Wednesday October 9
A MULTITUDE OF VOICES
Arcadia Winds
Melbourne Recital Centre at 6 pm
Well, there’ll be four of them, which isn’t too many. Oldest of all is J.S. Bach who yet again comes in for a transcription exercise: the Organ Sonata No. 6 in G. You’d have to assume that this will involve only three members of the Arcadia quintet – perhaps flute, oboe and bassoon? Around this venerable construct are much more contemporary voices, like Steve Reich whose Vermont Counterpoint for amplified flute and tape will showcase the talents of Kiran Phatak. English-Australian composer Andrew Ford’s Scenes from Streeton melds some of the artist’s paintings with what the various landscapes look like these days as reported by people who farm them; at the same time, there will be illustrative music, you’d hope. This will be the world premiere of a work commissioned to commemorate the Recital Centre’s 10th birthday. As a bonus, the Arcadians perform a work chosen as the recipient of their own Composition Prize.
Saturday October 12
Nevermind
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
This quartet, performing under the Musica Viva aegis, comprises flute Anna Besson, violin Louis Creac’h, viola da gamba Robin Pharo and harpsichord Jesn Rondeau. Their collaboration in Baroque performance dates from their student years at the Conservatoire Superieur National de Paris – which can’t have been too long ago as they all look young, although their chronicled activities and discographies so far are impressive. Tonight focuses on two composers: J.S. Bach and Telemann. From the former come selections from the Art of Fugue, an arrangement of the Organ Sonata in C, and the Trio Sonata in G BWV 1039 which usually calls for two flutes as well as the inevitable continuo. As for Telemann, the group plays the first and last of his Paris Quartets (of which these musicians have made a particular study), as well as Fuga 14 from the 20 Small Fugues which are not that small, nor what you would commonly call fugues.
The second program on Tuesday October 15 at 7 pm is more adventurous in scope for the audience. The group starts off with some Marais – Suite IV from the Trios for the King’s Bedtime. Then comes L’Espagnole from Couperin’s Les Nations suite. The Nevermind fixation on Telemann is exercised here as well with No. 4 of the Paris Quartets. The ensemble moves into unknown territory for most of us with quartet sonatas by Quentin and Guillemain – once (in the 18th century) well-known names, now all but forgotten.
Sunday October 13
A THOUSAND THOUGHTS
Kronos Quartet
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
The fabled group is here as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival’s meagre serious music line-up. This time, the Kronoi are accompanying a documentary film by Sam Green and Joe Bini, the subject of which is – you guessed it – the players themselves. Such larks. I can’t think of an exercise more self-reflective than playing the score to a film about yourself, but that’s the sort of thing you can get away with when you’re numbered among the legends. This exercise lasts for 85 minutes with no interval – which either argues for the concentration necessary for such an experience or a fear that audience numbers might plummet if the chance arose for an interval exit. But you can’t be too unkind about a group that gave us those searing performances of George Crumb’s Black Angels dating back about 45 years. And, as with the Ardittis, where would contemporary music be without them?
This program will be repeated on Monday October 14 at 7 pm.
Thursday October 17
STALIN’S PIANO
Robert Davidson
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
This odd program is another element from the Melbourne International Arts Festival collation. It features pianist Sonya Lifschitz playing the music of Robert Davidson, a Brisbane composer-musician whose name hasn’t come across my path, as far as I can tell. The hour-long work has an audio-visual component and it offers pretty much everything – ‘a maelstrom of history, politics, art and rebellion.’ Great. The pre-performance blurb makes reference to Maria Yudina, an uncompromising pianist of the Soviet era admired by Stalin, or so the story goes. She was a proponent of 20th century music and was a fellow-student of Shostakovich. Whether her repertoire features in Davidson’s work, I don’t know; whether he quotes giants that Yudina favoured like Bartok and Stravinsky is unclear. All will be revealed on the night
Friday October 18
SPRING: LU SIQING IN RECITAL
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
Lu is the MSO’s soloist-in-residence for 2019 and tonight gets the opportunity to show his abilities in recital, rather than in the concerto format. He collaborates with Melbourne-based Chinese-Australian pianist Angela Li in a program that moves from solid repertoire to frolicsome encore material with a couple of Chinese bagatelles in the middle. Debussy’s Violin Sonata of 1917 makes for a brave opening, immediately followed by Beethoven’s F Major Spring Sonata. Lei Zhenbang’s Why Are the Flowers So Red is essentially a folk-song, presumably organised here for violin/piano duo; Lei arranged it some time ago with Julian Yu for a CD entitled Willow Spirit Song. Cantonese composer Han Kun Sha’s Pastoral is a straight duo and, as far as I can tell, an original composition. Then we come to the show-pieces: Kreisler’s Praeludium & Allegro, Svendsen’s Romance, and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen to raise the performance temperature while the aesthetic level sinks to the flashy virtuosic. Nevertheless, this violinist is a brilliant performer, not just a fleet-fingered lightweight.
Friday October 25
NEMANJA RADULOVIC
Ensemble Liaison
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7 pm
It’s the hair. Every time Serbian violinist Radulovic hits Melbourne, the promotional photos feature the musician in full flight with his substantial mane streaming around his skull. What does this crowning glory have to do with his playing? Well, the only way to find out is to drop in and watch the man at work, alongside his friends from Ensemble Liaison – cello Svetlana Bogosavljevic, clarinet David Griffiths, piano Timothy Young. The night begins with J.S. Bach’s Clarinet Sonata in D minor BWV 1034, better known as the Flute Sonata in E minor. Bogosvljevic and Radulovic collaborate on Johan Halvorsen’s Passacaglia on a Handel original theme. Khachaturian’s G minor Trio for clarinet, violin and piano will enjoy a rare outing, only to be outshone by Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances, presumably in a violin/piano format. And another arrangement ends the night: Griffiths’ version of the monumental Brahms Piano Quartet in G minor, in which the clarinet takes the viola line, although a few of us will find it hard to repress memories of Schoenberg’s brilliant orchestration of this score.
Saturday October 26
BRAHMS’ REQUIEM
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
This performance will be one that uses two pianos as an orchestral substitute; all quite hunky-dory as Brahms arranged the work himself in this format. The players are Donald Nicolson, better known to me as the harpsichordist member of Latitude 37, and Tom Griffiths who has been the MSO Chorus’s principal repetiteur/accompanist for yonks. Soloists are soprano Lee Abrahmsen and baritone Simon Meadows while the lengthy work will be conducted by Chorus Master Warren Trevelyan-Jones. The concert begins with two Schutz motets: a precursor of the Requiem’s conclusion in Selig sind die Toten; and Herr, nun lassest du deinen Diener – the Song of Simeon that the composer set twice. Sorry I can’t get to it; besides the tender and massive choral complexes, there is little more wrenching and moving in Western music than the Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit movement – enough to make humanists of us all.
Monday October 28
INTIMATE BACH
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
A bitzer of a program here. There will be Bach, beginning with the Violin Sonata in A minor; no, not all of it – just the third movement Andante. This will probably feature Richard Tognetti in solo mode. And the night ends with my favourite Brandenburg Concerto: No. 6 with two violas as the top voices. Speaking of which, one of the night’s guests will be composer/violist Brett Dean. The program’s second piece brings the other guest into play: Erin Helyard will give a harpsichord accompaniment to Tognetti (one expects) in the Violin Sonata No. 2. Adding to the mix are selections from the 15 Three-Part Inventions which will be surely entrusted to Helyard. As punctuation, patrons get to experience Kurtag’s Hommage a J.S.B. which is for a solo instrument – any one you have to hand, it appears; the Sonnerie de Sainte-Genevieve du Mont de Paris by Marais that generally involves violin, viola and continuo; and Dean’s own Approach (Prelude to a Canon), here enjoying its Australian premiere.
Wednesday October 30
Quatuor Ebene
Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm
Like the Kronos, this quartet has been fortunate in retaining most of its original members. Violinists Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure have been there since the beginning in 1999; so has cellist Raphael Merlin. Only the violist has changed: from Mathieu Herzog to Adrien Boisseau to Marie Chilemme who has been an Ebeniste since 2017 and the ensemble’s first female. For its Australian debut under our Recital Centre auspices, the ensemble plays three Beethoven works: Op. 18 No. 2 in G, the Serioso Op. 95 and the Harp Op. 74. This comes about because the players are celebrating the composer’s 250th birthday (next year, in fact) by playing all 16 quartets as they tour the globe, recording their performances and, for local colour, audience reactions. Quite a challenge for musicians who have not really specialised in any corner of the repertoire, although a CD (recorded in Vienna?) of the first two Razumovsky quartets is to be issued at the end of September.
Wednesday October 30
BEETHOVEN’S BACK!
Selby & Friends
Tatoulis Auditorium, MLC Kew at 7:30 pm
OK, although for many of us he never went away. Kathryn Selby and two friends we’ve not seen so far this year – violinist Andrew Haveron from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster desk, and cellist Richard Narroway who becomes Lecturer in Cello at Melbourne University’s Faculty of Music next year – take up the Beethoven challenge with two sonatas and a piano trio. First up is the penultimate cello sonata, Op. 102 No. 1 in C with its unusual two-movement structure operating in a time-frame of about 15 minutes. Then comes the C minor Violin Sonata No. 7 which takes nearly twice as long; this is the work that Brahms is reputed to have transposed up a semitone at sight to accommodate Remenyi’s unwillingness to re-tune his violin. Well, the composer became a master of chromatic shifts, so it’s sort of credible. Finally, all three musicians work through the Op. 70 No. 2 – a welcome appearance given the popular penchant for its companion: the Ghost Trio. These three works offer an interesting tour of significant points in Beethoven’s compositional journey; a nimble piece of programming that avoids the well-trodden path.
O'Connell the Music 