Month: October 2022

Having a go

cliveoconnell

BOHEMIA AND BEYOND

Geelong Symphony Orchestra

Costa Hall, Deakin University, Geelong

Saturday October 22, 2022

Stefan Cassomenos

This regional orchestra was established in 2016 and, under favourable conditions, it has managed to present three concerts a year since then, apart from the recent Plague Years that are now being re-evaluated as not as perilous as first thought; a marvel to be living through historical re-writing, unabashed to the point of brazen. Even in its early years, it didn’t come to my attention in the same way that the Stonnington Symphony did during my decades in Melbourne. Of course, I heard enough of the Malvern people to know that their efforts were more am than pro, their work sometimes painfully laboured; which made expectations of the Geelong musicians rather carefully non-commital. They remain so.

Saturday night’s concert as presented online by the Australian Digital Concert Hall saw conductor Richard Davis take his players through Smetana’s The Moldau and the E minor Symphony No. 9 by Dvorak. In the centre of this old-fashioned program, Stefan Cassomenos was soloist in Schumann’s Op. 54 Piano Concerto. From their archives, you can see that Davis is a regular with this body and Cassomenos has appeared in a GSO event almost four years ago to the day when he performed the Mozart K. 450 in B flat. As well, you can see that the organization’s ambitions are high as it presents familiar if taxing repertoire.

Like this night. The two Czech works feature among serious music’s most familiar scores, turning up in all over the Western world’s concert halls on a regular basis. And that’s fine, particularly if you get reasonably accurate interpretations; they don’t have to be plain sailing, pure velvet all the way, but you’d like to follow the progress without wincing. For the greater part of this night, the Geelong musicians got all the notes out and in tune. But they were hard-pressed in their work and it showed in some leaden pages during both the symphony and the concerto.

Things began ominously. We came online to see the orchestra on stage and a hush over Costa Hall – which went on for some time. Then the wind players started some little flourishes, general talk broke out, all of which again descended into an ecclesiastical murmur. Some wag called out an encouragement to general amusement (muted). Then the concertmaster arrived, followed pretty swiftly by Davis. But for a moment I was taken back to an MSO concert where the concertmaster failed to arrive for a very long time; we found out later that he was playing hardball in his contract negotiations with the orchestra or the ABC, I can’t remember which.

In any case, the unnamed leader arrived, then the conductor and soon we were into the flute duet that opens The Moldau. This exquisite dovetailing lasts for 15 bars and you’re meant to get the impression, before the clarinets arrive, that one flute is playing. Sadly, the joins here showed a bit too clearly. But the quadruple winds passage to bar 36 worked to better effect as the Moldau’s feeder streams led to the main body with some fine murmuring from the group’s violas. The texture sounded unduly ragged when the first violins cut out at bar 69 and the seconds were left exposed but the melodic flow was impressive up to the mood-changing Es at bar 118 where the horns wavered on an easy cliff-edge. Another case of lapsed concentration emerged at bar 133 in the middle of the rustic wedding where the communal attack wasn’t; surprising, as the Geelong basses made an emphatic underpinning for this entire stretch.

The strings (upper) took to the Moonlight change of scene with an unwillingness to let go, their minims and semibreves not very congruent with the woodwind’s burbling semiquavers. Later, the woodwind should have been similarly indulged around bar 233 but weren’t allowed sufficient lebensraum. So on to St. John’s Rapids and a prominent cymbal just before the river broadened (following a very muddy violins+violas upward rush at bar 332), and we reached Vysehrad which was despatched very rapidly. I don’t understand the need for a ritardando at about bar 404, the last heroic blazoning; perhaps an unconscious salute to marine pollution brought in by the Elbe. But those triumphant concluding pages before the moving last string arpeggios gave an impression of untidiness; the tone poem sounding at its best when handling the rustic central segment.

We enjoyed another solid break while the piano’s microphones were adjusted with a care that seemed finicky to me but was eminently justifiable according to the demands of the electrician’s operating handbook; the settling of microphones can take almost as much time as percussionists organizing themselves at a contemporary chamber music affair. I didn’t see anyone use the piano’s A for a tuning pivot: everyone just took the oboe’s pitch as the operating datum. Cassomenos used a score which I’ve never been able to criticise having seen the great Moura Lympany once lose her place during the first movement of the Emperor.

A worrying problem was the lack of synchronicity between soloist and orchestra as early as the tutti chords at bars 3-4. A momentary freeze in transmission, and we took up again at the soloist’s restatement of the main theme in C Major. It was hard to work out why the clarinet wasn’t sustaining notes for their full length in the following Animato section; minims tied to crotchets simply disappeared halfway through; as was the case further on at the Andante espressivo section. At Letter C in my old Breitkopf and Hartel edition where the work’s opening flourish is revisited, the orchestra came to life during some expert statement-and-response work with Cassomenos, whose attack moved into choppy territory at the Piu animato duet with the GSO first flute. Still, by the time he reached the next solo, just before the recapitulation, he was working at an excellent Schumann vein of controlled delicacy which continued up to his duet with the first oboe preceding Letter F. At the start of the cadenza, the pianist manipulated the piano’s upper line with impressive expertise, even if I found the trills at the Un poco andante to be over-aggressive. To end, the orchestra was late across the movement’s last four chords.

By contrast, the Intermezzo satisfied on nearly all grounds, the flute/clarinet/bassoon/horn ensemble punctuations both efficient and well-inserted into the narrative. Cassomenos momentarily hit a patch of uneven delivery 17 bars before the third movement eruption and the string rush that leads into that Allegro vivace was undisciplined. The pianist’s instrument sounded very weighty at the opening and, after a while, you took extra pleasure in segments where the soloist did not feel the need to punch out his contribution. That abrupt change to a march rhythm across the prevailing 3/4 bar lengths found the strings uneasy with where to put the emphases. A later unhappy point came just before the key signature change to F Major where individual groups were exposed, most of them rather thin in output by this stage. An uncharacteristic fumble from the pianist marred the endless right-hand quaver patterns 23 bars before Letter H and the return of the march.

At about this stage you were struck by how little ebullience had been transmitted during this movement. The flashes that should burst out in the tutti passages failed to appear and the pages packed with piano figuration were characterless – exercises without individuality. The end came as a release from tedium, I’m afraid, this last movement a slog for both performers and audience.

After interval, the concertmaster again made another individual entrance and the players again stood for the conductor; something of an excess in protocols of acknowledgement unless the parties involved felt the need for such mindless bobbing and unnecessary bouts of applause (for what? showing up?). What until this stage had been a suspicion became obvious when the Dvorak symphony got under way: this orchestra doesn’t have enough high and middle strings. For all that lack of weight, the bodies concerned put their backs into their work, such enthusiasm paying off well in tutti patches. Once more, we experienced an early unsettling inaccuracy from horns 3 and 4 in bar 16, the prefiguring of the Allegro molto‘s first subject. However, the performance settled into place quickly and the only disturbance during the exposition (which was repeated) came with a dynamic imbalance at about bar 129 where the woodwind sextet choir proved too strong for the melody-carrying violins (let alone the momentarily high-lit basses).

Davis isn’t alone in pulling back the pace in the string handling of Dvorak’s Swing low theme at bar 157 but it always strikes me as over-sentimentalizing this touching moment. A small glitch marring this movement’s development came in the horns (1 and 2 this time) at bar 220 but the fortissimo explosions impressed the further these players got into the score’s homely bravado; all that was lacking was a touch of high string hysteria. Finally, I couldn’t pin it down (viz. ascribe definite blame) but the rush towards the final cadence, at about bar 441, was faulty in what is a straightforward passage of play.

A famous danger spot, the opening wind chord to Dvorak’s Largo failed to reassure you of the ensemble’s security. That famous cor anglais solo didn’t enjoy the happiest bar 8 where a small clip disturbed the flow, and the second bassoon minim in bar 20 made a delayed entry. Once more, Davis is not alone in rushing through the string filler at bars 32 to 34, but is anything gained by this acceleration? At their first statement of the middle C sharp minor interlude (bars 64 to 67), the first violins demonstrated their potential as a highly responsive corps; and the string decet near the movement’s end was graced by an excellent, vibrant duet between the concertmaster and principal cello. I turned the volume up but still didn’t register the low D flat in the Largo‘s last bass divisi chord.

Happily, the following scherzo passed with loads of vehemence and crisp dynamics, my only quibble the clarinets’ restatement of the trio’s theme at bar 78 where the players weren’t quite on the note for a substantial octave stretch of 8 bars. Some more obvious problems peppered the concluding Allegro vivace. One of the brass missed the top note in bar 24; that lack of upper string power proved a detraction from the energy needed between bars 100 to 105. However, the stretch where Dvorak reviews his preceding movements was negotiated very well indeed and the strings made a graceful case for the decelerando at bar 220. In fact most of these last pages in the symphony came off successfully for this section, while a horn made a sad encounter with the top note of bar 268, and some players were jostling out of line at the approach to the Meno mosso e maestoso peroration, while the final chord could have been attacked more cleanly.

You can find a fair degree of competence in the Geelong orchestra and you have to wonder if the ensemble might have fared better with a program that wasn’t so well-known. When you’ve been familiar for years with these particular scores and the polish brought to them by great musicians – Ancerl, Szell, Brendel – it’s difficult to ignore any flaws, even when the interpretations on offer are based on laudable intentions. Obviously, I found this Smetana/Schumann/Dvorak trilogy only occasionally successful but, judged by the standards of other regional and suburban orchestras that I’ve heard, the GSO has a solid base on which to work. I’d like to hear the group at a later date, especially when performing music that doesn’t have a wealth of shatteringly fine interpretations readily available for comparison.

Simple tune under multiple hands

cliveoconnell

WALSINGHAM

Rosemary Hodgson

Move Records MCD 637

An excellent example of focus, Rosemary Hodgson’s latest CD centres on the English ballad Walsingham which refers to the medieval pilgrimage site in Norfolk, maimed and dissolved by Henry VIII during those years when he pursued a new marriage. To set the tone (literally), we hear the tune and some variations as it appears in the final lute book by Matthew Holmes. Then, Hodgson offers us uses of the same tune by some Elizabethan/Jacobean composers: Francis Cutting, John Johnson, Edward Collard, Anthony Holborne, John Marchant and John Dowland (two treatments from this most famous of Elizabethan lutenists). Several other writers get included in the 21-track album, somewhat dodgy entrants in the Walsingham banquet: William Byrd, Anthony de Countie and Gregorius Hywet.

Hodgson has rarely sounded better to my ears with carefully judged phrasing and a reassuring purity of articulation. Her delineation of the branch that gives flower to much of what follows, the anonymous Matthew Holmes’ setting, comes across with a wistfulness that speaks of the possibly regretful – doleful – background to the melody: a plaint for the priory’s destruction (yet another distressing blot on the origins of the British 16th century heresy). Mind you, the little that I can see of the original score follows the nodal chords supporting the tune but I suspect that, of the two Walsingham versions that Holmes copied, this is one I haven’t come across. Still, the whole field of Renaissance performance has become many-textured, to the extent that it’s rare that you encounter a solo piece that is played exactly as one particular manuscript requires.

For no particular reason, Hodgson then offers Byrd’s The Voice which is cited as coming from that extraordinary resource, the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book but under the title of The Ghost. This lute version follows the almain’s chord progression, I think, and the melody is sort of recognizably germane. Regardless, the performance is quietly buoyant with some attractive open 5th drones and only the slightest hint of an enunciative problem with the melody early in this miniature’s exposition. De Countie’s Pavyn could come from early in Elizabeth I’s regime when the man himself was a lutenist at court. The piece itself is a meditative gem with the faintest of flourishes at its conclusion; whether it was written by this musician is moot as nothing definitive attests to his writing anything, let alone this dance that bears his Christian name.

My reading of tablature is elementary at best but I think that the version of Walsingham we hear by Francis Cutting is the first of his two versions, although the differences between the two are slight. It is handled with an appealing flexibility which observes the bar-line accents so that, for all its folk-like simplicity of melody, the ornaments are set in proper place and time with only a small amount of leeway. The other Cutting track, Sir Walter Raleigh’s Galliard, is appropriately direct in its opening swagger but the piece’s character changes at bar 33 when the texture seems more compact, less flamboyant even if this is a version with some paring; Hodgson’s attack reflects this sudden shift down (up?) a peg with fine precision.

John Johnson’s son, Robert, is a familiar name from the English early Renaissance. The father’s work appears more rarely; a real case of wrongful neglect if A Pavin by Mr. Johnson is representative of his output. Both this dance and his Walsingham setting (where the melody gains a few feet – or so it seems) show an appealing control of emotional output, devoid of abrupt splurges but all of a piece, the pavane a model of quiet deliberation. I’m not really convinced about the inclusion of the Netherlands writer Gregorius Huwet in this collection; the grounds are that he almost certainly met Dowland during the latter’s visit to Germany in 1594, and his Galliarde Monsieur Gregorij is thematically akin to Walsingham and may have influenced the English composer’s own galliard on the tune (or vice versa). Preceding this effort comes Huwet’s Fantasia Gregorij. Is this the one that Dowland organized into his Varietie of Lute Lessons? It doesn’t agree with the score I have, as well as being less fitful in the sense of having fewer elaborate decorative devices. You can find traces of Walsingham in Huwet’s dance which is more assertive than any of the English translations of the tune we have heard so far. Hodgson gives the piece an appropriate firmness of delivery, heightened by a certain stridency in the top line.

The trio of Collard works begins with an unspecified pavan; one of the CD’s more substantial tracks, it maintains the optimistic tone set by its immediate Huwet predecessors with some surprises that aren’t adventurous but more quirky. Even in its minor mode, this set of pages reveals a light emotional band-width sustained across its canvas. Next, The Maye Galliard begins with involving energy and revisits the energy along its path, despite two phases where the rhythmic certainty falters; Hodgson gets all the notes out but it would have been more satisfying if the pace had remained consistent. As for the Walsingham variations by Collard, these come across clearly enough; the player does display a tendency to decelerate at the end of a segment, particularly if semiquaver runs appear.

Anthony Holborne’s exposure here comprises three pieces, two of them a little over a minute long. As it fell on a Holly Eve (the second-shortest track here) is a neat, slightly catchy tune with two bars of sentence-ending ornamentation that doesn’t quite convince. The Walsingham comprises a sporadically rich-chorded version of the original melody with the second half repeated; Hodgson handles it with almost exaggerated care. As for the Jest solo, this also begins bravely, as with the previously-heard galliards. But its semiquaver runs are a mixed bag, some fluid while others labour.

What follows is the second-longest of the Walsingham treatments – that by John Marchant – with an exhaustive 12 variations, the last two a rich coruscation of semiquavers. While the interpretation has an intriguing consistency, Hodgson’s sparkling top-layer falters occasionally – not into uncertainty but a seeming dogged insistence on putting things in a row. Even more satisfying is Marchant’s Fantasia which holds a rich vein of quiet grandeur, the piece moving forward at a stately pace that in its chord progressions smacks of inevitability.

Finally, Hodgson comes to Dowland through his Galliard on Walsingham: 24 bars that neatly divide into three discrete sections, all of which are here repeated. This short piece is not alone in embellishing the tune, although some moments are striking like the high tessitura at bar 11, and the soprano avoidance of the first beat in six of the last nine bars. Hodgson negotiates this trifle efficiently, even if some of the chords sounded under-populated. The G minor Pavan, longest track on the CD, is a splendid example of the instrument’s expressive capabilities, especially plangent echoes between soprano and lower voices. For my money, this is the finest performance Hodgson gives us – from the first Lachrimae motif to the superbly optimistic final bar. As in the Walsingham galliard, so for Sir John Souch his Galiard: another 24 bars in three segments, all repeated. Again, a forward-thrusting reading with a few breaths along the way – no Julian Bream rugger-bugger bustling in this style of address.

Rounding off the CD is Dowland’s unadorned (!) Walsingham which presents as the longest treatment of the melody on this recording. It’s a remarkable conclusion because it comes close to a meditation in which the original’s melodic contours are not so much scrubbed as superseded in a splendid fancy where the composer wanders free from apparent restrictions. Hodgson performs this gem with disciplined rubato at cadential points, keeping to the forefront Dowland’s supple bursts of invention. It makes a suitable finish to this quiet celebration of a simple melody through the eyes of England’s rich school of lutenists.

November 2022 Diary

cliveoconnell

JOSEPH CALLEJA

Andrew McKinnon/Opera Queensland

Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre

Thursday November 3 at 7:30 pm

This recital has been postponed from early September and, as well as the noted Maltese tenor, also features soprano Amelia Farrugia (herself of Maltese heritage) and pianist Piers Lane. In other words, it’s quite a line-up – and so it should be, considering the prices being charged: $99 to $169 with no apparent concessions for the elderly or the young. Still, why complicate your box office management strategy? The associate artists get a fair share of the limelight; Lane will play two Chopins – the D flat Nocturne and the Op. 18 Valse brillante – and Liszt’s Tarantella from the Venice/Naples book, while Farrugia will rollick through Sempre libera, Musetta’s Waltz Song, Tosti’s Serenata and Lehar’s Vilja. She will also partner Calleja in the exquisite Tornami a dir from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, O soave fanciulla concluding Act 1 of La Boheme, and Bernstein’s Tonight for a big West Side finale. As for the man himself, he’ll be working hard before interval with La donna e mobile to settle us all down, Una furtiva lagrima to show his relationship to the greats like Tagliavini, and Cavaradossi’s Act 3 self-pitying (understandably so) lament from Tosca. Later, the tenor moves to the salon with Donhaudy’s neatly four-square Vaghissima sembianza and Tosti’s Ideale before hitting the popular trail with Charmaine, which the publicity material falsely attributes to Annunzio Mantovani; then, Moon River, which is indubitably the product of Henry Mancini; following which you’ll hear Parla piu piano – which also is not a Mantovani product but a gem from Nino Rota’s score for The Godfather. And Calleja leads into Tonight with a Bernstein classic in Maria from the same musical. I know Farrugia’s work pretty well and have heard Lane many times; Calleja is an unknown quantity to me in live performance but, as an odd recommendation, his French and Italian operatic repertoire is most impressive.

STUDIO SESSIONS 5

Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Queensland Symphony Orchestra Studio

Friday November 4 at 7:30 pm

This is close-quarters playing for a Classical period ensemble: optimal conditions for hearing two sunny masterpieces. The QSO’s concertmaster, Natsuko Yoshimoto, directs and plays along with Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 and the Beethoven No. 1 in C Major. Of course, we’re used to this re-creation of the leader-director character, thanks to Richard Tognetti’s lengthy presence at the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s principal desk; Melbourne has seen the same control/participation double-act from William Hennessy with his Melbourne Chamber Orchestra. One of the pleasures of this particular evening is that both symphonies are familiar creations: the performers would have met them before – several times, if they’re lucky. And they make a fine comparison as youthful products – Mozart’s work from when he was 18, Beethoven’s somewhere between his 25th and 30th year. For some reason, the earlier work has exercised an affection since its re-discovery in the middle of the last century; possibly it’s the gently aspirational nature of its opening ascending scale melodic pattern that prefaces a melodic feast which culminates in Mozart’s allowing his brace of horns to break into hunt-call mode only 16 bars from the end of his final Allegro. Along with Nos. 2, 4 and 8, Beethoven’s C Major Symphony is among the second-rank in performance numbers across the full series but its amiable brusqueries exhibit an individuality that leapt into astonishing regions a mere three years later. Still, not sure that I’d want to pay $75 for 50 minutes’ worth of music-making. Still, unlike the QPC event listed above, there are concessions available – and that egregious ‘transaction fee’ of $7.95 for doing – what?

MIGHTY RACHMANINOV

Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre

Saturday November 19 at 7:30 pm

This night’s big work is Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2; well-known to Melbourne audiences because of Hiroyuki Iwaki’s penetrating performances during his time there as chief conductor. I believe that conductors have given up the practice of randomly cutting the score at points where the argument grows too extended for their powers of concentration; just as well, as the work’s canvas is a marvellously rich experience, despite the repetitions and divergences. Conductor Johannes Fritzsch will relish slashing out every band of colour from this work which is one of the high points of late Romanticism. The QSO’s principal double bass will play solo in Paul Dean’s freshly-minted Double Bass Concerto – an addition to one of the lesser populated genres of musical activity. The night opens with Sydney composer Andrew Howes’ Luminifera – Wild Light for Orchestra which enjoyed its premiere in September from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Edo de Waart. I can’t find anything informative about this last-mentioned piece and haven’t come across Howes in any other context. But what an unusual program that features two Australian works comprising the occasion’s first half – and in a series that even the kindest observer would find staid.

HAYDN THE CREATION

Brisbane Chorale

Brisbane City Hall

Sunday November 20 at 3 pm

Once upon a time, they tell me, this oratorio was an integral part of our colonial musical culture; as popular as Messiah and as annually inevitable. How times have changed: with many years of concert-going behind me, I’ve heard Haydn’s magnum opus live once only – from the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir, bringing back into the light one of its erstwhile regular offerings. To my generation, the only fragment of this work that made any appearance in our limited experience was The heavens are telling chorus; even the opening Representation of Chaos took me by surprise at that first hearing, not to mention the garrulity of Adam and Eve in the work’s third part. This reading will be conducted by the Chorale’s director, Emily Cox, and her soloists are soprano Leanne Kenneally, tenor Tobias Merz, and baritone Jason Barry-Smith. The St. Andrew’s Sinfonia performs the work’s instrumental component; I presume this ensemble is associated with the Uniting Church at 299 Ann Street. The Chorale singers will be joined by the Oriana Choir from the Sunshine Coast to produce the requisite full-bodied volume for the hefty choruses in Parts 1 and 2.

STRINGS AND STEMS

Brookfield Rose Farm

10 Massey Place, Brookfield

Sunday November 20 at 3 pm

As far as I can tell, this recital is rather close to the open-air exercises that I’ve experienced across Victoria’s southern reaches – in places like Mornington, Flinders, Ballarat, the Yarra Valley and beyond. The idea is to give your patrons music in a picnic setting; people can bring along their hampers – or buy one at the venue – then find a convenient space, throw down a territorial blanket, have some soporific alcohol, and listen to the music on offer. Most of the time, these excursions are pretty civilized and nobody gets rampagingly bierhaus exuberant. Mind you, that is often due to the musical fare on offer which is usually small-scale. I don’t know anything about the Brookfield Farm, but the organizers have sited their recital in the property’s rose garden. There will be stalls, including a gin bar which strikes me as an advertisement for soggy depression. But the actual music content remains unspecified; there’ll be an 8 piece orchestra – what some of us call an octet. But I wouldn’t place any bets on the Mendelssohn Op. 20, or Mozart’s K. 375, or (wildly improbable) Schubert D 803; in a rose garden setting, you’d be more disposed to enjoy an afternoon of thistledown-light musical floralisms – anyone for Ketelbey or MacDowell? Tickets are $26 with no concessions advertised and the hampers/baskets range from $40 to $53 in both regular/normal composition and vegan. Here’s hoping for fine weather.

SIGNUM SAXOPHONE QUARTET & KRISTIAN WINTHER

Musica Viva

Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University

Thursday November 24 at 7 pm

Probably not the first visiting saxophone quartet we’ve seen on these shores, although I can’t definitely recall any predecessors. The Signum players – soprano Blaz Kemperle, alto Hayrapet Arakelyan, tenor Alan Luzar, baritone Guerino Bellarosa – met while studying in Cologne during 2006. Well, three of these players did: the original alto, Jacopo Taddei, has obviously been replaced – the group’s publicity had Taddei as still a Signum member in recent European appearances but Arakelyan’s managerial online page states that he has been a Signum since 2018. Whatever the facts, this last appearance on their Musica Viva-sponsored means the Signums (Signa?) have given tonight’s program nine times before winding up at the Queensland Con. Everything they perform here is an arrangement. They start with a version of Bach’s Italian Concerto by Katsuki Tochio, work through Gershwin’s Three Preludes in their own arrangement, continue the American engagement with the Symphonic Dances from Bernstein’s West Side Story in Sylvain Dedenon’s transcription, finishing with Dominican musician Michel Camilo’s popular Caribe as seen through the prismatic perceptions of Slovenian jazz guru Izidor Leitinger. In the middle comes Kurt Weill’s 1924 Violin Concerto; originally for soloist and wind (two flutes, oboe, pairs of clarinets, bassoons, horns, a trumpet and some extraneous forces in a double-bass with timpani and assorted percussion), it has been recast for solo violin and the Signum ensemble by Australian film composer Jessica Wells. The violinist in this half-hour rarity will be Kristian Winther whom I’ve not come across since that weird 2014-15 personnel split in the Australian String Quartet.

MESSIAH

Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre

Saturday November 26 at 7:30 pm

For better or worse, this great oratorio is polished off several times each year in Australia around Christmas, the impetus for this timing apparently coming from the Nativity Scene 4 of Part 1. The first performance in Dublin took place around Easter and the great thrust of the work is towards a depiction of Christ’s death and resurrection. However, there’s no real reason why you couldn’t perform this piece as a musical celebration of Pentecost, All Souls’ Day, Eid al-Fitr, Yom Kippur, or Diwali. This will be the one and only QSO performance and the event is to be conducted by Benjamin Northey, the most competent and likeable of the country’s crop of young conductors. His soloists are soprano Emma Pearson, mezzo Dimity Shepherd (no toying around with counter tenors for this reading), veteran tenor Paul McMahon and bass David Greco; even I’m rather impressed by the high quality of this quartet. As for the work’s mighty spine, these fall to the Voices of Birralee which is a Brisbane-based youth choral organization; great to see a change from your established choirs and you can live in hope that the Birralees will bring some creative energy to that final blaze of Worthy is the Lamb and the Amen fugue, a sequence that usually smashes a congregation – sorry, audience – into an aesthetic coma. Plenty of concessions available but the hall is packing out quickly.

STUDIO SESSIONS 6

Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Queensland Symphony Orchestra Studio

Sunday November 27 at 3 pm

Finishing its chamber music forays for the year, the QSO has curated a cleverly contrived program with familiar masterworks at both ends of the afternoon. Further, the organization hasn’t stinted on the number of players involved. At the start, there’s the Mozart Dissonance Quartet K. 465, last of the set dedicated to Haydn; at the end we hear the ebullient Schumann Piano Quartet in E flat where pleasures and surprises flow from every corner. In the middle is a slight piece of Richard Strauss juvenilia in the Variations on a Bavarian folk song, Dirndl ist haub auf mi’, a string trio which doesn’t amplify your appreciation of this composer even if it’s amiable enough in shape and utterance. All in all, enough to keep a string quartet in work, with pianist Daniel de Borah emerging for the big Schumann finale. The total playing time adds up to a little over an hour’s worth.. For which purpose, we hear concertmaster Natsuko Yoshimoto and her associate Alan Smith with Jane Burroughs fleshing out the violin ranks; two violas in principal Imants Larsens and Nicholas Tomkin; a similar cello group with principal Hyung Suk Bae and colleague Andre Duthoit. I don’t know who is participating in what (apart from de Borah) but that’s a wealth of talent to play around with. And there are concession tickets available for seniors, students and children although you have to allow for that inexplicable $7.95 ‘transaction fee’ that is so prevalent whenever you use a credit card – an unavoidable necessity in making bookings, it seems, and not just for QSO events.