Tuesday March 5
MOZART, HAYDN & MORE
ACO Collective
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
The Collective is the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Younger Set, a group of young players who roam the country seeking whom they might entertain. Not really, but the ensemble goes to places that the parent company doesn’t visit. Of course, the Collective also gets to play in the ACO’s usual venues, one of which (occasionally) is the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall. For this program, Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto is running the show and it’s as eclectic as any of Richard Tognetti’s more recherche collations. The night starts and ends with American writer Pauline Oliveros’ Tuning Meditation which works much better with voices than with instruments; perhaps that’s what the Collective will do – sing, rather than play. This whole in-my-end-is-my-beginning exercise centres on Haydn’s Symphony No. 47, the Palindrome where minuet and trio each mirror their first halves. The Mozart element comprises 6 Contredanses K462 (448b), evidence of the imagination that the composer lavished on trifles. A new work by Heather Shannon is programmed, although the MRC’s advertising mentions two new works by this Australian pianist with an indie rock band. Most startling of all is the night’s second half which is set to consist, at the end, of a reprise of the Tuning Meditation after Hindemith’s hour-long Ludus Tonalis compendium of prelude, interludes and fugues for solo piano, the performer as yet unnamed . . . or will we be treated to a transcription? Could be so, as wind players for the Australian National Academy of Music are catalogued as participants.
Friday March 8
FANTASY AND THE FIREBIRD
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Melbourne Town Hall at 7:30 pm
Back at the Melbourne Town Hall for another year of booming acoustics. Benjamin Northey conducts a night of popular works which will clearly climax in Stravinsky’s Firebird – tonight, the 1919 suite, the ‘classic’ one of the composer’s three. Solo pianist Kristian Chong has the delectable task of fronting Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini; later, the composer gets further exposure, thanks to soprano Jacqueline Porter who sings his soulful 1915 Vocalise. Beginning the night and shifting a tad to the geographical left, Northey conducts some excerpts from Grieg’s music for Peer Gynt; with Porter in the house, we’ll probably get a true Solveig’s Song. Our own transplanted Russian (Uzbek), Elena Kats-Chernin, is represented by her Dance of the Paper Umbrellas, a 5-minute bagatelle that Northey and the MSO last played in 2015, two years after its composition.
Saturday March 9
BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
Paul Dyer is conducting his ensemble in all of the concertos bar No. 2, the only one that asks for a trumpet soloist – admittedly, one of exceptional talent. Still, it’s the second-shortest of the lot and you’d think the organization would want to give full value on this occasion. Anyway, there’s plenty in the remaining five to keep you happy, especially in my favourites: No. 1 with its peripatetic horn lines, and the earthy textures of No. 6 for strings without any violins. Can’t find any details about the soloists, although flautist Melissa Farrow has written on the company website about the Brandenburg experience, as has principal second violin Ben Dollman. But these are works of elevating joy where nobody can hide so we’ll doubtless get to hear most of the ABO members as soloists, no matter how briefly. Given Melbourne’s Bach worship, it’s probably safe to say that this event will be packed to the doors.
This program will be repeated on Sunday March 10 at 5 pm.
Saturday March 9
BLUE PLANET II LIVE IN CONCERT
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Plenary, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre at 8 pm
This will be a feather in the MSO’s conservationistical cap. The original film, which took you across, through and under the world’s water expanses, escorted by Sir David Attenborough’s commentary, is enjoying the full treatment at one of Melbourne’s largest auditoriums. Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea and David Fleming were responsible for the original soundtrack and the MSO will air it, conducted by Vanessa Scammell. In Sir David’s absence, the commentary will be read by English actor Joanna Lumley; patrons are in for a breathy, gushing vocal stratum to add to the MSO’s pointed illustrations.
This program will be repeated on Sunday March 10 at 3 pm.
Tuesday March 12
AN IMMORTAL LEGACY
The Sixteen
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
The famous British vocal ensemble is visiting under the sponsorship of the MRC itself, although clearly in partnership with other centres because the singers will present this program in Singapore, Sydney, then here before Queensland. Founding director Harry Christophers has set up – without any sweat at all – an all-English program to celebrate The Sixteen’s 40th anniversary. It intersperses Tudor gems with contemporary pieces; well, James MacMillan (two works: Sedebit Dominus Rex and Mitte manum tuam from the first set of his Strathclyde Motets) is still above ground, even if Tippett (yes, the Five Negro Spirituals from A Child of Our Time) and Britten (of course: the Choral Dances from Gloriana) are long gone. Tallis enjoys five exposures: Salvator mundi, O nata lux, O sacrum convivium, Loquebantur variis linguis, and some of the Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter, among which we’re bound to hear Why fum’th in sight. The group’s output tonight contains a few well-known madrigals – Morley’s April is in my mistress’ face, Gibbons’ The Silver Swan, Byrd’s This Sweet and Merry Month of May. This last is also represented in ecclesiastical mode with Laudibus in sanctis. Finally, the program includes John Shepherd’s third setting of In manus tuas: the only work on tonight’s menu that does not appear on the group’s CD An Immortal Legacy of 2013. Bit late for a promotional tour?
Friday March 15
MOZART PROJECT 1
\The Melbourne Musicians
Tatoulis Auditorium, Methodist Ladies College, Kew at 7 pm
This enterprise featuring director Frank Pam’s beloved Mozart will see pianist Elyane Laussade performing one of the piano concertos at each of the three concerts being presented at MLC in the hall to which Kathryn Selby has moved her recitals after decamping from Federation Square. The Musicians will present an event on Bastille Day in their long-time stamping ground of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Southgate, and another special MLC program in November. This opening gambit will see Laussade present the G Major K. 453, one of the six buoyant works in this form the Mozart wrote in 1784. The program is framed by Haydn – the Menuetti Ballabili, all 14 of them; and the Symphony No. 83, La Poule. Also, we will hear a 1791 Dittersdorf symphony in D minor which I can’t trace at all; but then, he wrote over 100 symphonies of definite attribution.
Saturday March 16
SIR ANDREW DAVIS AND LU SIQING
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 7:30 pm
Once again, the season has well and truly opened – what with the Chinese New Year, the Myer Bowl excursions, the first of the Town Hall programs – but here comes the 2019 Opening Gala; actually, it’s the first time this year that we see chief conductor Sir Andrew Davis in control. A somewhat unoriginal program, but that’s clearly the organizers’ perception of their regular patrons’ taste. Violinist Lu Siqing, the MSO’s Soloist in Residence (when did that sobriquet come into being?) is repeating his success with the Bruch G minor Concerto which he performed several times with the orchestra during last year’s tour of China. Then Sir Andrew runs us through an MSO regular: Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony No. 6. The opener is a bit unexpected these days, although at one time the piece was an annual inevitability. Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor offer a fine showcase for any interpreters – colour without depth – and will involve the MSO Chorus, in the interests of exactitude and courtesy to the composer.
Sunday March 17
BEETHOVEN & PROKOFIEV
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 2:30 pm
Returning after an interval of three years, Italian violinist Lorenza Borrani will serve as soloist and director for this unusual program. First up comes Prokofiev: the F minor Violin Sonata No. 1 in an arrangement that takes in the ACO strings. This is not the delightfully robust D Major Sonata originally for flute but a more stormy and brusque creation. Borrani eventually leads the ensemble through an arrangement of Beethoven’s final and even-tempered string quartet, the Op. 135 in F Major – presumably to balance the Russian work. At the afternoon’s centre stands Such Different Paths by Dobrinka Tabakova, a Bulgarian-British writer. This was written in 2008 and is a string septet. It may retain that shape but who knows in this program of transcriptions and new clothes? For me – and, I suspect, for several others – this will be a new voice but one that has already gained ongoing success through several significant prizes and commissions.
The program will be repeated on Monday March 18 at 7:30 pm.
Tuesday March 19
SCANDINAVIAN SONGS
Melbourne Art Song Collective
Melbourne Recital Centre at 6 pm
Collective regular Eidit Golder accompanies guest tenor Brenton Spiteri in an hour’s worth of Grieg, Sibelius and Stenhammar. Not many surprises with the first two names: the Grieg is his Op. 48 Six Songs, settings of German poetry and climaxing in the demanding Ein Traum; Sibelius also gives us Six Songs Op. 50, and these too are settings of German texts, most strikingly in No. 5, Die stille Stadt. Wilhelm Stenhammar is unexplored territory for me. Spiteri and Golder are working through one vocal work by the Swedish composer: Four Stockholm Poems of 1918, which are in Swedish. Then Golder gets to unveil the Sensommarnatter or Late Summer Nights: five virtuoso pieces from a gifted pianist-composer. I’ve not heard Spiteri for a while but he has impressed me previously as an admirably clear singer with an individual performing personality.
Thursday March 21
MAHLER 10: LETTERS AND READINGS
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 7:30 pm
Yes, all very lovely but Sir Andrew Davis is really straining in toils of his own self-manufactured web now. When is he going to present the Symphony No. 8? I know it sounds like carping, but how can you set up a Mahler cycle and not get round to The Big One? As a makeweight, the MSO will perform this final version of the composer’s sketches by Deryck Cooke, a rendition which has come to dominate the scene in the face of competition from other completions and arrangements. Still, a fair number of Mahler expert conductors won’t touch this re-working, so we’re lucky to hear it – I suppose. As he’s done previously, Sir Andrew will give us a helping of supplementary material before the playing gets underway, having actor/director Tama Matheson step up to read some words by the composer to contextualise the work for us. Sounds like vamping: the symphony lasts over 80 minutes and stands on its own merits, despite the purists’ rejection.
This program will be repeated on Friday March 22 in Costa Hall, Geelong at 7:30 pm and on Saturday March 23 in Hamer Hall at 2 pm.
Sunday March 24
RED, WHITE, AND BLUE
Trio Anima Mundi
St. Michael’s Uniting Church, Collins St. at 2 pm
Allons, enfants. The tricolor flies proudly through the first work in this recital: Ravel’s Piano Trio. This exhilarating masterpiece is fast becoming a chamber music cliche, even if it is irresistible for every ensemble with this make-up. It’s curmudgeonly to cavil at interpretations of the slow movement – hard to get wrong, I would have thought – but getting the balance right in the finale can prove a disaster for many pianists and the Pantoum second movement can all too often have its spikes blunted. After this, the TAM will play Harry Waldo Warner’s 1921 Piano Trio which won that year’s Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Prize, 20 years before Britten also received a Coolidge Award. Warner, an Edwardian/Georgian composer and violist, is one of the chamber music writers being resurrected in this ensemble’s Piano Trio Archaeology project. Let’s hope the field excursion is a rewarding one for us all.
This program can also be heard at Montsalvat, Eltham on Saturday March 23 at 2 pm.
Tuesday March 26
NEW WORLDS
Acacia Winds
Melbourne Recital Centre at 6 pm
The personnel of this excellent ensemble is as expected for tonight’s recital: flute Kiran Phatak, oboe David Reichelt, clarinet Lloyd Van’t Hoff, horn Rachel Shaw, bassoon Matthew Kneale. They are juxtaposing works by American and Australian composers, the native-born works so new that, at the time of writing, they don’t have titles. The Acacians have performed Lachlan Skipworth’s Echoes and lines quintet over the past two years. I heard Sam Smith’s work for orchestra interior cities at an MSO Cybec concert in 2016, but no chamber music so far. As for the US scores, we’ll hear Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon’s Autumn Music, a homage to Samuel Barber’s seasonal masterpiece for the same combination; and David Maslanka’s Wind Quintet No. 4 in three movements of 1985: a fine illustration of this writer’s facility at creating idiomatic, informed music for wind instruments.
Friday March 29
BEETHOVEN, MOZART AND SIBELIUS
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 7:30 pm
Sir Andrew conducts a straight overture-concerto-symphony program with absolutely no surprises. Except, possibly, the soloist – pianist Alessio Bax who, as far as I can detect, isn’t related to Sir Arnold. However, he has won two significant prizes: Leeds in 2000 and the Hamamatsu in 1997. Here, he plays Mozart’s last concerto, No. 27 in B flat. Preceding this, Davis and the MSO give us Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, packed with nobility and pregnant pauses. To end, we hear Sibelius No. 1, long overshadowed by its successor but just as fine a composition and it doesn’t lay on the dominant-founded heroic suspense as much as the D Major work. Expect extensive perorations in the outer movements.
This program will be repeated on Saturday March 30 at 7:30 pm and on Monday April 1 at 6:30 pm.
O'Connell the Music 