Month: July 2023

Fine artistry exposed at last

cliveoconnell

IN FLIGHT

Harold Gretton

Move Records MCD 627

This musician is a new name to me but not to guitar aficionados in Canberra or the Riverina Conservatorium in Wagga Wagga. This CD, recorded in early 2019 at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Weston, UK, has been delayed by the universal plague that reduced serious music-making to a dribble for at least two years. Its content is, to put it mildly, eclectic with some classics like Sor’s Introduction, Theme and Variations on ‘O cara armonia‘ (that distracting little number from Mozart’s The Magic Flute), and a quartet of Latin-inflected favourites in Morel’s Danza Brasilera, Lauro’s La Negra, Estrellita by Ponce, and – just to show the performer’s 1990 credentials – Piazzolla’s La Muerte del Angel.

Adding to the regular repertoire security blanket, Gretton performs Mertz’s Fantaisie Hongroise and tucks in three pieces by Weiss. For a bit of contemporary relief, he outlines The Prince’s Toys suite by Moscow-born Nikita Koshkin. Just as interesting is his own five-part collection from 2013, Flock, which gives us Gretton’s musings on Australian birds. And he concludes the CD with another of his compositions: Inarticulate Music, composed after Gretton’s move to Wagga as Deputy Director and Head of Guitar.

Earliest in time is the Weiss trilogy: a Fuga, Passacaille, and the well-thumbed Capriccio. Gretton gives excellent interpretations of them, certainly superior to anything I heard from other guitarists when scrabbling around for comparisons on the internet. The D/B minor fugue version allows for plenty of liberties in placing the bass line in the instrument’s lowest octave or using an upward transposition, e.g. in the middle of bar 10, or across bars 32 and 33. Also, the ornamentation is very discreet, like the small semiquaver run interpolated in bar 40.

He sets up the passacaglia by playing the initial seven bars twice before launching into the 11 variations, which are accounted for with touching sensibility, nowhere better than in the 8th variant in 3rds and 6ths, and the following two semiquaver-rich strophes before a moving reversion to the original: a Goldberg in miniature. What strikes you particularly about the Capriccio is its rapidity, yet all lines remain clear and unfudged, with some finely resonant bass work (viz. bars 4 to 6) and a restrained outline of when the fugato stops from bars 50 to 53 and the splayed chords emerge as an unexpected, final jeu d’esprit.

Sor’s variations on Papageno’s Das klinget so herrlich features among the composer’s most popular works. The portentous preliminary bars, all 24 of them, serve as a kind of tongue-in-cheek prelude to the infectious, superbly balanced melody that Sor elaborates. Gretton observes all the repeats in this, the CD’s longest track, with an expert eye for second-time-around changes and an effective use of vibrato and that muted effect achieved by plucking above the fingerboard rather than directly above the sound hole. Of course, the player uses that time-honoured trope of setting loud against soft in identical repeated passages but it isn’t over-worked. Still, this is a reputable sequence, coming fairly close to the opera’s premiere and before the advent of the thunder-and-lightning virtuoso.

Speaking of which, Mertz’s fantaisie, the first of 3 Morceaux from an 1857 posthumous publication, is a splendid display piece with as many separate sections as a Liszt rhapsody, like a 15-bar lassan marked Lugubre, followed by an Allegro vivace that stands in for a friska. As with the Sor, Gretton includes or ignores bass notes as he pleases, omitting several low fundamentals for reasons (I assume) of articulation clarity. But he follows the wilful Romantic attitude to metre – taking his time over the Adagio maestoso con entusiasmo, and the two volante brief cadenzas.

Then, when he comes to the final 1 and a 1/2 pages, he is an exhibitionist’s delight, playing nearly all the notes I find in an old Haslinger edition and elevating the tension in a dazzling series of semiquaver patterns for the jubilant A Major of the maestoso. No, it’s not profound, but it’s not trying to be anything but exuberant and nationalistically coloured in the Liszt vein; the first 15 of the Hungarian Rhapsodies were available for general consumption by 1853.

Ponce’s Estrellita of 1912 remains the Mexican composer’s most well-known melody, having been subjected to many transformations, but it’s rarely heard in its original form – as a song, a cancion mexicana . But then, how many contemporary vocalists have the required range of a 13th? The arrangement used by Gretton, attributed to Scots guitar master David Russell, underlines the lyric’s plaintive quality with plenty of space allowed for the vocal line to breathe. A pity that the song’s second half was not repeated.

La Muerte del Angel was written as incidental music for a play in 1962 and, in its original shape, is a typical Piazzolla affirmation, packing an impressive punch in its outer sections which cradle a quite substantial central lyric. Gretton plays Leo Brouwer’s arrangement which expands the Argentinean composer’s horizon with an introduction that goes into improvisation-suggestive territory before settling into the biting, catchy main topic. To be honest, I think Gretton plays this piece better than its arranger, with a deft whimsicality colouring the introduction’s more fragmentary elements and a powerful rasgueado attack at the work’s dynamic highpoints. As well, unlike several other interpreters, he doesn’t underplay the final chord’s inbuilt ambivalence.

Another Argentinian, Jorge Morel, produced a samba in his Danza Brasilera of 1968, and Gretton plays it straight, without any irregularities of rhythm; it’s as though he’s accompanying dancers who don’t look for any idiosyncrasies. You can hear a nice sense of urgency throughout this as the main theme’s recurrences lead to a kind of return to a turbulent base after some more texturally transparent excursions, like the central 14-bar repeated bracket leading into a chain or two of quick single quavers before the catchy principal melody returns: excellent articulation throughout, especially the no-fuss negotiation of the harmonics patches.

Last in this Latin bracket, Antonio Lauro’s 1976 La Negra (third in his Triptico suite for Segovia, after Armida and Madrugada) is approached with a more supple rhythmic outline, including some fetching pauses as at the end of bar 16 each time it comes around, later in the work’s central section at the end of bar 32, and – most lingeringly – at the return to bar 2 for the second-last time. This interpretation is a fine example of controlled sentiment with a graceful lilt illustrated by several carefully positioned portamenti.

Russian guitarist Nikita Koshkin achieved initial prominence with his suite The Prince’s Toys of 1980, a variant on Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges plot where the abused turn on the abuser; in this case, the toys take the prince to another world/dimension. Gretton plays five of the six elements in this collection, omitting the final Grand Toys’ Parade. His opening, The mischievous prince, is a gratifying setting-up of the central character’s psychopathology in which portamenti play a large part as well as some fiercely (potentially sadistic) hard-hitting single-notes and chords; the whole ending either in melancholy or menace, according to your taste.

Some of the effects achieved during The mechanical monkey are remarkable. A side-drum imitation is highly persuasive but no more so than the cymbal clashes that the toy produces with extraordinary fidelity. Added to which, the central pages in 6/8 (or a variant) pass along with sterling fluency and irreproachable security of left-hand work. Next, The doll with the blinking eyes becomes more intriguing the longer it lasts with Koshkin including in his piece two articulation problems that afflict all guitarists: the audible swipe when rapidly changing fingering positions, and the buzz that comes about when a string vibrates against frets. Both make for fine image suggestiveness, probably bettered by the final music-box harmonics that come in the piece’s final pages.

The soldiers opens bravely enough with tuckets and trumpet imitations, the former achieved by a unique series of intervals rather like an organ’s mixture stop. The movement sticks to a quick march tempo for about half its length when material starts disintegrating until, by the end, the martial sounds have been mutated, the toy soldiers shadows of their former glory, the prince’s miniature army falling on hard times. Here again, Koshkin’s technical skills are outlined with considerable craft by Gretton. As for The prince’s coach, this begins bravely enough with plenty of assurance and forward progression that eventually accelerates until the inevitable crash when the unleashed horses gallop off into the distance.

The whole suite is written for a virtuoso performer with the ability to take on novel sound-production demands and remain unafraid to indulge in sound imitations with panache. Gretton fits the bill with a mastery of Koshkin’s technical panoply and the composer’s blend of vocabularies, mainly coming down on the side of neo-classicism best exemplified by the leading 20th century Russian composers, both resident and expatriate.

So we come to the guitarist’s own compositions. Gretton’s Flock includes the currawong, magpie, blue wren, galah and rainbow lorikeet. and his CD’s booklet is illustrated with five water colours by Penny Deacon from which this ornithologically-challenged observer can identify three birds with some certainty. We are not in Messiaenland where the bird calls are notated and indicated, as in Oiseaux exotiques, Catalogue d’oiseaux, or even Le Merle noir. Gretton is more concerned with each bird’s character – or, better, its characteristics. So his Currawong presents as jaunty, almost cakewalking: the C. J. Dennis of birds, staying firmly on the ground before a transfiguring ending rich in harmonics. Unlike a Collingwood supporter, the Magpie is a conversationalist – or he could be involved in a fluent soliloquy; this personality is amiable enough, apart from the occasional abrupt outburst.

With the Blue Wren, we come across a questing, inquisitive busybody who suddenly bursts into a flurry of activity; the following Galah is similar if more consistent in his activity before normal behaviour gives way to near-aggressively restive, then off-the-wall temperamental flights (the CD’s shortest track). Finally, Gretton’s Rainbow Lorikeet begins with a motif/melody like its predecessors but accretes more lines as it progresses. At its opening, this seems the most harmonically conservative member of the set but, as with some of the others, it moves out of an avian comfort zone into a dissonant and unpredictable landscape with powerful, confrontational chords. Finally, the piece returns to its opening melody, immediately more rich in its setting before a conclusion of heightened power.

Yes, the bird titles aren’t necessarily attached to the music itself and one man’s lorikeet is another woman’s buzzard. Yet each of these five vignettes has a distinct flavour which might as well represent the animal of its title. Gretton writes that, when overseas, he missed Australia’s bird sounds and so we have to approach his suite as a kind of memento sequence, even an exercise in patriotic nostalgia. It’s not on the same intellectual level as the French master’s imagery but it’s certainly easier on the ear.

In the CD’s last track, Gretton is responding to a conversation with a painter who decried the verbiage surrounding art, wondering why art cannot be allowed to speak for itself. Inarticulate Music attempts to create a music that requires no explanation, no exegesis, no apologia. It consists of an alternation between repeated common chords (Major mainly, with one minor excursion) and single notes and, in that, it resembles a simple man’s The Unanswered Question. It’s probably the most conservative piece on the CD in terms of form, vocabulary, melodic content and metrical variety. But it makes for a placid conclusion to Gretton’s considerable efforts, a simple Amen to a string of finely-executed works from across a wide time-frame.

Junior festival hits the mark

cliveoconnell

COLOUR AND VITALITY

Mackay Chamber Music Festival

Conservatorium Theatre, Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music

Sunday July 23, 2023

Glenn Christensen

To those of us from out-of-state, only one chamber music festival has operated in regional Queensland: Townsville. And each time a message comes through from the Australian Digital Concert Hall people, I’ve been reading ‘Townsville’ for ‘Mackay’. This latter celebration is only five years old, the brain child of Glenn Christensen whom I know mainly as a one-time violinist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He has moved on since those days to be deputy concertmaster with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and one of his other post-Tognetti moves has been to set up this small-scale festival in his home town.

It’s small because it lasts barely three days with much of its activity pushed onto the last day, which was Sunday where guest artists Arcadia Winds and two-thirds of the resident artists Lyrebird Trio combined for two significant ensemble scores that you rarely hear worked through successfully because of the odd personnel required: Martinu’s Nonet No. 2 which fits the Arcadias but asks for one each of the standard string section – and it’s a rare string quartet that substitutes a double bass for the usual second violin; and Beethoven’s Septet Op. 20, which asks for the same string combination as the Martinu but cuts out the top two woodwind lines.

Beginning the program (after artistic director Christensen’s multiple thank-you messages to his festival helpers) was a duo for violin and double bass by Pekka Kuusisto’s older brother and fellow violinist/composer, Jaako, who died in 2022 from brain cancer. This short piece, Minio (meaning ‘minion’?), exercised violinist Doretta Balkizas (a Bremen colleague of Christensen: same city, different orchestra) and bass Jaan Pallandi from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It begins with an insistent pulse/scrape from the bass instrument followed by repeated semiquaver groups from the violin. The delivery is vehement and rough, even when the roles reverse and the bass opts for pizzicato while the violin exercises its own capacity for full-bodied scrapings which eventually accelerate. This far, you won’t hear much melodic content – not even of an angular type; it’s all rhythmic jumps and alterations, punctuated by some high, top-of-the-fingerboard notes from the bass.

But then comes a kind of relieving trio with open A and E string alternations from the top voice with harmonics produced by the bass, before both instruments opt for this harmonics by-play. Some inter-relationship follows where one note for Pallandi underpins three for Balkizas before we return to the opening aggression, more growling before a reminiscence of happier times with a violin tremolando above the bass’s high, aspiring series of 2nd intervals; the whole, finishing with a mutual assault on four semiquavers and a farewell belt. Despite its theatricality, I enjoyed this work but I suspect mainly for the energy and breezy enthusiasm of its executants.

For Martinu’s nonet, the full Arcadia group emerged: flute Eliza Shephard, oboe Rachel Bullen, clarinet Philip Arkinstall, horn Rachel Shaw, bassoon Matthew Kneale. Mind you, that’s a pretty different formation to the one I’m used to with Kiran Phatak on flute, oboist David Reichelt, and clarinet Lloyd Van’t Hoff. Balkizas returned as top string, with Meagan Turner viola, Simon Cobcroft (from the Lyrebirds) on cello, and Pallandi representing the most hard-worked unit of the afternoon. For all that, not much took me by surprise across this sample of neo-classical bounce. All players handled the opening Poco allegro well enough, somehow emphasizing the composer’s stolid use of timbral blocks as exemplified in the wind hymn 3 bars after Number 3 in the Statni Nakladatelstvi/Barenreiter edition of 1959. But the only dubious moment came in the violin line about Number 12 where the tedious soprano-level ostinato wavered momentarily.

It’s always hard to gauge operating conditions from a broadcast but both cello (and later, bass) came across as over-confident in the opening pages of the middle Andante. Yes, I know the cello has the melody from this movement’s opening and for some time after but Cobcroft’s idea of mf put the surrounding string piano well into the background. As the movement progressed, the ensemble displayed a sense of carefully applied rubato and an awareness of dynamic contrasts, even if this latter proved close to overbearing at climaxes as at Number 3, two bars before Number 5, and the explosion a bar before Number 8 where Pallandi’s tremolando F somehow dominated proceedings. Not the most fluent performance but the pieces fell into place properly.

It was a pleasure to encounter the concluding Allegretto with its clever-clever changes in pulse which gave the four strings no problems in the scene-setting opening pages. While the shade of Stravinsky is present in both outer movements, you also come across suggestions of Copland in this finale; for instance, at the Poco meno 6 bars before Number 10. You also encountered some passages of splendidly rich scoring, certain tutti stretches of powerful warmth, pointing to Martinu’s open-minded acceptance of his own emotional stance and compositional vocabulary in his last, very fruitful year.

For the Beethoven Op. 20 Septet, Christensen (also a Lyrebird) replaced Balkizas in the taxing violin part, and both Shephard and Bullen were not required. This work began impressively enough with an excellent communal attack on the Adagio‘s communal chords, loud and soft. With the jump to Allegro con brio, Turner’s viola Alberti accompaniment proved too loud for Christensen’s finely contoured opening subject, if more restrained in the exposition’s repeat. But then, the violinist kept to an appropriate dynamic level throughout these pages, regardless of the curt self-promotions of some colleagues, both wind and strings. However, the movement showed all ensemble members cleanly articulating and eager to engage with the score.

I came across only two problems with the Adagio cantabile: one of the repeated bassoon Fs across bars 22 and 23 went missing in action; and Cobcroft with Pallandi pushed themselves too far forward in Arkinstall’s solo about 36 bars from the movement’s ending. These apart, the players did fine service to this one slow movement of the six in this score. The group’s Tempo di Menuetto enjoyed brisk treatment – more a bucolic stamp than usual – with some welcome rubato at the woodwind’s octave rise and fall at the second half’s centre. Icing on the cake, Shaw’s arpeggios during the Trio proved faultless.

All strings showed to better effect in terms of dynamic responsibility during the first variation of the next movement; but then, the winds are silent here – no competition. Christensen made short work of Variation 2’s demi-semiquaver-packed line, while Arkinstall and Kneale exercised some individuality in the concluding bars to Variation 3’s first half. It’s not that difficult, but what a relief to have Shaw’s accurate horn in play for Variation 4’s opening and closing four bars; it added to the high quality of delivery from all in this segment. And the troupe almost carried off an ideal final variation-plus-coda except for some glitch between violin and viola in the third/second-last bar.

Similarly, something odd happened to the cello line in the latter-stages duet with Christensen in the final stages of the Scherzo‘s Trio. But full marks to the violinist for his E flat arpeggios starting at bar 47 of the movement’s main part; a cleverly understated buzz that enriched his colleagues’ outline of the melody. And the Presto of the finale was the violin concerto that Christensen indicated in his pre-performance talk. All attention here focused on the top string and its interwoven solo exposures, the performer showing a firm, steady style at critical moments like the three-bar solo that leads into the second subject’s reappearance, not to mention the taxing, if ludicrous cadenza that brings this helter-skelter progress to a standstill before the final stanzas, complete with chains of increasingly hectic triplets for the violin.

This Beethoven made a benign conclusion to the Mackay festival which slightly overlapped with the Townsville event that began on this Sunday and lasts till Sunday August 6. I went as a guest to one of the earliest of these latter celebrations in the more northern city but I’m tempted to visit next year’s Mackay gathering because it’s easier to imbibe, less time-consuming, and the quality of performances – on this showing – could proved very satisfying. At the same time, I’m finding it hard to get over the fact that Queensland hosts two such exercises in close succession annually – and not in the state’s capital; a great boon to both regional cities’ residents.

Small-scale, with sympathy

cliveoconnell

LATIN AMERICAN PIANO MUSIC

Alejandro Alberto Tellez Vargas

Move Records MCD 639

You’d have to assume that this pianist is Mexican-born, if only because the few life details you can glean point to his bachelor’s degree coming from the Escuela Superior de Music, even if his Ph. D. was earned at the University of Melbourne and – as far as I can find – he resides in that city. On this CD, he performs works by seven composers: Cuban writer Ernesto Lecuona enjoys four exposures; Ricardo Castro from Mexico is heard in three tracks; the voice of another Mexican, Manuel Ponce, is heard twice; and three of the remaining four writers, all of whom are heard in one manifestation, are also Mexican – Alfredo Carrasco, Ernesto Elorduy, and Mario Ruiz Armengol. The odd man out is Luis G. Jorda who was born (and died) in Catalonia.

As a preface in the CD’s booklet, Vargas writes a few words in Spanish. As far as I can make out, he says the following: ‘I dedicate this recording to my beloved fathers [artistic?], many thanks for my piano lessons and for all the support during my studies and concerts. Also, I want to thank my dear siblings for all your patience during those long afternoons when I sat practising in the living room.’ Pleasing and charmingly domestic, as is most of the music that the pianist presents which is either of the salon or a small bijou serving well as an encore. I didn’t anticipate that this courtly, colonial music would have much overtly striking about its character and that prediction was largely fulfilled; it’s hard to avoid the impression that this perspective into Latin American art has an all-too-comfortable European veneer – the landscape of the 19th century virtuoso pianist.

So none of the great names of the Romatic-to-Modern Mexican school appear: no Chavez, no Revueltas. Vargas has concentrated on the small-scale compositions of – in the main – a minor rank of writers whose vocabulary is slightly infused with national colour but is chiefly the product of the drawing-room. Fortunately or unfortunately, this ambience lacks any Chopinesque chromatic intrigue or superbly arched melodic contour; in many instances, composition is presented as a pastel-shaded art.

The works representing Lecuona are A la Antigua in D flat Major, Ante el Escorial in E flat minor, La Comparsa in F sharp Major, and Gitanerias in D minor. Well, the first has the key signature for C sharp minor for its first part before changing to D flat Major for the happier, scherzando second section; its main interest lies on the second beat syncopations and also in leaving you with the question: what is so old-fashioned about this? Standing in front of the monastery/palace, Lecuona begins with full slow chords in both hands in a melodic minor shape, a kind of chorale with which he also ends his meditation after a virtuosic flourish and a central passage in G flat Major. In fact, the piece consists of an arch form with the first melody, after those initial chords, being treated later to a left-hand enunciation before the aspirational chords return.

The composer’s vision of a Cuban carnival procession opens softly with a bass figure that persists across the piece’s brief duration as the parade arrives and passes, off into the distance following a resonant climax. The gypsy business comes from the composer’s six-part Suite Andalucia and falls into a predictable ternary shape with a semi-D Major relief in the middle; sprightly and attractive in Vargas’ treatment which disappoints only in a blurring across the crescendo four-bar link before the return of the initial material 54 bars from the end.

Castro presents as less folkloric than Lecuona. His three samples are an A minor Prelude (Barcarola), Polonaise in G sharp minor, and Caprice-Valse in E Major – the composer’s Opus 1. The Venetian-indebted piece is, as far as I can tell, in 9/8 – which might present some challenges for rhythmically illiterate gondoliers. This is eminently acceptable salon music, showing a mastery of orthodox Romantic writing for the piano, the piece notable mainly for its left-hand semiquaver motif. A lot of Chopin is present in the polonaise, including an aggressively strident introduction with plenty of bravely martial repeated chords, although the main theme and its consequents don’t strike me as really assertive. Also, a note at the top of the instrument is sounding out of tune, but I can’t isolate it (maybe the instrument’s top G sharp?); and Vargas inserts quite a few delays while he readies himself for some awkward arpeggiations. This is the second-longest piece on the CD (coming in a few seconds behind Castro’s Opus 1) and its repetitious material tends to fray.

In fact, the Caprice-Valse concludes the CD and is one of the more intriguing tracks of the 15. Your attention is taken up from the beginning by the waltz’s bantering between 3/4 and 6/8 which Castro plays very cleanly so that you don’t lose connection with the basic pulse. The piece begins with a bit of bravura and stops every so often for some interpolated fireworks, handled by Vargas with infectious brio. It isn’t demanding on a Lisztian scale but it does test the executant’s fluency. Castro also spices up this piece de concert with some rhythmic irregularities and a flashy vivo and grandioso that bring us home to general satisfaction.

I suspect that the only name familiar to many of us will be that of Ponce; in my case, almost totally for his association with, and compositions for, Segovia. Here, the first of his works is a Scherzino Mexicano in D Major, the shortest on the CD as Vargas doesn’t play the first part’s repeat of 16 bars’ worth. It’s a generally quiet bagatelle with an adventurous chromatic sequence in its central section, and the main melody is certainly catchy. Its complement is the Intermezzo in E minor, the first of three. This is another ternary construct with a slightly fierce central highpoint, but the main concept of repeated thirds travels just about as far as this work’s length will carry it. The executant allows the final quaver chord to linger for a long time; he probably didn’t agree with the composer’s curt conclusion to this melancholy miniature.

Carrasco’s Adios in A Major is a dance (a habanera, I think) as well as a song, because my copy has words inserted. This is another A-B-A format where the centre is stormy and ardent and the framing passages suggest languor in a set of two-bar phrases in balance with each other. The three danzas called Tropicales by Elorduy are one-page trifles that Vargas extends by playing everything at least twice. Perhaps the most successful is the third which is of a piece, without a fast introduction, and its language shows more sophistication than its companions; being kind, you call them ‘lightly atmospheric’ and the performer adds more of the same while employing an attractive rubato in the slower reaches of all three.

Armengol, last of the Mexican writers celebrated here, contributes a Prelude in E Major for piano or harp which deals with two key elements: a rapidly rising arpeggio-type figure, and a sequence of block chords – grist to the mill of any harpist, of course. What dominates everything is the spirit of Debussy: the Arabesque No. 1 and the Reverie come to mind straight away, followed by La fille aux cheveux de lin, Claire de lune, probably Danseuses de Delphes. For all that, the composer follows a fairly unsurprising harmonic plan and the piece’s elements circle each other with the inevitability of a rondo. Vargas treats these pages with considerable care and sympathy.

And so we arrive at the Spaniard in the works. Jorda’s Danzas Nocturnas is a series of three vignettes: Moderato, Con tristezza, and Mesto; 54, 16 and 48 bars long and in F minor/Major, D minor and A minor/Major respectively. All partake in the habanera rhythmic underpinning, although it’s not a strict observation with a plethora of languid triplets brought into play. Vargas handles these short dances with elegance and fine responsiveness, extending their substance by playing all the repeats and then some, my only quibble coming with his interpretation of mesto which here has little of that depression I usually associate with the term, having first encountered it in Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op.10 No. 3.

It rounds out a CD of considerable charm, expertly carried off by Vargas who is at some pains to demonstrate the restraint and fresh-eyed inspiration of these writers. Owning a considerable technique, the interpreter offers fluent versions of pieces that have been passed over in favour of more flamboyant Latin productions by famous names, significant composers with advanced skills and insights. Much of the music recorded here can be found on the internet, scores and performances; still, as far as the latter are concerned, few match Vargas in ease of production and sympathy with his small-frame material.

Diary August 2023

cliveoconnell

NGAIIRE & QUEENSLAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Princess Theatre, Woolloongabba

Friday August 4 at 7:45 pm

Here, the QSO is participating in Open Season, which is basically a government initiative in music and art (so music isn’t one?) run out of the Tivoli and the Princess Theatre and demonstrating how you can fuse anything, I suppose. Ngaiire is a First Nations Papuan New Guinean songwriter whose work is apparently not confined to any specific genre; which is nice to know because, whatever happens, you won’t succumb to any dashed expectations. What the orchestra is doing in collaboration is anyone’s guess but its forces could be amplified by a band of some kind; that’s usually my experience when fronting up to one of these cool-meets-conservative love-ins. Nothing like a program is set down so far but I’m sure the QSO will rise to the occasion with a spirited line in chords, melodies and rhythms that have been weltered to death over the past 600 years. Benjamin Northey conducts and you’d have to wish him well in what I feel – from bitter experience, and not just through this latest NAIDOC week – will add up to something eminently forgettable. Tickets are $79 if you want to sit down, $65 if you’re feeling the need to stand/dance/shuffle, with a reduction to $55 for 4ZZZ subscribers. I’ve tried logging on to the sitting-down Mezzanine option: it doesn’t work. Added to which, regardless of your mode of attendance, there is a ‘handling’ fee (handling what?) of $5.95 as well as a booking fee dependent on how you want your ticket(s) delivered. Good luck with all that.

BOHEMIAN SERENADES

Australian Chamber Orchestra

Concert Hall Queensland Performing Arts Centre

Monday August 7 at 7 pm

We’re applying a pretty broad definition of Bohemianism here. On the one hand, you have the free-for-all of Puccini’s opera; on the other, we’re concerned with the Czech Republic or its antecedents and the earth that it occupies/occupied. So we’re getting Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings and that’s great because the composer was a born Bohemian in the land sense; as far as I know he wasn’t a Beat precursor. As well, we have Josef Suk’s Meditation on the Old Czech hymn ‘St Wenceslas’; a palpable hit as Suk was another native Bohemian and, to keep it all in the nationalistic family, he married Dvorak’s daughter. Then we have a couple of outliers. Bartok’s String Quartet No. 5 gets the Tognetti treatment, arranged for his ACO forces which should be a fine test of ensemble, especially in the middle scherzo/trio. But this composer is all-Hungarian, although his work offers a worthwhile commentary on the Romantic Czechs with whom he is here allied. Tucked in the middle, like the Suk, we hear American writer Caroline Shaw’s 2011/14 Entr’acte which takes its genesis from Haydn’s Minuet and Trio from the Op. 77 No. 2 String Quartet in F Major, the composer’s last work in the form. Why is this here? Well, it’s a sort of dance, so it has some bearing on the Bartok and the Dvorak. And when I say ‘sort of’, the connection is very tenuous; but not everything has to conform to a standard, does it? Tickets are going for between $25 and $129 with a ‘handling’ fee of $7.50 – which goes to somebody for documenting your purchase. What a pity that nothing is actually being handled but a computer.

COSI FAN TUTTE

Opera Queensland

Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre

Thursday August 10 at 7:30 pm

The least popular of the four celebrated Mozart operas, if the easiest to stage; the dramatic setting stays the same except for a change of costume. Nothing much happens, compared to the riotous action of Don Giovanni, or the fairytale surprises in The Magic Flute, or the Feydeau ins-and-outs of The Marriage of Figaro. Two idiots are tempted to test the fidelity of their women; it all turns out morally badly and I’ve seen productions where the happy reconciliation of both ethically bankrupt sets of partners is undercut by hurt rejection, no matter how jocund the Act 2 finale sounds, with its insistent claims that the happy man bella calma trovera. The two mutable young things, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, are sung by Anna Dowsley and Samantha Clarke respectively; their companions, Guglielmo and Ferrando, are taken on by Jeremy Kleeman and Brenton Spiteri. Don Alfonso will be Shaun Brown, Despina is Leanne Kenneally. The Queensland Symphony Orchestra is to be conducted by Zoe Zeniodi and the director is Patrick Nolan. It’s all great entertainment if the four main principals have interesting voices; otherwise, it can drag to the point of desperation. You can see it for between $75 and $165 with the usual $7.20 fee added on; but the concessions (Senior, Student, Child) are good value, for once.

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra

Queensland Symphony Orchestra Studio, South Bank

Friday August 11 at 7:30 pm

Peter Luff, an associate professor at this Conservatorium, is directing an ensemble in a straightforward program featuring works that these young musicians might never encounter again in their professional lives. The night begins with Haydn’s Symphony No. 92, often called the Oxford because the composer is said to have conducted it in that city while receiving an honorary doctorate. Nobody is saying for certain that this is the one but it’s got the name and its academic pseudo-provenance suits this occasion. The night’s finale is Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony which occupied the writer, on and off, for 13 years or so. In the end, Mendelssohn didn’t propose the Scottish sobriquet but you can hear enough skirling suggestions to justify the title. The work is unusual in being played without breathing spaces between its movements. Between the symphonies, bassoonist Chris Buckley fronts the Ciranda das sete notas by Villa Lobos which plays around with the C Major scale in the guise of a children’s dance. The accompaniment is for string orchestra but the woodwind soloist dominates proceedings. Tickets run between $25 and $45 but there’s no booking/handling/penalty fee attached.

REEL CLASSICS

Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre

Sunday August 13 at 11:30 am

Once again, the QSO is drawing a connection between its endeavours and those of Hollywood. We’re treated to a series of musical scores that accompany some outstanding films – and some pretty ordinary ones. But the best feature of this program is that each composer gets a single representation, so the range on offer is pretty broad. Nicholas Buc conducts and hosts. His fare begins with Monty Norman’s theme for James Bond, what you hear at the start of every film when the credits start; the online QSO literature promises ‘Music from James Bond’ but, as far as I can tell, Norman wrote only that one theme for the wavering gun barrel. Miklos Rozsa’s Parade of the Charioteers from Ben Hur will bring back memories of Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd indulging in their final romantic exchange of looks over the backs of sweating chariot horses. Next comes music from Gone with the Wind, attributed to John Barry; but it was surely written by Max Steiner – unless there’s another screen version of Mitchell’s awful novel that I’ve not come across since the 1939 original. Bernard Herrmann compiled his own suite of three sections from his soundtrack for Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Then come well-remembered images of Richard Todd leading his squadron to wash up the Ruhr dams escorted by Eric Coates’ Dam Busters March. And, while we’re on a British patriotic binge, what better than Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou’s Chariots of Fire theme; just the thing to make you want to run along a beach with a cluster of other Hooray Henries. Piling Pelion upon Ossa comes Maurice Jarre’s Overture to Lawrence of Arabia and its relentless combination of desert-longing and the responsibilities of empire. Do an about face for the Love Theme from Nino Rota for The Godfather which shows American-Italo sentimental corruption at its finest. A switchback and here comes Kenneth Alford’s Colonel Bogey March which is to the British Isles what the Radetzky March was to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was used in David Lean’s 1958 film The Bridge on the River Kwai to singular effect, a swaggering delight in a plethora of tosh – thanks, Alex Guinness. A real work by John Barry comes with his score (not all of it?) for Out of Africa; one of the better features of this tedious film. Back to the USA for an antidote to Rota’s glorification of the underworld; Henry Mancini’s Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s which celebrates fey idiocy with significant panache. Just in case you thought our own native land had been neglected, we’re treated to a rolling out of the Blue Hills Pastorale by Ronald Hanmer; not exactly film music but who needs Tina Turner belting out We Don’t Need Another Hero? Then, a return to Hollywood with John Williams’ March from Raiders of the Lost Ark – the only Indiana Jones film worth watching. Tickets are $75 to $130 with hefty discounts for children and students but the inevitable $7.20 booking swindle.

SPIRITED

Ensemble Trivium

Old Museum, Bowen Hills

Thursday August 17 at 7 pm

In this presentation, the ensemble has four participants: flute Monika Koerner, violin Anne Horton, viola Yoko Okayasu, and double bass Marian Heckenberg. You won’t find many scores that cater for all four at once, so this program is a hard-worked one, including a new composition by Brisbane’s own John Rotar. Written for flute, viola and bass, this work is called Bromeliad Dances, setting up a rush of floral visions that will probably not be realized, just as Cyril Scott’s Lotus Land disappoints (probably nothing to do with horticulture) and as the Waltz of the Flowers suggests humans more than plant life. As well, Koerner, Horton and Okayasu will present an arrangement of Kodaly’s 1920 Serenade for two violins and viola; not that there’s much re-organization involved. Also, three of the group will play Erwin Schulhoff’s Concertino for flute, viola and bass from 1925; a deft frivolity in which the flute changes to piccolo in the even-numbered of its four movements. Tickets range from $22 to $55, depending on your age and whether you buy at the door; whatever your classification, a 2% credit card fee applies, which is indicative of some performers’/venue penury but, at these prices, isn’t as bad as at nearly every other musical event in Brisbane these days.

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Queensland Symphony Orchestra Studio, South Bank

Sunday August 20 at 3 pm

Obviously, this afternoon will come to a climax with the great Schubert quartet, a score that always grips you, even if the reading proves mediocre. Here, we have associate concertmaster Alan Smith, his wife violin Jane Burroughs, viola Nicholas Tomkin, and cello Andre Duthoit. They’re all QSO members and play together in what I presume is collegial bliss; more importantly, these four musicians are members of the Adina String Quartet which has been a unit for over 17 years. Before this masterpiece, we are treated to some novelties. First comes Etienne Perruchon’s 5 Danses Dogoriennes, composed as an instance of folk art in the composer’s imagined European country of Dogora and requiring a cello and five timpani (plus three woodblocks, apparently). Then we hear a new work (as yet unnamed) by David Montgomery, the QSO’s long-time principal percussionist. Reciprocity by Texas-born low-brass master James Meador follows, in this incarnation for associate principal trombone Ashley Carter and the orchestra’s Mr. Tuba in Thomas Allely. A final duo comes with West Australian Myles Wright’s Pair Up for marimba and trombone, presumably Montgomery and Carter. Going by the prevailing ethos, you’d have to think that Montgomery’s new work is also a duo, possibly for himself and principal timpanist Tim Corkeron who’ll be on hand for the Perruchon dances. Tickets range between $30 and $55, amplified by an outrageous $7.95 ‘transaction fee’ – a charge for nothing more than having the audacity to attend this recital, it seems.

CLASSICAL CONNECTIONS

Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Queensland Symphony Orchestra Studio, South Bank

Friday August 25 at 7:30 pm

Another small-scale concert from the QSO, conducted by Umberto Clerici, this event runs for 70 minutes without interval. The first two elements of the program are divertimenti: Mozart in E flat K. 166, and Bartok Sz. 113. The first is a five-movement decet for pairs of oboes, clarinets, cors anglais, horns and bassoons and dates from the composer’s 17th year, still in Salzburg. Not much here to cause the plaudits to rain down except its characteristic polish and some unexpected melodic oddities. The Hungarian master’s Divertimento was the last work he completed in Europe and a mild-tempered construct, a more idyllic work than the composer’s previous commission from Paul Sacher and the Basel Chamber Orchestra: the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. For this reading, Clerici is calling on the complete corps of 46 QSO strings, over double the minimum that Bartok specified to handle the score. The last component of this afternoon is Haydn’s Symphony No. 45, the Farewell, where the orchestra gradually denudes itself of players in the last movement until only two violins are left playing an exquisite, moving duet. The only problem I’ve encountered with this eloquent finale is the stomping off by some players where rubber soles should have been the management’s order of the day. You can buy tickets for between $30 and $75, with the traditional QSO charge of $7.95 for paying you the courtesy of taking your money.

FRENCH CONNECTIONS

The Queensland Choir

St John’s Anglican Cathedral, Ann St.

Friday August 25

At the time of writing, only a few details are known about this event. What is certain is that the Choir will be essaying two works: Faure’s Requiem and the Te Deum in D by Charpentier. Which version of the idiosyncratic Mass for the Dead will be used – 1888, 1893, 1900 – is uncertain, as are the identities of the soprano and bass soloist. Also, we don’t know the conductor’s name, although you’d have to anticipate that it would be the Choir’s regular director, Kevin Power. The only part of the Charpentier work that is well-known is the opening Prelude, a march that is popular among organists for post-ceremony wedding music. But it involves a smaller orchestra than the Faure: four woodwind, two brass, timpani and strings (not many). Finally, there are no details about the price of tickets or whether booking fees apply. Which means everything is remarkably up in the air still, about six weeks away from the performance.

ROMANCE

Queensland Youth Symphony

Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre

Saturday August 26 at 7 pm

These youngsters will have more than a cupful of romance before this night is over. Under conductor Simon Hewett, they begin with Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe Suite No 2, basically the last third of the ballet and featuring both a sparkling vision of dawn and a bacchanale several steps more persuasive than Saint-Saens’ effort 35 years earlier. It’s a fine display piece for everyone involved with one of your great non-Debussy flute solos near the start. After interval comes the Symphony No. 2 in E minor by Rachmaninov, very popular on ABC Classic radio – they seem to give it an airing once a week. And it was a favourite of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, thanks to Hiroyuki Iwaki’s enthusiasm for the score. It’s long but, thanks to the quality of its melodic inventiveness, never tiring. Guest Lewis Blanchard – well, sort of: he’s the QYS’s principal – will front Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, presumably in the easier version of 1948/9, adapted to commissioner Benny Goodman’s technical limitations. Not so much romance here, although the first movement of the two has its own lyricism which is generally obliterated after the cadenza linking it to the Latin American dance finale. Admission ranges from $18 (student) to $45 (adult) with nothing in between, and the usual QPAC excessive charge of $7.20.