler No. 2), we hear a ‘new work’ by the orchestra’s initial Cybec First Nations Composer in Residence, James Henry. With a background in pop, rock, house and techno, this fresh score will make an ideal introduction to the Austrian writer’s psychological excoriation. The usual ticket prices apply: standard between $75 and $139, concession a whopping $5 cheaper, Under 18s $20. Add on the MSO’s own $7 transaction fee per phone or online order. Once upon a time, Mahler 6 would pack them in; will it today? I’d be tempted to show up on the night, bearing lots of coins.

This program will be repeated on Saturday August 15 at 7:30 pm.

VIVALDI’S LEGACY

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Thursday August 20 at 7 pm

In this concert program, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra is putting itself under the control of guest director and Baroque violinist, Augusta McKay Lodge, an Ohio-born musician resident in Paris. She is attempting to shine a light on Anna Maria della Pieta, a Venetian musician for whom Vivaldi might have written a plethora of works including the per Anna Maria Violin Concerto in E RV 267a, which score sits at the heart of this concert. Lodge also takes part in Vivaldi’s Concerto for violin and organ (which part will most likely be undertaken by the ABO’s artistic director, Paul Dyer) RV 774 which was recently discovered in the Anna Maria Partbook – well, the solo violin line was found – and the rest (all of it) was reconstructed by Federico Sardelli. We hear a solo violin sonata by Pisandel, the A minor JunP IV.2. This composer was much admired by Vivaldi but did Anna Maria play this piece? I don’t know; does anyone? Finally, we hear a Tartini violin concerto in G minor GT 1.g01 which could come from anywhere between 1725 and 1735. Was Anna Maria conversant with this score? Possibly: she lived to be about 86, dying in 1782 and outliving all three composers we hear tonight. Also scheduled to play solo is Baroque flautist Melissa Farrow; can’t tell where her contribution comes into play. As for tickets, these are of mind-blowing complexity. Somehow, the modest Murdoch Hall has been divided into an improbable six regions; your standard seat price ranges from $45 to $167; concessions for the top four of these six come in at between $31 and $62 cheaper; Seniors range in the top four areas from $77 to $151; full-time students in all divisions except the top pay $20; Under 40s pay $36 but it’s unclear where they can sit except for the second-top spot. You have to come to the Recital Centre’s bloated Transaction Fee party of anywhere between $4.50 and $8; at time of writing (July 5), there are over 150 seats still available.

This program will be repeated on Saturday August 22 at 5 pm, and on Sunday August 23 at 5 pm. Tickets are more expensive for both of these performances but their availability is about the same.

METROPOLIS: SOUNDS OF CINEMA

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Friday August 21 at 7:30 pm

This one-off celebrates Australian-born film composers; three of them – Thomas Meadowcroft, Bryony Marks, and David Hirschfelder. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra shows a fair deal of dedication to this project by being the commissioners of the program’s opener: Meadowcraft’s Hollywood Parsifals for Foley Artists and Orchestra in which the Berlin-based composer celebrates the makers of film sound effects. How will he achieve this? No idea but a Foley artist, John Simpson, is listed among the concert’s soloists; God knows what he makes of being classed among a group of perfect fools. Marks wrote the soundtrack for the first film directed by her husband, Matthew Saville: Noise, a 2007 thriller which concerns suburban Melbourne murders investigated by a detective with tinnitus. We’re to hear Their World – an extract of about ten minutes from that soundtrack. Finally, we hear three suites from films for which Hirschfelder provided the music: The Dressmaker, Legend of the Guardians, and Strictly Ballroom. These have all been arranged by Jessica Wells, a formidable name in her field. Benjamin Northey conducts and other participants include percussionist Eugene Ughetti, guitarists Slava and Leonard Grigoryan, and Hirschfelder himself playing piano as he has throughout his career for luminaries like Little River Band, the Peter Cupples Band, John Farnham and David Hobson. Adult tickets cost between $59 and $99; concessions are a ridiculous $5 cheaper; Under 18s pay $20, but everyone pays the MSO’s transaction fee of $8 if ordering online or by phone. At the moment, plenty of seats are available, even though the Hamer Hall Balcony is not being used.

ENSEMBLE Q PLAY BARTOK & BRAHMS

Ensemble Q

Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre

Saturday August 22 at 7 pm

On a national tour, the Brisbane-based Ensemble Q presents an amiable enough entertainment in the Recital Centre’s smaller space. They begin with Bartok’s Contrasts, the composer’s 1938 trio for clarinet (Paul Dean), violin (Adam Chalabi) and piano (Daniel de Borah). Enjoying the restrained ebullience of several Hungarian and Romanian dance tunes, this score is a splendid display piece for all three participants, packed with striking dissonances and requiring an unfailing rhythmic versatility, especially in its rapid finale. Chalabi and de Borah collaborate in Margaret Sutherland’s brief 1944 Nocturne that illustrates rather well this venerable Australian composer’s occasional fusion of dissonance and quiescence. To end this 75-minute recital, we hear the Brahms Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor from 1875 – the last one and the least played in live performance, possibly because of its emotional bareness or its internal complexity. Anyway, we know Chalabi and De Borah are involved; British violist Benjamin Roskams is taking on the tenor part, but the cellist is unidentified. You’d have to expect that Trish Dean, the Ensemble’s co-artistic director, will be the chosen party for this role. Tickets are $75, concession $65, student $30. As well, the Recital Centre’s transaction charge comes in somewhere between $4.50 and $8, for a service that is grossly over-valued. Currently, plenty of tickets are available, but you can’t count on that remaining the case because the Salon only holds an audience of between 130 and 140.

LUCAS AND ARTHUR JUSSEN

Melbourne Recital Centre

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Monday August 24 at 7:30 pm

I suppose most of us would know these Dutch brothers from YouTube, on which site you can observe their duo skills easily enough. As you’d expect, their empathy borders on the extraordinary, especially in two-piano works like the Mozart concerto K. 365 of 1779 but more obviously in four-hand pieces where the interweaving of dynamic and line is flawless. Plaudits to the Recital Centre for snapping up Lucas and Arthur Jussen as they pass through town on their New Zealand/Australia tour. To begin, they perform the Mozart four-hand Sonata in D K. 381, allegedly written in 1772, possibly for performance by the lad himself and sister Nannerl. Then we hear another four-hand repertoire staple in Schubert’s F minor Fantasia of 1828 which is one of the more challenging duets because of its chameleonic character. After interval (I assume), we move to the 20th century and works by two friends. First comes Ravel’s choreographic poem La Valse, completed in 1920, perhaps in the composer’s own two-piano transcription of that year, but more likely in Lucien Garban’s version, also from 1920. To end, the brothers play Stravinsky’s seminal The Rite of Spring ballet of 1913, its first published version being the composer’s own four-hand transcription. While you can see the Stravinsky, Mozart and Schubert works from this pair on YouTube, I don’t believe they have recorded the Ravel, so that guarantees about 13 to 14 minutes of novelty value. The cost of standard tickets ranges across four levels, from $79 to $139, with concessions of $20 available only in the middle two strata; Under 40s can access the two lowest tiers for a flat $49. You also have to find the Recital Centre’s fee for handling your credit card details if you book online or by phone – that’s an extra $4.50 to $8, depending on your financial status. I don’t think the Circle/Wings seats are available (or in use), but there are over 300 seats left today (July 6) in the stalls. Worth the gamble of turning up, cash in hand, on the night? Keep an eye on the Recital Centre’s website.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 IN CONCERT

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Thursday August 27 at 7:30 pm

This franchise has escaped me – and most of my grandchildren as well. But there must be something in it that appeals – all that left-over Game of Thrones angst, perhaps. Also, as a sequel, it’s rated highly by those who should know – children and film critics. Obviously, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra administration and artistic gurus see merit in taking on the film and supplying the soundtrack in real-time; so much so that they’re doing it four times and the middle two performances have not many seats left. Dean DeBlois’ 2014 film features (mainly) music by John Powell who used a 120-member orchestra, a 100 voice choir, and some odd instruments like the Celtic harp (bring back Mary O’Hara), uilleann pipes, Highland bagpipes, tin whistle (for that James Galway touch) and a bodhran – which rounds out the odd national image that this film’s scenario projects: north and west of Hadrian’s Wall, as well as the Norse part of Scandinavia. All’s well, however, because the country’s favourite actor/actress Kate Blanchett is in the vocal cast; rest easy, Australia, with this secondary consolation for not getting anywhere in the World Cup (as usual). Our own Nicholas Buc conducts but there’s no sign of the MSO Chorus or any of the vocalists needed for the score’s songs. Adult tickets cost between $89 and $167; children and concession holders pay $5 less. Fancy taking your three kids to good seats for nearly $500? Add on the usual $8 transaction fee and you’re in for an expensive night out. The cheapest DVD version at JB Hi-Fi costs $14.98.

This program will be repeated on Friday August 28 at 7:30 pm, Saturday August 29 at 7: 30 pm, and Sunday August 30 at 1 pm.