Month: March 2019

SEASON OPENING GALA

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall

Saturday March 16, 2019

                                                                                     Lu Siqing

Well, not me, exactly, but possibly the ABC when it controlled the upper echelons of serious music in this country.   I can’t have been the only member of Saturday night’s audience who suffered from a profound sense of deja-vu.   Here was an old-fashioned Red Series program, the kind of fare that many of us grew up on and which is trotted out regularly as a reassurance that, while you might have to endure some puzzling music at odd spots during the year, at the core of things you can rely on tried-and-true practice.  Next week, Sir Andrew Davis presents a lecture-concert dealing with Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 – a near-novel exercise, tried on last year, and reminiscent of Bernstein’s efforts to educate a public even more reactionary than Australia.   But the MSO’s last submission for March is the old overture – (Egmont) – concerto (Mozart 27) – symphony (Sibelius 1) set-up . . . more lasting than bronze, indeed.

Nevertheless, the well-worn procedure can produce excellent results and Saturday night brought us a polished and committed reading of Bruch’s G minor Violin Concerto No. 1 from Lu Siqing, one where the soloist and orchestra under Davis stayed on point throughout.   Certainly, the score is a familiar one to all concerned and the MSO is familiar with this excellent violinist’s work after his tour of China with the ensemble last year. and following his accession to the role of MSO Soloist in Residence for 2019.

Siqing gave a brooding glamour to the work’s initial recitatives before settling into the Vorspiel‘s main material where he balanced the role’s requirements for rapid figuration with hefty chord-work, all the while delivering Bruch’s expressive lyricism without mawkishness.   This prelude gives the orchestra few chances to shine until just before the reclamation of its opening solo flourishes but Davis kept the MSO in near-ideal synchronicity with this soloist, who distinguished himself with an arresting series of upward moving trills that conclude the first treatment of the movement’s second subject.

Even better came in the Adagio where, apart from two 8-bar breaks, the soloist is front-and-centre all the time.  Here also, Siqing let his line sing without emotional impediments and no interpolated cleverness, ably assisted by a respectful string section background.  He is a model musician for this deeply Romantic school because of his technical security, of course, but also for the ability he has of giving the music prime position, so that his pyrotechnics during the Finale impressed more for their transfixing clarity of sound than as instances of flamboyant personality.

As an encore, we heard an unaccompanied version that seemed to lack a segment or two of Monti’s Csardas, which met with tremendous acclaim

As well as an exemplary concerto, the MSO later put up a brave showing in Tchaikovsky’s B minor Symphony No. 6, a score which it invariably carries off with eloquence of address, balanced ensemble and persuasive conviction.  Most of the wind chording came across cleanly, the brass well-harnessed in the odd-numbered movements and the strings sounding at their best with a finely honed responsiveness, the first violins (who were pretty close to in my face) working as one, apart from a single over-enthusiastic attack moment from leader Dale Barltrop.

Each conductor shows individuality of interpretation most clearly when coping with the finale’s Adagio lamentoso.  Davis set a firm pace, one that looked forward rather than yielding to the lugubrious.  This more-mobile-than-expected approach did the score no disservice; in fact, the great climactic surges impressed more as coherent argument conclusions than as the fits of temper that many another interpreter hurls at you.   A fine interpretation concluded in the last Andante giusto bars of the work which lived up to the tempo direction and faded to a quadruple-piano silence with remarkable self-effacement from the divisi cellos and basses: a passage of grave accomplishment after the symphony’s preceding restlessness.

As an overture, Davis brought in the MSO Chorus for a romp through Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor, a work which you can easily go your whole life without encountering.   This collection was once a staple of Red Series programs, although often without any singing involved, and for many of us represented a significant facet of the Kuchka’s operations, in particular its mixture of semi-Oriental and Russian characteristics – or what we thought those geographical-cultural terms represented.

The extracts are still a pleasure to hear, even if the associations with the Davis/Lederer/Wright/Forrest musical Kismet are inescapable to those of us coming of age in the 1950s.   Davis set an unusually slow pace for the Chorus of Slavewomen which obviously took the female MSO Chorus members by surprise as they set off on their own path at a faster tempo.   As they do, matters settled quickly into shared synchronicity and the rest of the work’s constituents followed without much cause for alarm.

Not that this is a difficult work to handle, although the faster dances find the orchestra busy, especially the woodwind and in particular the clarinets.  Yet it does need a firm control of the ferment, particularly when Khan Konchak’s name is bandied about by the singers.   Considering their numbers, the sopranos and altos could have made a stronger contribution in the later stages when in combination with the male chorus members.   But the sung part of the work remained audible – which is more than I can say for other performances I’ve experienced at opposite ends of the time spectrum from Ansermet and Gergiev, during both of which you might have wondered why the chorus bothered to show up.

So, thanks to the MSO administration for dusting off this relic, although the program notes refer to a 2014 performance under Diego Matheuz.   Perhaps we can have a real blast from the past with Borodin’s just-as-Romantic view of the East, In the Steppes of Central Asia.   Or we could go one better with Rimsky’s Russian Festival Overture.   Considering Siqing’s encore, how about Poet and Peasant?  Light Cavalry, anyone?

Still, there’s no merit  –   or even benefit  –   in railing against the old-fashioned.   As a welcome counterweight, the MSO’s April brings us the first of two outstandingly original Metropolis programs, Verdi’s Requiem, and a night where Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto brushes shoulders with Paul Dean’s new work in the same format.   Or you could forget all about this and watch the MSO provide a live soundtrack to Ghostbusters.

BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra

Melbourne Recital Centre

Saturday March 9, 2019

                                                                                Melissa Farrow 

What I heard of this concert was pretty impressive – but wouldn’t you expect that to be the case?   Paul Dyer nailed his ensemble’s colours to a specific mast 30 years ago when he established the ABO and we’ve had a bit of proof over the decades since that his musicians have expertise with the six phenomenal concertos that Bach put together as one of history’s most remarkable job applications.

On Saturday, the Brandenburgers, interleaving with a cluster of guests experienced in period performance, worked through all of the concertos bar one – and, sad to say, that was a part of the sequence that I was anticipating with delight: No. 2 with the four soloists including a brilliant, high trumpet.  To be honest, to hear it I would have sacrificed either the D Major No. 5 or the over-exercised No. 3 in G which has become a chamber orchestra cliche and all too often turns to stodge as its inbuilt chiaroscuro goes by the board.

Still, ABO regulars turned out in force for the first of the usual brace of Melbourne series performances and liked everything on the agenda without revealing much discrimination,  applauding the first movement of the D Major concerto as a salute to Paul Dyer‘s negotiation of the famous cadenza – even if his rendition was far from cleanly accomplished with many two-notes-for-the-price-of-one splices in the right-hand work.  But then, the ABO’s artistic director had given himself a demanding schedule,  providing the continuo keyboard for everything else on show.

Yet there was a lot to like.   Brandenburg No. 4 started us off with plenty of verve, Melissa Farrow and Mikaela Oberg excellently balanced and clean-speaking in the flute a bec roles, concertmaster Shaun Lee-Chen a chameleonic character with some introduced pauses in the interrupted solo that lasts from bar 81 to bar 124, but you could  not cavil at his skirling demisemiquaver virtuosity between bars 187 and 208 and his headlong attack on the heart-stopping flight in the fugal finale where the violin has centre-stage for 26 furiously active measures.  As a welcome contrast, both recorders wound an untroubled way through the placid central Andante and its piano/forte alternations.

We all have a favourite Brandenburg, and mine is No. 6, probably for its earthy texture of two dominant violas and the superb thick-withied interlocking that Bach made of their parts.   Monique O’Dea and (I think: none of the solo/exposed musicians was identified) Marianne Yeomans began the first movement with excellent rapport and projection, the hefty port-flavoured timbre sustained with few signs of the violist’s weakness – an occasional note slightly off-centre.  There is little to distract from the two top lines outside the tuttis, apart from a sporadic outburst or six from the cello; in this instance, the ABO’s hard-worked Jamie Hey, who also enjoyed a couple of bars in the sun at the end of the Adagio.

But the best, as at Cana, was left till last with a buoyant account of the syncopation-rich Allegro-finale which managed to combine weight and bounce.  Here also, Hey joined in the contrapuntal interplay at two points, deserting his continuo-homophonious  companions: the dual gambas of Laura Vaughan and Anton Baba, Rob Nairn‘s bass and Dyer’s harpsichord.   But the focus remained on the spiralling violas whose attack – in canon, in echo, in unison – showed no signs of faltering.   It might not have been the most polished duet work you’d have heard (that appears almost exclusively on recordings), yet it  served as a welcome reminder of the composer’s consummate, infallible craft even when he bends the rules.

Dyer dominated the reading of No. 5, as is only to be expected.   His partners – violin Ben Dollman and Farrow – showed a well-balanced emotional range in the trio-sonata Affettuoso while displaying a well-rounded athleticism in the outer movements, notably a strong version of the last movement with its relieving segments of abrupt exposure for the three soloists.   The concerto is properly regarded as a Baroque high-watermark and, the blips aside, the ABO turned in a brisk performance that emphasized the score’s driving sinewy energy with an episodic surprise around every page-turn.

While I cut out on the concluding No. 3  –  the concert ran over-time, as we were warned it could do, but my transport waits for no man  –  the chance to hear live its program predecessor, No. 1 in F, was one of the chief attractions of the whole exercise.

It’s not that you want to hear the horns misfire in the first two Allegri or the work’s last Trio but it somehow always happens in the concert hall, particularly when the instruments are Baroque/natural and so use crooks.  On this night, Michael Dixon and Doree Dixon made few intonational errors (none, I believe, in the first movement) but these pockmarked the surface of the third movement and  flew up to rattle the listener in that infamous trio involving horns and the three oboes in unison.

Such blemishes apart, this proved a satisfying experience with reassuring input from the woodwind trio – Christopher Palameta, Kirsten Barry, Kailen Cresp – and the ever-reliable bassoon of Brock Imison from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, with ABO associate concertmaster Ben Bruce adding spice with a piccolo violin which hardly emerges from the ruck in the opening movement, is rarely silent in the succeeding Adagio, then enjoys some energetic bursts in the 6/8 Allegro – moments that Bruce took every opportunity to emphasize.

Not for the first time on this night, I found the ABO string corps in fine shape: well-prepared for the abrupt piano–forte changes, with a clean finish to their phrases, especially from the violin camps, finely attuned to Dyer’s performance style – so much so that there was little reason for his semi-conducting efforts during this work which seemed to run itself, as each of the preceding four works had managed to do with minimal gestures from anybody.

At the end, quite a bit to remember with pleasure came from this exhibition of music-making from a band that has identified itself with these masterworks.   Our two Melbourne appearances came at the end of a 7-performance run in Sydney and you’d guess that the standard by this stage is as high as possible.   In fact, Dyer and his charges could take plenty of satisfaction from their efforts which exemplified the period orchestra’s best practice: a central body on song and a collection of character-rich soloists.  Now, just as we’re waiting for Sir Andrew Davis to lead the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra through the large Symphony No. 8 to complete his Mahler cycle before leaving us bereft, so we can expect – somewhere along the line – an outing for the Brandenburg No. 2.    But not this year, it seems.

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall

Thursday February 28, 2019

                                                                                  Wynton Marsalis

When you’re used to the standard orchestral fabric on offer at 99% of MSO concerts, it takes you a while to adjust to the rare sound of an introduced ensemble that collaborates with those regular instrumentalists you know pretty well.   With the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the adjustment process passed very quickly, thanks to sensible programming,

To open, Marsalis and his 14 colleagues eased us in with three Duke Ellington pieces which genre of the art I take to be part of the Lincoln Orchestra’s artistic rationale.   After a rousing reception from a full house, the famous trumpeter led a version of Braggin’ and Brass which involved a bright solo that might have come from Marsalis himself; confusingly, he mentioned another trumpet player during the applause and I failed to catch the name.   But there are two trumpet solos in this piece, so he might have played one and Ryan Kisor, Kenny Rampton or Marcus Printup could have taken the other.

This talking across the music has always struck me as a persistent flaw in nearly every jazz event I’ve been to.  The custom is for the listeners to applaud after each solo spot, during which outbreak the players either mark time or the next soloist immediately leads off.   Fine, but then to try to shout names through the more formidable acclaim that comes at a piece’s end taxes the clarity of utterance in most of us.   In fact, it took me some research to work out two of the three Ellington titles, let alone who was at work in the back-blocks of the group.

For the rest of the night, most of the attention focused on the five sax/clarinet/flute players who sat in a line along the front of the stage, trumpets and trombones situated directly behind this phalanx with Dan Nimmer‘s piano  prominent on the left until the night’s second half.  Carlos Henriquez‘s bass was also visible and audible up to interval; I looked but couldn’t see him participate in the long symphony.   Brother and drummer Jason Marsalis fleshed out the rhythm section with the usual not-afraid-to-come-forward character of a man in control of a drum-kit battery, making for a dominant line of textures across the evening.

If patrons had paid to hear Marsalis in multiple solo spots, they were disappointed.   He may have been leading his group but it was done, as by many sage generals, from the rear.   Following the group exhilaration of 1938 with Marsalis possibly giving us the main high-flying solo (from my seat, nothing of the second and third rows of musicians could be seen), the environment changed abruptly to the 1966 Far East Suite from which the JLCO played the last two tracks from the initial recording: Amad and Ad Lib on Nippon, the first notable for a fluent trombone solo – after all the initial Oriental scene-setting – from Vincent Gardner; its successor featured tenor sax player Victor Goines playing a volatile clarinet line.

While you could wonder at the creative versatility shown during the solos that peppered this opening bracket, the effect was less brisk than you encounter on Ellington’s own performances which are models of crackling ensemble and, in the suite selections, less self-conscious, especially the pentatonic suggestions of Amad in which work Ellington himself is a very prominent force.   Nimmer, Henriquez and Jason Marsalis gave a competent setting-up of the Ad Lib on Nippon material but somewhere along the way I missed out on Ellington’s original substantial second solo.

Some MSO brass, percussion and clarinet Philip Arkinstall glided onstage for the Bernstein Prelude, Fugue and Riffs concoction that shows what a brilliant, gifted musician can do with conventions and still sound individualistic.  Arkinstall had a fair while to wait before the third – and most interesting – movement but he generated a crisply etched line that held its own against a solid brass onslaught in the latter stages of the score.   If anything, the airing of this piece brought to mind the clever combination of craft and bloody-mindedness you can hear in Cool from West Side Story; Bernstein’s fugue of eight years previous is a remarkable harbinger.   Most of the players coped with the composer’s rhythmic games, although one of the sax players – probably Paul Nedzela on baritone – teetered on the brink of falling off the beat in one of the fugue’s more fraught segments.

After the break, Nicholas Buc, who had directed the Bernstein score, again took control of Marsalis’ Symphony No. 4, The Jungle.   This is a substantial score but at the same time one that flattens your interest simply from its grandiloquence.   The composer alternates his movements deftly enough, as well as pulling both orchestra and band into and out of focus with a keen eye on audience interest levels.  Yet, in spite of the multi-faceted interlacing of colour and shadings, the impact is tiring – partly, I feel, for an insistence on motifs rather than full-blown melodies in the action-packed strophes of the fast movements.

Marsalis memorialises New York in this work; it isn’t really a transferable piece that takes in a city like London or Berlin (or Melbourne) as its vocabulary is linked to what we outsiders know (and think we know) is the New York experience.   This symphony opens with a wide-ranging city-scape, loaded with gestures and the kind of expansiveness that could have been written by a Gershwin with a taste for dissonance.  A succeeding scherzo  –  The Big Show  –  is even more reminiscent of Gershwin and 1930 sophisticated jazz tropes, somehow taking in a cakewalk and a blues.   A clean-textured slow movement (with reservations) follows in Lost in Sight (Post-Pastoral),featuring lush string fabric set alongside bluesy interludes from the JLCO group.

La Esquina returns to more strident territory and a more consistently optimistic scenario representing that major Latin element in this Big City, best exemplified here in a kind of habanera-rhythm ramble.  Us continues the amiability at its start but its memorable feature on this night came in a soaring fast trumpet solo (Marsalis?) in its central pages.  To end, Marsalis produced a punchy syncopated march which boiled down into a garden-variety swing band sound before fading to black.

In fact, this last part of the whole work posed some interesting questions.  The final movement is called Struggle in the Digital Market and Marsalis seems to be as ambivalent about this stage of our development as most of us are.   The progress of civilization is unarguable but who is in control of it?   At the end, he leaves us with an extended passage of sputterings as the uncertainty grows, the forward motion falters and the machine fails of its power.   For some reason, I was reminded of Duke Ellington with whose work this night began; in particular, his music for Otto Preminger’s 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder which features, at the end, an impossibly high trumpet sending out a kind of erratic Morse code – ditto The Jungle.

But fragments that linger in the memory aren’t enough to justify the large chasms of music-making from which nothing remains.   What this work needed was a censor, some musician who could show the composer where he was either repeating material that wasn’t contributing to the symphony’s progress (or was significantly impeding it), or where a delight in constructing large sonorous edifices had become an end in itself and the individual movements’ aims had detoured into flamboyant gestures.

For all that, the Hamer Hall audience gave clear signs of having relished the whole experience, applauding each movement and greeting its conclusion with obvious endorsement.  Despite my reservations, the enterprise realised many expectations.  Anyone who regards this fusion of jazz and serious music as dated, just a throwback to a time when such a musical cross-breeding produced masterpieces, would have to re-think his or her stance, even if this modern-day product does for me what An American in Paris, Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk and On The Town don’t do – wears out its welcome.

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