Monday June 3
Kirill Gerstein
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
A pianist who sits on the uncomfortable fence between jazz and classical, Gerstein is yet another new name to me, although his career so far as been peppered with significant accomplishments. He’s centred in America and Europe for the most part, with a few side-trips to Japan and China (Republic of). He might have hit these shores but I can’t recall it. His program is all things to all men: Liszt’s Eroica Transcendental Study (Gerstein recorded the lot three years ago) and the Funerailles from Harmonies poetiques et religieuses; a Debussy brace in the late Elegie and Les soirs illumines par l’ardeur du charbon, the composer’s last piano work written in gratitude to his coal supplier; something a tad more mainstream in Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin; Janacek’s political protest Sonata From the Street; Beethoven’s Variations and Fugue in E flat, another gloss on the Eroica finale theme; the Berceuse from Thomas Ades’ 2016 opera, The Exterminating Angel; and a blast from the Armenian past in Komitas Vardapet’s Shushiki Vagarshapat and Unabi of Shushi, both from the composer’s Six Dances. All that should keep the mental cobwebs at bay
Tuesday June 4
RESPIGHI, BRITTEN & VASKS
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
Tognetti and troops persist in their fascination for the over-lauded abilities of Peters Vasks; on this program, they are giving the Australian premiere of the composer’s Viatore for 11 solo strings. The work depicting a traveller in the infinite has two themes, one for the person him/herself and the other for infinity, a theme which, according to the composer, ‘does not change’ – metaphysicians, rejoice. More earth-bound are the Overture and a few dances from Handel’s Alcina, once the national company’s solitary Baroque offering in the good old days when it had sopranos willing to, and capable of, singing the main role. The third in the set of three Ancients Airs and Dances by Respighi ups the poressure quite a bit, including that wonderful Roncalli Passacaglia that exposes each of the string lines – well, first violins, violas and cells – with some slashing quadruple stops; let’s hope the players take it at a respectable pace, not dead slow as seems to be the norm whenever the direction Maestoso comes up. The local content comes in Meale’s Cantilena Pacifica, an arrangement of the fifth movement from the composer’s tedious String Quartet No. 2. And the night’s best music comes last in Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge; what a genius the young man had at 23 and how few were the flashes that surpassed it in his later career.
Friday June 7
BOLERO! SLAVA GRIGORYAN AND THE RHYTHMS OF SPAIN
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Melbourne Town Hall at 7:30 pm
You know just by the title that the night’s focal entertainment will be Ravel’s long crescendo and study in orchestration, especially if you have only one theme to deal with. And, if Slava Grigoryan is involved, the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez won’t be far away, either. Filling out the corners of this popular Town Hall menu come Falla’s Three-Cornered Hat Suite No. 2 – Neighbours’ Dance (simple but inspired), Miller’s Dance, Jota – and Boccherini’s Ritirata notturno di Madrid in the Berio arrangement where you get four pieces superimposed for the price of one, but at least the tune is immediately recognizable thanks to Russell Crowe’s impersonation of a musical master and commander. Also inserted in there somewhere is the Rapsodie espagnole by Ravel which gives you a better Hispanic soundscape than you get from the hysteria-promoting Bolero. Benjamin Northey will conduct what looks like being a sold-out event.
Tuesday June 11
Doric String Quartet
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
The group, founded in 1998, is represented as ‘the leading British string quartet of its generation.’ No, I don’t know who wrote/said this; some fatuous fan, I suspect . . . or probably some under-inspired promotional people. Anyway, taking everything with a grain of salt, I find no fault in these just musicians – at least, until they get here. At the core of their two programs sits a new work by Brett Dean; so far untitled, but you’d have to suspect that the form will be quadrilinear. On this night, the musicians begin with Haydn’s The Joke in E flat and end with the big-boned Schubert in G, the composer’s last.
The Dorics will present their second program on Saturday June 15 at 7 pm. As well as Dean’s new work, the ensemble offers another Haydn – B flat from the same set as The Joke, Op. 33 – and another weltering masterwork in Beethoven’s C sharp minor that focuses on one of music’s great slow movement/variation constructs. After this, we’ll be able to see if the publicists/fans had it right.
Saturday June 15
EUMERALLA
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 7 pm
This is a War Requiem for Peace, according to composer/soprano Deborah Cheetham. In it, she is attempting to memorialise and put to rest the spirits of victims in a resistance war that ran from 1840 to 1863 around the Eumerella River running from Port Fairy to Portland. I know nothing about this history, but I’m a product of my class, race and time; which also means that I can understand the composer’s need to speak of the war’s devastation on Aboriginal history and people, especially the Gunditjmara, and their descendants. As well as Cheetham, the singers involved will be mezzo Linda Barcan, tenor Don Bemrose, the Dhungala Children’s Choir (celebrating its 10th birthday), and the MSO Chorus. Instrumentalists come from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and Melbourne Youth Orchestras – as well as, I presume, the MSO. In charge of this assemblage is Benjamin Northey who can turn his hand to anything and everything.
Saturday June 15
HOMAGE TO GIDEON KLEIN
Australian National Academy of Music
South Melbourne Town Hall at 7:30 pm
By all means, let us celebrate one of the musical heroes of Theresienstadt who died under peculiar circumstances at the age of 24 in the last year of World War Two. ANAM director Nick Deutsch and MSO principal clarinet David Thomas head a group of Academy musicians in this observation of the composer’s birth year centenary. They will perform some of the Czech writer’s last compositions – the Piano Sonata of 1943 and the same year’s Wiegenlied. From pre-camp times come the Woodwind Octet of 1940 and a Duo for violin and cello of 1941 that I believed he left unfinished because of his arrest. Pointing clearly to his more traditional influences, a wind sextet will perform Janacek’s chameleonic Mladi. And the night reaches even further back to Dvorak’s Serenade for Winds, which boasts a mutable cast: two each of oboes, clarinets and bassoons, plus three horns. There’s also an ad lib contrabassoon part, if you have a player to hand. And/or there are parts for cello and double bass to reinforce the score’s lower textures. Of course, every Czech writer has to take these great names into account but I hope their formidable chamber music pieces don’t cause us to forget the program’s shorter pieces by the talented and tragic young man who admired them.
Thursday June 20
MOZART’S REQUIEM
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 7:30 pm
Was it last year that we heard this overwhelming masterpiece? Or am I confusing it with the Verdi? Perhaps it was another body entirely than the MSO that presented its sober, brilliant strophes. Whatever the truth of the matter, here is Mozart’s last unfinished important work, turned into grippingly dramatic material by Forman’s Amadeus film of 1984 even if a few improbable myths were not only heightened in the process but turned into meta-history. Here, it is paired with Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite for reasons that might become clear on the night, but I doubt it. All the soloists are familiar and welcome: soprano Jacqueline Porter, mezzo Fiona Campbell, tenor Andrew Goodwin, bass James Clayton. The novelty comes with conductor Jaime Martin, a Spanish musician currently working with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, among other positions. You’d assume that, despite all the experimentation and clever alternatives currently available, this performance will use the Sussmayr completion. But what is the night’s shape? Everybody in for Ravel’s fantastic fairyland, then out for interval drinks? Back you come for Mozart’s sombre setting and forget what’s happened up till now?
The performance will be repeated on Saturday June 22 at 2 pm.
Friday June 21
RUSSIAN & FRENCH MASTERS
Duo Chamber Melange
Melbourne Recital Centre at 6:30 pm
This association of violinist Ivana Tomaskova and pianist Tamara Smolyar is presenting another series (albeit a short one) in 2019 of unexpected works from repertoire fringes. On this night emerges a work that many of us will not know: Ravel’s A Major Violin Sonata. In one movement and dating from 1897, the score is a subtle complex showing the harmonic and formal influence of Faure and Franck but the vocabulary has a powerful individuality. The other historic oddity comes in Medtner’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in B minor which you will be pressed to find on any chamber music program in Melbourne over the past half century, despite the unremitting advocacy of Geoffrey Tozer. In line with the Melange’s predilection for the outre, we will hear Jane Hammond’s mint-new Noisy Friarbirds in the Silky Oaks which explains itself, you’d think. And, to ground the audience at evening’s end, we’ll hear Saint-Saens’ Danse macabre; Smolyar will have to work hard at the transcription (whose?) of the composer’s brilliant orchestral effects.
Friday June 21
BACH B MINOR MASS
Australian National Academy of Music
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
In one of the year’s four major concerts from ANAM at the Recital Centre, the context leaves the orchestral for once and goes vocal with a vengeance. Thanks to a visit by the British ensemble VOCES8, the Academy appears to have what you could call basic vocal resources to tackle this long foundation work. Currently, the group has two sopranos, an alto and a counter-tenor, two tenors, a baritone and a bass; two more sopranos (locals) have been added to these forces – Susannah Lawergren and Amy Moore, both Song Company survivors. It all brings back memories of the ridiculous performance mounted by Jonathan Mills in St. Patrick’s Cathedral to open a Melbourne Festival many years ago where the vocal numbers were about the same as in this performance and the strain of discerning what was happening wasn’t worth the pain. Anyway, the ANAM organization will have much enjoyment on determining which authentic and/or modern-day instruments will be used. Conducting is Benjamin Bayl, a Sydney-born musician who has worked for Opera Australia (but here? I think not) and who will bring lashings of scholarship to the exercise; let’s hope he also has an equal amount of discernment with regard to the work’s volume levels – nothing worse than watching those open mouths during the Sanctus and hearing nothing.
Sunday June 23
THE KAPELLMEISTERS
Trio Anima Mundi
St. Michael’s Uniting Church at 2 pm
Back where they started off? The Anima Mundi players open with Haydn in C Hob XV/27 which lasts about 20 minutes if you stretch but is one of those flawless scores that leaves you trailing after the composer, rushing to keep up with the fluency of every page, and I don’t just mean that rapid-fire Presto finale. Carl Reissiger’s output includes 27 piano trios; the Anima Mundi will play his first one in D minor, which demonstrates the musician’s high reputation, not least in succeeding Weber as Kappellmeister of the Dresden Court. If piano-heavy in its concentration, the score leaves the two strings a wealth of melodic interest between the bravura moments. This also is not impressive in length, even if you observe the first movement repeat. But it’s quality, isn’t it? And this organization is back on track again after an administrative hiccup. You’ve got to admit: the recital’s title isn’t calculated to startle an observer into a fever of high anticipation.
Sunday June 23
SZYMANOWSKI TO SUFJAN STEVENS
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 2:30 pm
OK: prepare for a mind-expansion flight, courtesy of Richard Tognetti’s link-suggesting program that sits on a Polish tripod of Lutoslawski, Penderecki and Szymanowski, at the same time moving into a parallel triad of works by Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead, Bryce Dessner from The Nationals, and Sufjan Stevens from America. Dessner and Greenwood have collaborated, as have Stevens and Dessner. Have all three thrown in their lot at any one time? Don’t know. This is the intended procedure: the ACO plays Lutoslawski’s Overture for Strings from 1949, Bartok tropes all over the place; then we hear Dessner’s Reponse Lutoslawski (here enjoying its Australian premiere performances) which I thought was an answer to the Polish master’s Musique funebre for Bartok. Does it make much difference? We’ll see. Stevens’ suite from Run Rabbit Run was based on an earlier work which was handed over to a group of composers to arrange for string quartet; at least, that’s what I understand happened about a decade ago at the instigation of Dessner. You’d think that, with Michael Atkinson designated as the arranger, we”ll only get through five of the album’s 13 tracks; the others fell to different hands. For reasons beyond me, the ACO then plays the Aria, No. 1 of Penderecki’s Three Pieces in Baroque Style which might just as well be a Respighi arrangement because of its lush reminiscence of an ancient air and dance. Greenwood’s suite from the film There Will Be Blood – all six movements, presumably, with the requisite ondes martenot – precedes the Szymanowski String Quartet No. 2 in Tognetti’s transcription: an ACO favourite since the ensemble recorded it nearly 17 years ago. What connection it has to either of the three contemporary composers is not clear – yet.
This program will be repeated on Monday June 24 at 7:30 pm.
Tuesday June 25
Vadim Gluzman
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
Another in the Recital Centre’s series of Great Performers, Gluzman is a completely unknown quantity to me; not surprising as most of his activity has been European and American. A brilliant light, I’m sure, but flickering on the horizon. He has a reputation for promoting contemporary composers, although you have to wonder about his offerings on this one-and-only recital here. Of course, there’s Bach’s D minor Partita and its pendant Chaconne. And he’s offering Beethoven’s Kreutzer as another slab of more old-fashioned roughage. In the modern field, we hear Part’s Spiegel am Spiegel – 10 minutes of F Major piano arpeggios and a slow-moving diatonic violin melody. Some find it moving and enlightening; I want to scream. And Lera Auerbach, another Gluzman favourite, is represented by her par.ti.ta for solo violin, here enjoying its Australian premiere. Auerbach offers 10 short movements, probably tendering splintered Bachian perspectives if the syllabically punctuated title is any guide. Not that this is really new: Auerbach wrote it for Gluzman back in 2007 and he has recorded it alongside tonight’s D minor Partita. Daniel de Borah accompanies.
Thursday June 27
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC
Victorian Opera
Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne at 7:30 pm
Possibly, I’m one of the few people of my generation who has never seen this Sondheim musical. But then, I saw the Bergman film it was based on at the start of the 1960s and a few times since, always content with its trans-generational interplay. Still, this production promises a good deal. Nancye Hayes returns to play Madame Armfeldt; Ali Macgregor sings her daughter, Desiree; Sophia Walsey rounds out the family as Fredrika. The warring unfaithful Malcolms are Verity Hunt-Ballard and Samuel Dundas. As the mis-matched Fredrik and Anne Egerman, we see Simon Gleeson – whom I do know – and Elisa Colla – whom I don’t. Henrik, not long for the seminary, is Mat Verevis who starred in that competition without substance, The Voice. Alinta Chidzey has the part of Petra, Anne’s servant. The promotional material also mentions Paul Biencourt, Kirilie Blythman, Michelle McCarthy and Juel Riggall as ensemble members – possibly contributors to the Chorus-type Quintet. Stuart Maunder directs, as he has so often for this and other companies. Phoebe Briggs conducts.
The musical will be repeated at 7:30 pm on Friday June 28, Saturday June 29, Tuesday July 2, Wednesday July 3, Thursday July 4, Friday July 5 and at 1 pm on Saturday July 6.
Friday July 28
TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONCERTO
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Hamer Hall at 7:30 pm
Welcome back to conductor Jakub Hrusa, an MSO favourite with performers and audiences. He’s starting tonight with a little-known orchestral poem by his distinguished countryman, Dvorak: The Wood Dove. It’s a substantial piece with a gloomy underpinning story but has a splendid tapestry for listeners to experience. The night’s soloist will be Vadim Gluzman, fresh from his Great Performers recital at the MRC, ready to take on the night’s titular work. Here’s hoping that this violinist gives us a reason or six to be subject to yet another experience of this warhorse. Hrusa finishes with Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s suite for piano, Pictures at an Exhibition. This is the earliest composed of the night’s works which all fall within a little over a 20-year range. Of course, this temporal ambit is expanded by the Frenchman’s orchestral transcription which dates from 1922 and is one of the great transformations of its kind. Still, it makes for a lop-sided night: the poem and concerto come in about 54 minutes, while the suite rarely cracks half an hour.
This program will be repeated on Saturday June 29 at 7:30 pm and on Monday July 1 at 6:30 pm.
O'Connell the Music 