Category Archives: Live Performance

A Winter Musical Feast

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A Winter Musical Feast

 

Perth Modern School Auditorium

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn 

This was a splendid feast of fine music as, in the happiest of arts re-unions, former stalwarts of the Conservatorium of Music returned, too briefly, from their homes in Hungary, the United States and Canberra, to re-create the sort of chamber music excellence that was the norm for Perth in those halcyon days.

But the pleasure of listening to this high-level musicmaking was tempered by the realisation that shortsightedness on the part of those who directed the destiny of the Conservatorium of Music at the time deprived not only the city’s concertgoing community of an abundance of musical riches but, sadder still, Perth’s tertiary music students – our professional soloists, orchestral players and teachers of the future – of musical guidance beyond price. Certainly, since the disbanding of the Stirling String Quartet, Perth has not had a resident ensemble of this sort – and it is the poorer for it.

Dvorak’s Piano Quintet in A (to mark the centenary of the composer’s death in 1904) was given the sort of treatment that made one hope it was being recorded for posterity. Some minor blemishes aside, here was a performance in which each of the participants took up an interpretative position at the emotional and stylistic epicentre of the music. John Roberts was in magnificent form, drawing on a splendid range of tonal colourings with comparable contributions from husband-and-wife violinists Pal Eder and Erika Toth as well as Alan Bonds (viola) and Suzanne Wijsman (cello).

One of the most satisfying offerings came in a superbly assured account – for two pianos and percussion – of Gershwin’s An American in Paris. If the composer’s shade had hovered over the proceedings as pianists John and Jean Roberts in ensemble with Gary France, that portly wizard of the mallets and parping automibile horns, made an inspired way through this most idiosyncratic of American scores, it would surely have saluted artistry of the highest order. I’d gladly have listened to it all over again.

Music of a very different sort came in the form of the W.A.premiere of Perth composer Sandra France’s 3 Miniatures for Piano Trio, presented by Eder and Wijsman with Jean Roberts at the piano. This made for thoroughly agreeable listening.

Although the compositional devices and procedures resorted to – such as placing a writing pad over the strings of the piano or plucking them with the fingers – are hardly novel, the overall effect was agreeably engaging. The pieces came across as absorbing little essays about the darker emotions.

There is a violently argumentative quality to You’re Sitting on My Thoughts. The cello line in Playing in the Shadows is informed by a mood that is both sinister and melancholy, an atmosphere reinforced by eerie, high-register harmonics in ensemble with plucked piano strings. And in Stravinsky’s Book, violent pizzicati sound as if ripped from the violin and cello while the paper-damped piano strings produce a strangely spectral range of sound.

There were also miniatures for violin and piano by Tchaikowsky and Kreisler in which Eder was partnered by pianist Pauline Belviso, both breathing fresh life into these rather tired, encore-type bonbons, music that can so easily lapse into schmaltz. I’m happy to report, however, that in their use of rubato and lift to the phrase, Eder and Belviso gave us a performance of impeccable taste. As well, we heard Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E flat, K493 with Jean Roberts in top form in the important keyboard part.

Other musical delights in miniature were Koechlin’s Four Little Pieces for Horn Trio, a slight but charming quartet of musical frivolities given most pleasingly musical treatment by Darryl Poulsen (horn), Jean Roberts at the piano and Erika Toth who was visually striking in an unusual black and mauve jodhpur-style trouser suit.

Copyright Neville Cohn 2004


John Chen (piano) Perth Concert Hall

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John Chen (piano)

 

Perth Concert Hall

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

Like some absurdly young musical Caesar, the teenage John Chen, laureate of the most recent Sydney International Piano Competition and currently on a lap of honour around the country, came to Perth to play and conquer a cheering audience. And there was a great deal worth getting excited about. Because with ten fingers that can do no wrong, superb wrist flexibility and an ability to maintain the pace through some of music’s most rugged terrain, John Chen is ready to take on the world. And there is every reason to believe that beyond the confines of Australia – and New Zealand, his adopted home – this youthful pianist will have as much of a success as he has already experienced locally.

Chen was impressive in Beethoven’s Piano Sonata opus 31 no 3. A curious amalgam of grandeur and insouciance, it’s difficult to bring off convincingly. Chen certainly managed to do so. His account of the first movement had more than a dash of poetry to it – and the way he ushered in, shaped and tapered phrases in the Minuet (as well as steering a blisteringly rapid but always controlled way through the “hunt” finale) augur well for a career in one of the most ruthlessly competitive of occupations.

This young pianist’s memory is phenomenal; he seems incapable of a lapse in recall. And, hardly a shrinking violet, he can generate decibel levels to astounding effect when required. Certainly, the vigour and white-hot intensity he brought to Bartok’s savagely aggressive Sonata was a stunning achievement, reminiscent of the young Andor Foldes in full flight.

And in music of a vastly different character – but just as daunting for the technique – Chen, with astonishing virtuosity, romped through Balakirev’s Islamey. And while rather brighter notational definition at speed might have been preferable here, there is no gainsaying the extraordinary fluency that this teenager brings to the keyboard – evident again only moments later when, in response to a tidal wave of applause and a huge floral bouquet, he tossed off an astoundingly nimble account of Chopin’s Etude of the arpeggios from opus 10 as encore.

In was only in Chen’s account of two pieces from Brahms’ late period – the Romance in F opus 118 no 5 and the Rhapsody in E flat opus 119 no 4 – that one felt that, although completely within his grasp in purely physical terms, these profoundly probing pieces are still a rather distant universe in interpretative terms. But on the evidence of the rest of the program, there is every reason to believe that it is only a matter of time before these and other Brahms pieces of the period are conquered.

Earlier, we heard Ondine from Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, the fearsome difficulty of which makes it a closed book to just about every pianist other than a tiny handful who can master its appallingly difficult measures. Chen, coaxing beautifully controlled pianissimo murmurings from the instrument, played Ondine as if it had been written for him. Much the same could be said of Gordon Kerry’s Figured in the Drift of Stars, composed specifically as a test piece for the Sydney Competition. With Chen as its champion, this scintillating work is likely to find its way into the repertoire of other heroic pianists.

Copyright 2004 Neville Cohn


Keyed-Up series Stephanie McCallum (piano)

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Keyed-Up series
Stephanie McCallum (piano)

 

 

Octagon Theatre

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

 

Reclusive, eccentric French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan departed this life in a way that was as dramatic and noisy as much of his music. Trying to prise a book from a high shelf, he brought the bookcase, laden with volumes, down upon him. Exit Alkan.

His music is often so terrifyingly difficult that hardly anyone can play it. And of that small band of intrepid pianists, fewer still are game enough to play it in public.

Australian pianist Stephanie McCallum belongs to that tiny group of virtuosos. She devoted the first half of her program to a single work – Alkan’s massive Symphony for Solo Piano.

From the opening measures, McCallum established her credentials as an Alkan interpreter of distinction. She
sounded entirely in her element, not least in the finale with its powerful demonic quality. Here, she maintained a blistering pace as she marshalled floodtides of notes and focussed fiercely on keeping on track as she powered to a triumphant end, for all the world like some musical Michael Schumacher. True, at the height of some of the many climaxes that dot the score, one would have hoped for rather greater tonal power but this detracted only minimally from overall listening pleasure.

Earlier in the work, McCallum essayed the funeral march impressively, its stark, pared-down figurations evoking images of naked branches of elms in mid-winter. Here, her left hand was exceptionally articulate. The Minuet was given rich-toned treatment.

McCallum scaled the heights once more in Saint Saens’ Toccata, based on a theme from his Egyptian Piano Concerto. Here, her hands moved up and down the keyboard as nonchalantly as if she were dusting the furniture as she near-flawlessly outlined intricate, high-treble traceries. It was an astonishing achievement.

In three of Liszt’s responses to Petrarch sonnets, she explored the composer’s idiosyncratic inner world in a largely satisfying way even if, in purely notational terms, the presentation was not entirely without error.

Copyright Neville Cohn 2004


Duo Sol & Li-Wei Perth Concert Hall

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Duo Sol & Li-Wei

 

Perth Concert Hall

reviewed by Neville Cohn 

As we have seen in saturation coverage of the Olympic Games, teamwork is (almost) everything. And that applies to music as well. Certainly insofar as cellist Li-Wei and the musicians of Duo Sol – pianist Caroline Almonte and violinist Miki Tsunoda – are concerned, their ability to work as a team deserves gold medals and laurel crowns. In fact, what these youthful, dazzlingly gifted three do NOT know about teamwork – and a good deal besides in music terms – would not cover the tiniest laurel leaf.

Li-Wei was born in Shanghai and came to Australia when he was thirteen years old. Since his sensational win as 1993 ABC Young Performer of the Year, he has gone on to an international career. And since the earliest of Duo Sol’s recordings came on the market, it was clear that these two players had way-above-average rapport in performance.

This was the first time I have heard these musicians as a trio. I have no idea whether they intend to continue working as an ensemble. I sincerely hope they do because, on the evidence of an astonishingly fine account of Dvorak’s Dumky Trio, it is clear that their musical chemistry borders on the exceptional.

Even the most casual follower of chamber music is likely to be familiar with the Dumky work; there are dozens of recordings of it on the market and it is one of the most commonly broadcast of chamber works. But if there were any oh-not-again thoughts as the three launched into the work, they would have evaporated almost immediately as the opening measures were played with a heart-stopping beauty. And as violinist and cellist, their bows dipped deep in the stuff of high inspiration – and Almonte at her winning best at the keyboard – soared through to a medal-winning finale, it proved to be one of the most satisfying accounts of the work I’ve listened to in ages.

On the way, each of Dvorak’s six exquisite takes on the Dumky, a type of Ukrainian folk music that became widely adopted in Slavonic countries and raised to sublime level by Dvorak, was presented with an artistry that was extraordinary, not least for rhythmic ebb and flow of the subtlest sort as the music oscillated between passion and a deep melancholy. Not even ear-grating outbursts of coughing and throat clearing from the audience inbetween its many movements could lessen the pleasure that this splendid offering provided.

Li-Wei plays a 1721 filius Andreae Guarneri cello (on loan from the Australia Council) as if it was an extension of his musical persona. He is entirely worthy of this magnificent instrument which, in his hands, sang with a singularly seductive sonority. It – and Li-Wei’s musicianship – were heard to stunning effect in a work new to me – Brett Dean’s Huntington Elegy, an opus in three movements , one of which is a threnody for Jason Brodie, a young winemaker taken by cancer.

Some of music’s most profound moments have been triggered by the passing of a friend – as here – or the death of a group as in Dennis Eberhard’s Shadow of the Swan, written in memory of the doomed crew of the Russian submarine Kursk. Dean’s touching music memorial found exponents of exceptional merit in Li-Wei and pianist Almonte who drew from a deep well of expressiveness to convey musical ideas that sounded the quintessence of bereavement.

Its impact was all the greater, coming as it did after a curious episode called Swarming, an evocation of a gathering of bees for which a cello happens to be ideal with Li-Wei drawing from it a range of murmurings and buzzings that uncannily resembled those of the tiny pollen gatherers; it provided one of the evening’s more unusual moments.

The Nightsky movement was less persuasive with rather tired compositional devices such as requiring the pianist to pluck piano strings with her fingers or tap them with a soft-headed mallet, effects which, in the event, sounded so tonally self-effacing (when listened to from a seat in the 17th row) as to be all but inaudible.

There was also a rare airing of Richard Strauss’ massive Sonata for violin and piano. It’s fun to play Spot the Composer here. Strauss liked to borow bits and pieces from other people’s music and those with keen ears might have noticed thudding repeated notes in the middle of the slow movements which are a sly crib of Schubert’s famous Erl King lied – and there’s a snatch of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, too, as well as a hint of Wagner’s Tristan. More importantly, this youthful work is a trailer for the magic that was to pour from the mature Strass’ pen. Throughout, the duo seemed to relish coming to grips with music that is often cruelly demanding. Much of it needs to be played at white hot intensity – and that is exactly what Tsunoda (in a stunning crimson gown) and Almonte gave us.

This was one of Music Viva’s most fascinating presentations this year.

Copyright Neville Cohn 2004


FAUST (Gounod) W.A.Opera Company and Chorus W.A.Symphony Orchestra

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FAUST (Gounod)

W.A.Opera Company and Chorus
W.A.Symphony Orchestra
His Majesty’s Theatre

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn 

 

 

What elevates this production of Gounod’s Faust to a special category of excellence is its unequivocal and powerful anti-war message. Of many presentations of Faust encountered over the decades, most of them significant in one way or another, not one – until now – has so effectively conveyed the madness of armed conflict. In every other production I’ve seen, the Soldiers’ Chorus scene, that most instantly recognisable of all Faust excerpts, has featured in an unambiguously celebratory way with flags fluttering, soldiers proudly marching and sweethearts and parents jovial, proud and smiling.

This has become an operatic cliché, that is to say, until this production which sweeps away this jingoistic hokum, a patently false notion of war as fun. Instead, we’re given a stunningly different dramatic statement. Here we see disfigured and dying soldiery, the maimed on crutches, some on stretchers, others pasty-faced, shell-shocked, blankly staring. It made for powerful viewing and listening (not that it’s ever likely to stop old men with too much power sending young men – and now women – to often pointless deaths).

Also memorable was that other crucial episode in which the devil reveals his Achilles heel, cowering as dark-clad choristers show him the sign of the cross as they sing the Chorale of the Swords.

Bruce Martin was a good choice as the Devil; he has cornered the local market insofar as diabolical types are concerned. And here, his sardonic, leering presence (with his improbable retinue of muscle men in Arabian Nights-style garb) could hardly be faulted.

Keith Lewis was unfailingly expressive in the eponymous role although occasionally his voice let him down with a cracked note her and there high on the register. But in visual terms, he appeared far too youthful in the opening scene. Faust, after all, is a very old man with fading libido, contemplating suicide, when he has his satanic encounter and, in what turns out to be a very poor bargain, sells his soul in return for youth and women.

In this production, though, he seemed, to begin with, little more than middle-aged, neither grey-haired nor balding as one would expect of someone nearing the end of life. And removing his spectacles for his transformtion did almost nothing to make him look any younger.

His scene in which Faust stabs Valentin, Marguerite’s brother, to death – his knife guided by the devil – came across powerfully, even more so because – in a rare departure from the norm – Siebel, too, is fatally knifed by Faust.

For much of the evening, Elisa Wilson, as Marguerite, shaped to the demands of her role like wine to a goblet. Sounding more vocally assured than I can readily recall in some time, she was, variously, modest, coquettish and – pregnant with Faust’s bastard child – deranged.

This latter incarnation, though vocally persuasive, bordered on melodrama, Marguerite’s pasty white face more appropriate for, say, a distressed heroine in some 1917-era silent movie; it was over the top. But there was compensation in her aria about the King of Thule; it was altogether pleasing.

And the descent to Hell, in a clinch, of Faust and Mephistopheles was, visually, a moment of such inconsequence as to almost entirely drain it of dramatic force. Unusually, the closing scene, traditionally set in a prison, was an insane asylum. And instead of Marguerite’s soul being seen to be borne aloft by angels, as Gounod envisaged it, we see her dying against a tableau of asylum inmates gesturing heavenwards and watched by two nuns who charmingly keep their charges under control by bashing them with wooden clubs.

There was some inspired casting in smaller roles. Fiona Campbell, unrecognisable as Siebel, the young man charged with protecting Marguerite, was, as ever, in glorious voice. (Why is this exceptional singer not heard in more substantial roles?). Also a delight was Sarah-Janet Dougiamas as Marguerite’s neighbour Marthe Schwerlein. Every note and gesture was here made meaningful; she, too, is a singer to watch. Mark Alderson as Wagner and Lucas de Jong as Valentin made the most of minor roles.

In this Olympic season, it was conductor Stephen Barlow who thoroughly deserved a laurel crown, drawing from a reduced W.A.Symphony Orchestra in the pit, some of the most persuasive accompaniments I can recall hearing at an opera at His Majesty’s Theatre. Strings sounded gratifyingly fine and oboist Joel Marangella and Alan Meyer (clarinet) provided outstanding contributions.

There were any number of imaginative directorial touches such as placing the chorus under umbrellas with what was presumably the pre-recorded sound of rain heard in the background. Dressing the chorus in dark blue or black was an inspiration, adding memorably to the brooding, oppressive nature of much of the opera. But most unusually for a WAOC production, the chorus was not always quite synchronised with the accompanying orchestra.

I admired Matthew Barclay’s choreography which, unlike most dance presentations in Faust, was cleverly woven into, rather than gratuitously imposed on, the action. Shane Collard, with clean line and strong presence, shows much promise.

John Gunter designed the sets, that of Act 1 – Faust’s study – cluttered with the detritus of a scholarly life, a place clearly foreign to any cleaning lady’s ministrations. Nigel Levings’ lighting design splendidly underscored the prevailing mood of the moment.

Copyright Neville Cohn 2004