Thursday February 1
STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE IN CONCERT
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 7:30 pm
Here’s the first of the blockbusters in the sterling first trilogy from George Lucas, complete with everything we grew to love over the years since 1977 – from the looming spaceship taking over the screen at the start to the Saturday afternoon matinee heroics of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, all seeming so much younger than their actual years, but practically amoebas when compared with their craggy re-appearances in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. This set of screenings more or less kicks off the MSO’s year and you can see from the number of sittings how popular these live soundtrack performances have been/are/will be. Benjamin Northey, who had an active year with the orchestra in 2017 as Associate Conductor, continues to shine in his role as the organisation’s go-to leader.
This program will be repeated on Friday February 2 and Saturday February 3 at 7:30 pm, as well as at a matinee on Saturday February 3 at 1 pm
Friday February 2
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE
Melbourne Opera
Palais Theatre, St. Kilda at 6:30 pm
Back to this dated large shack by the bay with all its time-honoured problems associated with parking and pest-dodging. I think the last time I was in the Palais was for another Wagner: Victorian Opera’s The Flying Dutchman – an enterprise that had considerable merit. This time, MO has left behind the frivolities of Rienzi, Tannhauser and Lohengrin and heads for the Wagner fulcrum: a score of such power and complexity that it remains the high-water mark of opera, inspired from first bar to last and incomparably crafted. Lee Abrahmsen sings Isolde, tenor Neal Cooper takes on his fifth Tristan, Sarah Sweeting has the Wagner gift-of-a-role in Brangaene, baritone Michel Lampard mirrors Sweeting as Kurwenal, bass Steven Gallop broods as King Mark and Jason Wasley does his worst as Melot. Anthony Negus, a Reginald Goodall graduate, conducts and we can approach the night with an earnest hope that the MO Orchestra will be up to the mark with this exhausting, superlative score.
The opera will be repeated at 6:30 pm on Monday February 5 and Wednesday February 7, and moves to the Robert Blackwood Hall, Monash University on Saturday February 10 at 6:30 pm.
Sunday February 4
TOGNETTI, TCHAIKOVSKY, BRAHMS
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 2:30 pm
To set an underlying context for the year, Richard Tognetti and his band offer a contrast between the sublime and the also-ran. For serious music-making, the country’s premier string orchestra will play (yet again) the Tchaikovsky Serenade. And we’ll have yet another important chamber work in an arrangement for the ACO resources; this time round, it’s Brahms’ Sextet No. 2 in G Major as seen through the vivisectional prism of Kurt Atterberg, I suspect, although Tognetti has never been one to content himself with other people’s organisational talents. To start, we’ll hear British composer Anna Clyne’s Prince of Clouds from 2012 for two violins (Ike See and Glenn Christensen from the orchestra’s ranks) and string orchestra. As well, American composer Missy Mazzoli confronts some of us for the first time with her newly-composed Dark with Excessive Bright, a semi-line from Paradise Lost. The work has been written specifically for the talents of the ACO and its double bassist, Maxime Bibeau.
This program will be repeated on Monday February 5 at 7:30 pm.
Wednesday February 7
ROMANCE AND CLASSICS
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Sidney Myer Music Bowl at 7:30 pm
No rush to originality in the first of three very popular Myer free concerts from the MSO. Associate Concertmaster Sophie Rowell takes centre-stage for the Bruch G minor Violin Concerto No. 1; you’ll never hear the composer’s other two at this venue, but there’s surely a case for dusting off that jolly, satisfying Scottish Fantasy. The night ends with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, one of your great psychological summative works with loads of lyricism and an exciting finale to send everyone home happy. The only novelty comes at the start in Dutch composer Wagenaar’s Cyrano de Bergerac Overture, the only work by the composer/organist that you ever hear and probably included here as a repertoire specialty of the night’s conductor, Antony Hermus who has positions with the North Netherlands Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands. Seems like a sort of justifiable payback for all those Australian conductors who took Sculthorpe scores to Finland and Britain.
Saturday February 10
HOT SUMMER NIGHT!
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Sidney Myer Music Bowl at 7:30 p,m
This second and solitary weekend concert in the MSO’s free series can attract a spill-over crowd if the atmospheric conditions reflect this program’s title. For some reason, the music is almost all Spanish or Iberian/Latin-inflected, beginning with Ravel’s ambiguous Alborada del gracioso – a morning serenade with a difference. Conductor Antony Hermus moves to Falla’s El amor brujo but I can’t imagine that he’ll be working through the whole ballet. Still, you can’t be sure; he has Chilean-Swedish mezzo Luciana Mancini at his disposal as the night’s soloist and she’d be ideal for the score’s three songs. Danzon No. 2 by Mexican writer Arturo Marquez is packed with colour, something of a thematically concise dance suite. Mancini then sings the program’s odd-man-out: Berio’s Folk Songs, all eleven of them and a surprisingly euphonious collection from this 20th century master but I suspect a bit of a puzzler for this audience. By the way, these Folk Songs have not a Spanish text in sight. Finally, to wipe away all suggestions of the eclectic, Hermus gives the snare-drum(s) right of way for Ravel’s Bolero, that mindless symphonic wheeze.
Wednesday February 14
FROM MSO, WITH LOVE
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Sidney Myer Music Bowl at 7:30 pm
Ending three free Myer concerts, the MSO goes Puccini-mad, bringing to the fore Australian opera regulars soprano Natalie Aroyan and tenor Rosario La Spina. They begin with Mario! Mario! Mario!, where Tosca bursts in on Cavaradossi’s nonchalant attempts at painting. They end the night with the Act 1 finale to La Boheme, probably from Che gelida manina up to the spellbinding O soave fanciulla duet conclusion off-stage. Benjamin Northey conducts Strauss’s Don Juan to give Bowl patrons another aspect of love, and three pieces with tenuous links, at best, to the night’s intended amatory motif: Martucci’s 1891 miniature Notturno, Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien for no other reason than the nationality of everything else on the program, and Puccini’s 1882 student work, Preludio sinfonico, which reveals Wagner’s influence; a predictable presence in an aspiring composer’s aesthetic life during those formative years.
Friday February 16
GLASS, DEAN, MENDELSSOHN
Australian String Quartet
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
No smart title here: what you read is what you’ll get. The ASQ begins its MRC series with Philip Glass’s Third String Quartet, subtitled Mishima because the music comprises part of the sound-track that the composer supplied for Paul Schrader’s film which is based on the Japanese novelist’s last bloody day. The middle work, Brett Dean’s Eclipse String Quartet No. 1, is underpinned by the Tampa outrage of 2001 that displayed with searing clarity the contemptible ethical degeneracy of the Howard government, its leader lying and lying and being a villain. To end, the players – violinists Dale Barltrop and Francesca Hiew, viola Stephen King, cellist Sharon Grigoryan – play Mendelssohn in D, first of the 1838 Op. 41 set of three, although the last written. This ensemble has settled remarkably well after its years of personnel disruptions and the behavioural immaturity of former members; now it has a distinctive personality and rarely disappoints.
Sunday February 18
3MBS BACH MARATHON
Melbourne Bach Choir and Orchestra et al
Melbourne Recital Centre at 10 am, 12 pm, 2: 15 pm, 4: 15 pm, 6: 30 pm and 8: 15 pm
Going for the big-time, the Abbotsford-based classical radio station has booked a day at the MRC. The first concert begins with the opening two preludes and fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 – no idea who’s playing but quite a few pianists appear during the day – then abruptly progresses to C.P.E. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, the one written in 1777 for the composer’s duties in Hamburg. This will involve the Melbourne Bach Choir and Orchestra with some fine soloists: bass/baritones Michael Leighton-Jones and Nicholas Dinopoulos, tenors Andrew Goodwin and Timothy Reynolds, and soprano Kathryn Radcliffe.
The mid-day recital features the E flat minor Prelude and D sharp Major Fugue from Book 1, partnered with the Violin Sonata No. 4 in C minor, Grace Wu outlining the string part. Then somebody will surge through Liszt’s voluble Variations on Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen; another pianist will present the happy and difficult French Suite in G; the program ends with the Double Violin Concerto in D minor featuring – I think – Robert Wilson and his student Christian Li.
At 2:15 pm, a pianist leads off with the G Major Prelude and Fugue from Book 1, followed by the G minor Prelude and Fugue from Book II, all capped by the great Italian Concerto solo. J. C. Bach enters the scene with a piano quartet in G and a gamba sonata in the same key. Somewhere in these works the Sutherland Trio and early music specialists Latitude 37 will appear. Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue K 404a/3 for violin, viola and cello is a piece of real arcana where Mozart supplied the first work and then arranged a Bach fugue – in this case, the F sharp Major from Book II. To end, the Violin/Oboe Concerto in C minor appears to be bringing Nick Deutsch and Kristian Winther to the crease as soloists.
3MBS’s next recital opens with the B flat Major and minor Preludes and Fugues from Book I, coupled with the motet Jesu, meine Freude from the Australian Boys Choir. W. F. Bach’s Dissonant Sinfonia for strings highlights yet another of the talented sons, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra doing the honours. Seven of the Inventions – presumably in two-parts – come next and the program ends with Timo-Veikko Valve outlining the last of the Cello Suites.
At twilight, the Book II D Major Prelude and Fugue begins proceedings, followed by the Fantasia super Christ lag in Todesbanden, another Fantasia super Jesu, meine Freude and the chorale prelude on Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein; the first two are manuals only, but the second seems to need a pedal-board – that’s assuming Calvin Bowman will play them on a specially imported organ rather than all three pieces being given as piano transcriptions. A definite arrangement comes through Busoni’s transcription of the D minor violin Chaconne, probably played by Gintaute Gataveckaite, and matters end with the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 from a combination of the Flinders and Melba Quartets with double bass Emma Sullivan as well as viola Merewyn Bramble somewhere in the mix for the third viola line, I guess. Oh, and inserted just before this concerto comes the aria Schlummert ein from the Ich habe genug Cantata BWV 82 but no bass soloist is specified.
Finally, the 8:15 pm program kicks off with the F minor Prelude and Fugue from Book II before Stephen McIntyre and a swag of his ex-students – Caroline Almonte, Stefan Cassomenos, Kristian Chong, Lachlan Tan and Peter de Jager – all contribute their particles to a run-through of the Goldberg Variations.
Wednesday February 21
FOLIAS ANTIGUAS Y CRIOLLAS: FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD TO THE NEW WORLD
Jordi Savall, Hesperion XXI & Tembembe Ensemble Continuo
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
A fellow critic found little to like last time Savall and his Hesperions were here as he disapproved of the fusion that the Spanish violist constructed between the medieval/Renaissance and the folky/contemporary. Just shows that you can’t trust us: I found the mix irresistible. The only descriptor to be found concerning this particular program is: ‘The cosmopolitan music of Spain and Latin America from the 16th to the 18th centuries.’ Hesperion we know from previous visits although its membership can vary considerably. Tembembe specializes in the Spanish Baroque and Mexican-plus-Latin American music, finding links with African and American sources. Part of a tour, Savall and his forces will appear at the Perth International Arts Festival, then Melbourne before Sydney and Brisbane; useful to know if you plan on being interstate in the second half of the month.
The performers will present another program – Folias y Romanescas: The Golden Age of the Viol on Thursday February 22 at 7:30 pm.
Saturday February 24
THOMAS TALLIS’ ENGLAND
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
The title is sort of true if you’re flexible. One of the pillars of this program will be Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis from 1910, which is some distance away from the Tudor musician who died in 1585. And I’m not sure where Purcell fits into this landscape – or Handel, for that matter . . . both coming into existence a century or so after Tallis’ death. Paul Dyer and his ABO are on firmer ground with music by Byrd and Gibbons. Soloist is countertenor Maximilian Riebl and the Brandenburgers come in two forms: Orchestra and Choir. So far, details of what the groups are attempting remain elusive, apart from the Vaughan Williams work for strings which has brought to grief many another body more attuned to the Edwardian era’s bucolic suggestions and more tolerant of facile English transcendentalism.
This program will be repeated on Sunday February 25 at 5 pm.
Saturday February 24
EAST MEETS WEST
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 7:30 pm
The Occidental is represented by Schumann’s Spring Symphony No. 1; how this will help celebrate the Chinese Year of the Dog’s arrival boggles the mind but doubtless Lu Jia, Chief Conductor of the China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra, will elucidate all. A notable collaboration of composers from 1959, the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto by Chen Gang and He Zanhao will be fronted by Lu Siqing and the program includes two other Chinese works: Chinese Sights and Sounds: Dialogue on Flowers by Bao Yuankai, which is a ternary form piece of pentatonic frou-frouism and the last of the composer’s four Heibei Folk Songs Suite; and Shepherd Girl in the Tianshan Mountains by pianist/composer/pedagogue Yang Liqing. Somewhere in the latter work, erhu player Ma Xiaohui will emerge to generate one of the country’s trademark sounds.
Monday February 26
Nelson Freire
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
I thought the well-known Brazilian pianist was here only a few months ago. And he was, fronting the Schumann A minor Concerto for an MSO series in September/October. He pops up again for this solo recital which takes in a lot of ground. For your Classical, Freire plays Mozart’s Ten Variations on a Theme by Gluck K. 455, a nice four-square tune put through some increasingly entertaining paces. Then straight to the deep Romantic by way of Schumann’s turbulent Fantasie in C and a couple of the less frivolous Chopins: the F sharp Impromptu and A flat Ballade. Freire will work through a selection from the Debussy Preludes Book II and winds up with an Albeniz brace: the Evocacion from Iberia, and Navarra, which I’ve not come across before in live performance but which serves as a none-too-subtle invitation to solicit encores.
Tuesday February 27
Sabine Meyer & Alliage Quintet
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
One of the great clarinet players of our time is touring for Musica Viva and brings with her a saxophone quartet plus pianist. As you could easily predict, the program content is all arrangements with a complementary emphasis on light classics. The ensemble begins with Bernstein’s Candide Overture before moving into Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Across the evening, Meyer and her Alliages play a double Shostakovich bracket – the Prelude and Gavotte from Five Pieces for Two Violins and Piano originally arranged by Lev Atovmian, and then the other three of the suite’s five scraps – Waltz, Elegy and Polka. Alongside these sharp-edged nebulosities come Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, Holst’s Venus and Stravinsky’s Firebird (the suite, I’m hoping). Not a night for the sober-sided chamber music lover.
This program will be repeated on Saturday March 3 at 7 pm.
Wednesday February 28
WINGS OF SONG
Flinders Quartet
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
Obviously, this recital involves a bit of Mendelssohn. Exactly how much? The Flinders have commissioned young Bundaberg-born writer John Rotar to arrange four of the composer’s lieder: Op. 57 No. 5, Venetian Gondola Song; Op. 34 No. 2, On Wings of Song (well, that’s a relief); Op. 8 No 8, Witches’s Song; and the 24-bar Beethoven-reflecting Op. 9 No 1, Question. An original Rotar work also appears: V Vecernih about which I can find out nothing except that it’s short, it had a popular success at the Flinders’ inaugural composer workshop in 2016, and its title seems to be a Slovenian phrase for ‘In the evening’. At either end of the night come Mozart’s internally compact yet lengthy No. 18 in A, and Beethoven in F Op. 135 – his last and the one with that Muss es sein? questioning in the finale that Mendelssohn took up in his Ist es wahr? phrase-shape that opens Op. 9 No. 1.
O'Connell the Music 