Category Archives: Live Performance

Christopher Herrick (organ)

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St George’s Cathedral

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

Perhaps it was the unusual recital time – a Saturday at 5:30pm – that kept concertgoers away. It was their loss because Herrick is no run-of-the-mill organist. In fact, his CD recordings sell by the bushel which, if his offerings at St George’s Cathedral are anything to go by, is hardly surprising. Because Herrick is to the organ what Horowitz is to the piano – a phenomenal virtuoso. This was exemplified in his account of Liszt’s Fantasia and Fugue on a theme of Meyerbeer.

All the drama and dazzle inherent in the work came through in the most powerful and satisfying way with finger and foot in absolute accord. Certainly, momentum was scrupulously maintained during even the most gruelling of episodes. By even the strictest of critical criteria, this was a performance worth getting excited about.

But there’s far more to Herrick’s skill at the organ than the ability to perform as a console athlete. He’s a musician to the fingertips – and toes, for that matter (his pedalling is phenomenally secure) – and this was specially evident in his account of Bach’s Trio Sonata No 6 in G which unfolded in the most musically logical way, wondrously buoyant in the opening Vivace and quietly eloquent in the central Lento.

There was a rarity, certainly for Perth: Chelsea Fayre by the quaintly named Reginald Goss-Custard. This was a disappointing curtain raiser, with finger and foot not always in accord, resulting in an unfortunate rhythmic waywardness. But Herrick, who was for a number of years, organist to London’s Westminster Abbey, retrieved the initiative in Edwin Lemare’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, a glittering crowd pleaser if there ever was one. And Franck’s Cantabile was an expressively considered essay in introspection.

This recital was tantalisingly brief. Certainly, one would have liked to hear more Bach not least because Herrick’s reputation rests so much on his performances of the Master’s music and the numerous recordings of the Bach oeuvre he has made for the Hyperion label.

© Neville Cohn 2005


Ewa Kupiec (piano)

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W.A.Symphony Orchestra

 

Perth Concert Hall

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

WASO performances usually start on time. Friday – the 13th! – was an exception, and understandably so, with many concertgoers and orchestra players south of the river having problems getting to the Concert Hall after a burst main pipe caused havoc and umpteen missed appointments with motorists banked up for kilometres on Kwinana Freeway. It was well worth the wait, though, for one of the year’s most formidably challenging programs.

Vladimir Verbitsky presided over an often thrilling account of Prokofiev’s cantata Alexander Nevsky, one of Russia’s great military figures who, in 1242, led a small army that routed invading Teutonic knights. Sergei Eisenstein, the famed Russian movie director, immortalised that event on celluloid almost 700 years later. Prokofiev wrote the movie score, later re-working it for concert use – and that is what we heard on Friday.

In a stunning account by the WASO and WASO Chorus, the latter sang with consistent musicality and attractive tonal colourings that could hardly have been bettered. Tenors were in splendid form. So, too, was the brass choir, impressive at massive climaxes; lower strings produced a uniformly dark tonal sheen. The percussionists, too, were on their toes in the section depicting the battle on an ice-covered lake. Here, Verbitsky, clearly in his element, secured a dramatic response that inflamed the imagination. And mezzo Elizabeth Campbell did well as the peasant girl lamenting the Russian dead.

More splendour was provided by Ewa Kupiec in the first Perth performance of Lutoslawski’s PIano Concerto, a work which despite its recent vintage (1988), looks back almost as much as it does forward. Very early in the work, we hear measures that irresistibly remind one of Bartok’s trademark ‘night music’ with its scurryings and sqeaks, there are fleeting obeisances to Stravinsky as well as allusions to Rachmaninov’s schmaltzy romanticisim. There are some arid moments, too, where the music chatters away without saying very much.

It’s a daunting challenge for the soloist and Ewa Kupiec made an impressively authoritative way through this fearsomely demanding obstacle course with a digital agility and staying power that mark her as a pianist of the first rank.

Whether executing little miracles of nimbleness in the high treble register or summoning up massive waves of sound, Kupiec was convincingly in control.

Verbitsky also presided over Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead in a way that brought the composer’s brooding, sombre work memorably to life, if one could use such a word for a
symphonic utterance so uncompromisingly focussed on death. From its initial rocking motif until its closing moments, the WASO was very much on its collective toes with horns and trombones, in particular, making a contribution of sterling worth, underscoring, as they did, the gut- wrenching intensity of much of the writing.

This was only the second time that The Isle of the Dead has been programmed by the WASO.

© 2005 Neville Cohn


Ewa Kupiec (piano)

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W.A.Symphony Orchestra

Perth Concert Hall

reviewed by Neville Cohn

WASO performances usually start on time. Friday – the 13th! – was an exception, and understandably so, with many concertgoers and orchestra players south of the river having problems getting to the Concert Hall after a burst main pipe caused havoc and umpteen missed appointments with motorists banked up for kilometres on Kwinana Freeway. It was well worth the wait, though, for one of the year’s most formidably challenging programs.

Vladimir Verbitsky presided over an often thrilling account of Prokofiev’s cantata Alexander Nevsky, one of Russia’s great military figures who, in 1242, led a small army that routed invading Teutonic knights. Sergei Eisenstein, the famed Russian movie director, immortalised that event on celluloid almost 700 years later. Prokofiev wrote the movie score, later re-working it for concert use – and that is what we heard on Friday.

In a stunning account by the WASO and WASO Chorus, the latter sang with consistent musicality and attractive tonal colourings that could hardly have been bettered. Tenors were in splendid form. So, too, was the brass choir, impressive at massive climaxes; lower strings produced a uniformly dark tonal sheen. The percussionists, too, were on their toes in the section depicting the battle on an ice-covered lake. Here, Verbitsky, clearly in his element, secured a dramatic response that inflamed the imagination. And mezzo Elizabeth Campbell did well as the peasant girl lamenting the Russian dead.

More splendour was provided by Ewa Kupiec in the first Perth performance of Lutoslawski’s PIano Concerto, a work which despite its recent vintage (1988), looks back almost as much as it does forward. Very early in the work, we hear measures that irresistibly remind one of Bartok’s trademark ‘night music’ with its scurryings and sqeaks, there are fleeting obeisances to Stravinsky as well as allusions to Rachmaninov’s schmaltzy romanticisim. There are some arid moments, too, where the music chatters away without saying very much.

It’s a daunting challenge for the soloist and Ewa Kupiec made an impressively authoritative way through this fearsomely demanding obstacle course with a digital agility and staying power that mark her as a pianist of the first rank.

Whether executing little miracles of nimbleness in the high treble register or summoning up massive waves of sound, Kupiec was convincingly in control.

Verbitsky also presided over Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead in a way that brought the composer’s brooding, sombre work memorably to life, if one could use such a word for a

symphonic utterance so uncompromisingly focussed on death. From its initial rocking motif until its closing moments, the WASO was very much on its collective toes with horns and trombones, in particular, making a contribution of sterling worth, underscoring, as they did, the gut- wrenching intensity of much of the writing.

This was only the second time that The Isle of the Dead has been programmed by the WASO.

© 2005 Neville Cohn


Vincent Dubois (organ)

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Winthrop Hall

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

At a concert jointly sponsored by Alliance Francaise de Perth and The Australian Goethe Society, visiting French musician Vincent Dubois presented one of the most accomplished organ recitals the city has heard in some time.

Dubois, who played a formidably taxing program entirely from memory, a rare feat insofar as concert organists are concerned, left one in no doubt that he had come to Winthrop Hall with something significant to say in musical terms.

Dubois’ remarkable physical control of the medium was not immediately apparent in Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in B minor which for some of the time sounded effortful and bordered on the prosaic. But in Liszt’s Prelude and Fugue on B.A.C.H., Dubois stormed Olympus in a dazzling display of virtuosity. Stylistically beyond reproach and clearly up to the excruciatingly difficult demands of the music, Dubois, like some organistic Zeus, hurled great blocks of sound into the hall while maintaining absolute control of finger and foot.

I particularly admired the controlled skill he brought to the building of climaxes and the positive relish with which he negotiated the extravagant chromaticisms of the writing. This was playing in the grandest of grand manners. What a shame that the very real pleasure of listening to such mastery was lessened by thoughtless latecomers whose noisy footsteps were a desecration of Dubois’ artistry.

In Durufle’s Prelude e fugue sur le nom d’A.L.A.I.N., brought to his playing a lucidity and cogency that were beyond reproach. I especially admired the rapidity, fluency and accuracy that made Dubois’ account of the Prelude memorable.

Organists are now virtually the only classical stronghold of the almost forgotten art of improvisation. It would have been worth attending this recital if only to experience Duboi’s phenomenal gifts in this direction. Looking for mere seconds at a theme provided by Anthony Maydwell, Dubois brought this listener to the edge of his seat with the brilliance of his extemporisation. In the nature of things, critics seldom have recourse to the word superb with tis connotations of exalted splendour – but it was entirely appropriate in this context.

Copyright 2004 Neville Cohn


Don Giovanni (Mozart)

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W.A.Opera Company

 

His Majesty’s Theatre

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

In recent years, there has been a remarkable flowering of vocal talent in Western Australia and evidence of this was glowingly apparent in a production of Mozart’s timeless masterpiece which opened to a capacity house for a short season on Tuesday.

A trio of young female singers brought more than a touch of distinction to a production that was as easy on the eye
as the ear.

Rachelle Durkin, with the benefit of experience recently gained in New York, improves with every appearance. Admirably secure at all points of the range – and producing a stream of finely pitched sound that projected effortlessly into the auditorium – this soprano gave incontrovertible evidence of dramatic ability which must surely silence those doubters who, at one time or another, have suggested that Durkin is largely limited to comic roles.

True, she has a marked affinity for comedy but it became abundantly clear in her performance as Donna Anna that Durkin has the ability to adapt chameleon-like to the subtle darkness of the role of a woman profoundly wronged by the caddish Don. Her burning desire for vengeance – the Don has killed her father in a duel heavily weighted in favour of the appalling philanderer – was most impressively conveyed in an in-depth portrayal that augurs well for a career in one of music’s most toughly competitive areas.

Durkin was a sumptuously gowned figure as was Caitlin Hulcup, as Donna Elvira, a vision in scarlet as she made her first entrance alighting from a sedan chair. I cannot recall hearing this young mezzo soprano to better advantage. Her astonishment that metamorphoses to fury as the Don’s modus operandi as a human tomcat on heat becomes apparent was as convincing as her steadily increasing vocal control. She, too, brought strong stage presence to the production.

As well, soprano Penelope Reynolds, who scored a great success earlier this year as Papagena at an open air performance of The Magic Flute, did well as Zerlina, the simple country maiden torn between her love for Masetto (Peter Axford) and the difficult-to-resist charms of the wily Don.

Nothing so emphasises the worth of the WAOC’s Young Artist Programme as the quality, in this production, of up-and-coming singers who have taken part in the Programme.

From his first entrance, sans trousers, as he climbs a ladder to get into Donna Anna’s bedroom, Douglas McNicol was the Don to a ‘t’. Lecherous, constantly on the make, callously indifferent to anyone’s feelings other than his own, McNicol conveyed all these characteristics through a gesture here, a knowing, come-hither smile there, as well as a voice that impressed at every turn.

As the long suffering Leporello, the Don’s hapless manservant, Conal Coad milked the role for most of its comic potential, notably in the famous ‘catalogue aria’ which he seemed positively to relish singing. In the famous aria where Leporello lists his master’s innumerable conquests, Coad was in excellent fettle as were the rushing strings of the accompanying orchestra.

There was some first rate ensemble singing: La ci darem la mano, that most famous of Mozartean duets, was touchingly essayed by Penelope Reynolds and McNicol – and there was more agreeable ensemble singing later in Protegga, il giusto cielo. Here, Anna, Elvira and Don Ottavio call for divine help to bring the lecherous Don Giovanni to book. Ottavio was sung with care and pleasing tone by Paul O’Neill.

On-stage action was finely lit by Nigel Levings.

Harpsichord accompaniments to the recitatives were a consistently stylish offering from Marilyn Phillips.

Simon Kenway presided over a reduced W.A. Symphony Orchestra which, for the most part, played with a will in the pit of HMT. Occasionally, though, synchronisation between orchestra and singers was less than ideal.

This Don Giovanni was made the more engrossing due to the skill with which director Julie Edwardson has contrasted the darker and the comic dimensions of the opera. It is an unusually well balanced production – and all the more satisfying for that. Bravo!

© 2005