Stephanie McCallum (piano)

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stephanie_mccallum_photo 

 

 

Octagon Theatre

 

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

 

 

 

It would be unreasonable and manifestly unfair to expect an absolutely unwavering standard of excellence from any musician, even the most experienced and committed. In the nature of things, any performer can have an off-day. And this an overriding impression of Stephanie McCallum’s recital in UWA’s Keyed-Up recital series at the weekend.

 

Let it be said at once that Ms McCallum is one of the brightest and most enduring stars on the Australia’s fine music scene. She has numbers of well-received compact discs and a formidable list of live concert successes to her credit.

 

McCallum’s program for the Keyed-Up series incorporated the complete set of Beethoven’s Bagatelles opus 33 which she recently committed to compact disc – and it was one of the most positive highlights of the evening, with care lavished on minute detail. These seven miniatures, lovingly fashioned, came across like a chaplet of finely facetted gemstones.

 

I particularly liked Roger Smalley’s Morceau de concours. In McCallum’s hands, it came across as one of the composer’s more approachable offerings, a study in tonal levels, with an abundance of subtle sonic shifts and much trilling – a technically formidable piece which was commissioned as a compulsory item for those taking part in a recent Sydney International Piano Competition.

 

Schumann’s Fantasie in C, one of the composer’s most passionate utterances, was given a frankly disappointing, very uneven, performance with scatterings of inaccuracies and moments when momentum faltered as the soloist, playing from the score, seemed to be searching for notes.

 

In Liszt’s Ballade No 2, too, McCallum’s performance was marred at times by a less-than-total engagement with the music, with error-strewn moments that lay cheek by jowl with episodes in which there was a thrillingly virtuosic identification with the score. Yet more Liszt was no less uneven. Wilde Jagd is not for timid pianists and, on past form, one would have expected McCallum to take its hurdles in her stride but, as in the Ballade, the playing was uneven.


Los Tres Rios (The Three Rivers): Lorca in New York

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Downstairs at the Maj

His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth

 

reviewed by Jo Donnellan

*

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), poet, playwright and musician, wrote:

 All the Arts are capable of possessing duende, but naturally the field is

 widest in music, in dance, and in spoken poetry, because they require

 as interpreter a living body.

(Duende: the creative magic flowing from the very core of the soul).

Five musicians and four dancers brought their living interpretations to the intimate downstairs cabaret theatre of His Majesty’s in a programme reflecting on Lorca and his experiences in New York.

The programme interwove traditional songs of Spain, that Lorca collected and arranged for piano and voice, between dances and instrumental items. Thus the three rivers to which the title refers: music, dance and the spoken word, flowed through the evening.

With two exceptions, all dance offerings were of the introspective cante jondo, ‘deep song’ flamenco genre which was of great significance for Lorca. Choreographies by José Torres and Antonio Vargas were arranged by Deanna Blacher.

A sombre opening: four beautiful women in dark tailored trousers, bare-armed in waistcoats, smooth hair unadorned, seated on wooden chairs on a dimly-lit stage, clapping in bulerias rhythm to flamenco guitar and percussion accompaniment. With piano accompanying the mezzo-soprano in a love song Los Cuatro Muleros, the dancers rose one by one and began moving to the twelve-beat rhythm, building atmosphere by the peremptory tattoo of their feet on the resonant floor and by the supple weaving of their arms.

Torres’ Solea por bulerias followed. The name of the dance comes from the word soledad, translating approximately as solitude. Invented by a male, the quality of this dance was reflected in Ashanti Suriyam’s intense, almost aggressive, expression. Tension was created by the arms moving as though against the resistance of a weight of water. Danielle Ricercato’s exquisitely flared fingertips gave an aching quality to the filigrana, the delicate folding and unfolding of the fingers. Sofia Pradera’s expressive eyes conveyed a poignant mood.

Nola Formentin came into her own in two light-hearted songs, Las Tres Hojas and Las Morillas de Jaen. Her confident, disarming stage presence underpinned the dark timbre and clear top notes of her voice. Neville Cohn, every inch the storyteller with his cloud of white hair and confiding manner, explained the origins of the songs and paid tribute to Lorca’s pianistic and compositional skills. Cohn’s piano accompaniment supported the singer without dominating proceedings.

There followed a charmingly feminine rendition of Dos Muchachas, ‘two friends’. The classic tall blonde Ricercato, as Amparo, sat at her embroidery whilst the servant Lola, played by Karen Henderson, mimed the washing of linen. The two danced together, separated by wealth and class but united in their longing for ‘love in the orange grove’; the whole evoking a rustic, wistful, sensuous atmosphere.

José Giraldo (flamenco guitar) and Marcus Perrozzi on percussion displayed their skill and verve, elaborating on the theme from the film Orfeo Negro, set in the Carnevale of Rio de Janiero. Perrozzi brought brio to his engagement with many different drums. Giraldo announced the plaintive melody and embroidered the variations with masterful restraint and sureness.

In 1929, Lorca seized the chance to travel to New York. Arriving with barely a word of English, the Wall Street crash in progress, his first experiences were daunting. Then he discovered Harlem with its negro spirituals (now called gospel songs), blues and jazz music, the diverse population, the accepting atmosphere: here was nourishment for his wounded soul.

Ashanti Suriyam choreographed the tap dance in Harlem Surprise, her evocation of that sector of New York in 1929. There were several surprises. First, the pianist entered carrying a trombone. Formentin, a plain wool poncho in place of her opulent Spanish shawl, rendered with great sincerity a moving spiritual. Suriyam, in a short orange dress, exploded onto the stage, tapping frenetically with Ricercato, Henderson and Pradera playing hand-held percussion including the tambourine. Inviting the (by now mellow) audience to clap along was a risky ploy. Surprise of surprises, the substantial Perrozzi proved to be a light-footed and accomplished tap-dancer as the singer demonstrated her versatility, playing trombone in the exuberant final ensemble.

Torres’ Tientos por Tangos opened the second half. The four dancers wore the long, flounced skirt with train, the bata de cola, so graceful and so fiendish to manage convincingly. Richly embroidered silks enfolded their svelte torsos. Henderson’s beautifully poised head and seemingly boneless arms combined compellingly with the incisiveness of her foot percussion. The dance evolved into a Tangos, the lighter mood embodied in the final turn and sassy flick of their skirts.

A classic flamenco solea followed for guitar and cajon, the simple wooden box capable of so many subtleties of sound while doubling as a seat. Giraldo’s distinguished appearance, his strong fingers plying the guitar strings, brought us a sense of his native Madrid.

Next a song, En el Café de Chinitas, of two brothers vying with each other for courage and skill in the bullfight. There followed the Sevillanas del Siglo XVIII, the regional dance of Seville as performed in the eighteenth century. Accompanied by piano and song and by their castanets, Henderson and Pradera drew on their ballet backgrounds in this energetic version with its high extensions, springs and turns. Dressed in bouffant orange costumes and ballet slippers, they embodied lightness and joy. The pianist set a stinging pace, challenging the dancers’ timeliness towards the end.

The contrasting couple, Neville Cohn and Deanna Blacher, provided an electrifying tribute to Lorca’s friend and colleague the famous dancer La Argentina, with Albeniz’ Cordoba and de Falla’s Andaluza. The pianist, dressed in quiet blacks, facing away from the audience, began the flowing introduction, drawing with apparent ease handfuls of lyrical melody from the piano. With contained dignity, resplendent in Spanish costume, Blacher carefully adjusted her castanets and took up her pose. The authority of her opening dry trill caught the audience mid-sentence. From then, not a sound was heard but the magic of the combination: music distilled from Moorish, Sephardic and gypsy heritage, rendered on these two contrasting instruments with consummate skill and feeling.

It is not possible to play melody on castanets; the right hand is tuned a little higher than the left, that is all. Blacher used graceful sweeping movements of the arms and subtle changes of pose to complement the melody. In doing so, she added a further layer of virtuosity, as the fingers must adjust to the changing orientation of the castanet shells as the arms move.

In festive floral costumes and flourishing large fringed shawls, the dancers showed their individuality and beauty in Vargas’ Tarantos por Tangos, Henderson opening with a cascade of rapid perfect chaîné turns. Skilful arrangement provided episodes of activity and quiescence rather than a continuous barrage, giving each dancer her moments of prominence.

The traditional bulerias finale in ebullient party mood gave the dancers an opportunity to let their hair down a little with their own improvised solo spots.

Flamenco is an evolving art, capable of a range of expression, from the rawest primitive heartsong to the polished cabaret entertainment seen here. The four young dancers are in command of their technique and stagecraft. They are exploring their individual essence, that which transcends technique. Producer and director Deanna Blacher allowed them a degree of autonomy in this production. Judging by audience response, her confidence was not misplaced.

*           *           *


W.A.Symphony Orchestra

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Perth Concert Hall

 

 

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

gavrylyuk-2008-3

Both Felix Mendelssohn and the TB-riddled Frederic Chopin tumbled off the twig before they turned 40. But they were mighty quick off the starting block. As teenagers, they both scaled Olympus: Mendelssohn’s Octet, heard here only the other day, was written at 16 – and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 was completed when he was a mere19.

 

Alexander Gavrylyuk, no slouch himself – he won the Horowitz International Piano Competition when he was all of 15 years old – dazzled in music by both  Chopin and Mendelssohn at the Concert Hall at the weekend.

 

His account of the Chopin concerto was a marvel of musicianship: an imperious opening statement which gave way to wondrously expansive treatment of much of the opening movement. The nocturne-like slow movement was a model of refined expressiveness – and in the finale, fearless, infallible fingers wrought wonders in articulating the concerto’s villainously intricate solo part.

 

An audience that filled stalls, galleries and choir stalls to near-capacity could not contain its enthusiasm and burst into wild applause before the final bars of the concerto were played – unprecedented at a Master Series concert.

 

There was a sensational response with Gavrylyuk essaying Vladimir Horowitz’s horrendously demanding arrangement of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Here, those oh-so-familiar phrases were re-visited with such grandeur and brilliance that many in the audience rose spontaneously to their feet in acknowledgment of such pianistic wizardry. What a wonderful contribution towards this bicentenary year of Mendelssohn’s birth in 1809.

 

As curtain raiser, we heard a smartly detailed account of the overture to Rossini’s opera The Italian Girl in Algiers and, after the interval, Schubert’s Symphony No 9, known as The Great.

 

Of considerable length, the Ninth, in the wrong hands, can so easily sound  interminable. There was not a hint of that in Oleg Caetani’s direction of the piece. Clearly identifying closely with the score, which he conducted from memory, Caetani set and maintained tempi that ensured buoyancy of momentum. Occasionally, there was a need for the brass section to rein in its muscle-flexing to provide a more tonally discreet contribution – but this is a minor reservation about an interpretation made meaningful by close attention to detail without losing sight of the grand sweep of the work.


overview of 2008 music in Perth

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by Neville Cohn

 

 

 

Perth, in world terms, may be a small city remote from the main highways of the international concert circuit but it certainly punches above its weight insofar as the range and vitality of its music life is concerned.

 

Many a much larger city would have been proud to host the equivalent of Perth’s tribute to the music of Olivier Messiaen, the centenary of whose birth in 1908 has been celebrated worldwide. Early in the year, Michael Kieran Harvey devoted three recitals over two days to the master’s complete Catalogue of the Birds based on the composer’s vast understanding of birdsong – with linking commentary by conservationist Martin Copley. Later in the year, we heard a first rate account of Messiaen’s youthful Les Offrandes oubliees  played by an on-form West Australian Symphony Orchestra. As well, Simone Young presided over an unforgettably magnificent interpretation of L’Ascension.

 

It was good year for pianists, especially Yefim  Bronfman, that prince of the piano, in turn magisterial and scintillating in Rachmaninv’s Concerto No3 in D minor – and Piers Lane marked the centenary of the birth of famed Oz pianist Eileen Joyce with a program of music that often featured in Joyce’s recitals. Sydney International Piano Competition winner Konstantin Shamray did a lap of honour around the country. His Perth recital was memorable for a profoundly meaningful account of Liszt’s  arrangement of the Liebestod  from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.

 

Victor Sangiorgio brought refined musicianship and impeccable fingerwork to sonatas by Cimarosa  as did Angela Hewitt to Bach’s massive 48 Preludes and Fugues over two recitals.

 

Joseph Nolan brought impressive virtuosity to two organ programs at St George’s Cathedral.

 

Dimitri Ashkenazy (son of the more famous Vladimir) was a matchless soloist with the WASO in Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto. Brahms’ Double Concerto was given a thrillingly passionate reading by the ACO with soloists Richard Tognetti (violin) and Tino-Veikko Valve (cello). Youthful soloists – Rebecca White (violin), Rachel Silver (cello) and Zen Zeng  (piano) – were impressive in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra conducted by Daniel Kossov. James Ehness’  artistry on the violin was wasted on Bernstein’s rubbishy Serenade. Natalie Clein’s account of Elgar’s Cello Concerto set the loftiest of standards by which all other performances of this concerto should now be judged.

 

Easily the most satisfying accounts of  symphonies in 2008 were Alex Briger’s direction of Tchaikowsky’s Fifth, taking the WASO through a reading that brought one face to face with the composer. Another work by the Russian master – the Manfred Symphony – was tailor-made for Vladimir Verbitsky who seemed positively to revel in its massive sonic onslaughts. And in Sibelius’ Symphony no 1, Paul Daniel sounded in his element; it augurs well for his tenure as principal conductor of the WASO. Tadaaki Otaka’s direction of the overture to Wagner’s Tannhauser and the Venusberg Music, on the other hand, was a disappointment, one of the WASO’s few dull patches this year.

 

Graeme Murphy’s production of Verdi’s Aida was lavishly mounted at His Majesty’s Theatre. I cannot recall a more visually spectacular offering at this venue in 25 years – although the stage was simply not big enough to comfortably accommodate the vast cast. Aivale Cole was memorable in the eponymous role – and hardly less impressive earlier in the year as Helmwige in a concert version of Act I II of  Wagner’s  The Valkyries. Here, among others, Lisa Gasteen as Brunnhilde and Fiona Campbell as Grimgerde  cumulatively generated the decibel levels necessary to blast a way through a huge orchestra at the Concert Hall. In The Magic Flute, Aldo di Toro was splendidly cast as Prince Tamino – it was one of the year’s best opera portrayals. At the other end of the size scale was the WAAPA production of Robert Ward’s The Crucible. This Australian premier season revealed a work almost entirely devoid of catchy melody, a challenging opus which brought out the best in a cast of student singers who, with very few exceptions, succeeded in articulating the opera’s often intricate vocal lines.

 

Margaret Pride’s Collegium Symphonic Chorus was stunningly impressive in Rachmaninov’s Vespers, sung in Russian for an audience that thronged St Joseph’s Church, Subiaco. The Giovanni Consort’s program at St Paul’s Chapel, Mirrabooka was one of the year’s most finely considered offerings, enhanced by an exquisite contribution by harpist Marshall McGuire. Tony Maydwell’s Summa Musica choir provided fascinating insights into sacred music resurrected after centuries lying on dusty library shelves in Bolivia. And the Soweto Gospel Singers from South Africa brought us earthy, powerfully atavistic song and dance at His Majesty’s Theatre,.

 

Of a deal of chamber music, Pekka Kuusisto (violin) and  Simon Crawford-Philips (piano) presented a program that ranged from the zany to the profound. It was far and away the most novel and satisfying chamber offering in 2008. The Jerusalem Quartet, too, weighed in with a profoundly insightful account of Smetana’s Quartet No 1 – and Nick Parnell (vibraphone) and Leigh Harrold (piano) brought new life to classical favourites. Arnold Bax’s very rarely heard Quintet for string quartet and harp was given a charm-laden reading by the Australian Quartet and harpist Marshall McGuire.

 

Monday morning recitals in January look set to become a valued feature of the city’s musical life. One of the best of these featured Jonathan Paget and Stewart Smith in an arrangement for guitar and harpsichord of Rodrigo’s Fantasia para un Gentilhombre. Paget’s CD – Midsummer’s Night – is one of the most promising debut recordings I’ve heard in some time.) Craig Lake is that rarity: a virtuoso of the theorbo, a guitar-like instrument with a very long neck. His account of  Kapsberger’s Toccata was one of the year’s delights.

 

Cathie Travers, who is as versatile as she is gifted, was both composer and performer in The Healing Garden, gentle, meditative musings which were a response in sound to living on some hectares of tranquil bushland. One of the worst offerings of the year was Arvo Part’s hideously ugly re-working for piano trio of a movement from one of Mozart’s early piano sonatas; this was a grotesque and repellent piece. James Ledger’s Inscriptions, also for the same medium, brimmed  with imaginative, attractive ideas.

 

Coughing, nose blowing and throat clearing blighted many a concert in 2008 with WASO concerts a major exception where outbursts of coughing have been blessedly fewer than at other events. This might well have been due to cough lozenges available free to anyone who calls at the WASO desk in the Concert Hall foyer. But there have also been the maddening irritations of compulsive keyring jinglers, lolly-wrapper cracklers and noisy program-page turners. Mercifully, there were no snorers this year.


Interview with Robert Ward, composer of opera The Crucible

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by Neville Cohn

 

 

 

 

Robert Ward may be 91 years old but his mind is as alert and his wit as sharp as someone a third of his age.  It would have been a unique experience for the WAAPA opera students taking part in Ward’s opera The Crucible to ask one of America’s Grand Old Men of opera about interpretative and technical nuances in the roles they are to sing in a season commencing Friday 10th.

 

With great patience and good humour, Ward gave his views on this or that nuance to students listening raptly to his words as he spoke from his home in the USA’s North Carolina about his collaboration with that most celebrated of American playwrights Arthur Miller as well as librettist  Bernard Stambler.

 

“I wrote the opera around the time the movie The Misfits was being filmed and Miller and Marilyn Monroe’s marriage was falling apart,” he recalled.

 

Marvin pointed out that, unlike the operas of Verdi and Puccini, his setting of The Crucible deliberately avoids set-piece arias that can be sung as stand-alone items in, say, an orchestral concert featuring a vocal soloist as this usually results in audience applause at aria’s conclusion. This, Marvin feels, would interrupt the narrative flow and weaken the emotional impact of the work as a whole. He talked, too, of composers who influenced his development as a musician, among them one of his teachers Aaron Copland as well as musical giants such as Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith.

 

Marvin has never been to Australia. “Some years ago, my wife and I were planning to visit Australia and New Zealand but my wife suffered a stroke and that effectively brought an end to our overseas travel”, said Ward whose opera won not only the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1962 but also the New York Music Critics Circle Citation. 

 

Miller’s play, about the Salem, Massachusetts witchcraft trials in the 1690s and the judicial murder of blameless citizens who were found guilty of dabbling in the black arts and hanged en masse, was written in the 1950s as a response to the machinations of Senator McCarthy’s Committee on Un-American Activities which branded many quite innocent people as communists, effectively ruining their reputations and ability to earn a living.

 

Ward’s setting of The Crucible is much vaunted as an icon of 20th century

American, yet , unlike, say, The Medium or The Telephone by Gian Carlo Menotti,  that other American composer, The Crucible is difficult to find on CD. And although, it has been around for decades, the WAAPA production will be the first ever in Australia. It’s a production which should not be missed by anyone interested in the evolution of American opera or the history of Senator McCarthy’s crusade against often quite innocent people.

 

Also present at the conference phone call was Justin Bischof, the Canadian-born musician now based in New York. Bischof has the pivotal role of conductor of the opera season. This will be the first time he has conducted Ward’s opera. A musician

who is as versatile as he is gifted, Bischof is unusual  in that he came to conducting via a career as an organist. “I began the organ when I was 14 and by 17, I decided that I really loved it – but I’ve always maintained an active career as pianist because I like the repertoire very much.”

 

Bischof got off to an early start, beginning piano lessons at the age of three years. “I also played the flute for about seven years and was in the school band when I lived in Toronto. Sadly, I haven’t kept up the flute but I’m about to start lessons on the cello as it is vital for a conductor who is not originally a string player to have a tactile sense of playing a stringed instrument.”

 

Bischof, a graduate of New York’s Manhattan School of Music, is Director of Music at the Church of St James the Less in New York State. “I’ve had Episcopalian church positions since university days – and as well as that, I’ve been pianist, organist and choral conductor at Westchester Reform Temple for 14 years.” 

 

Bischof’s opera conducting includes performances of Menotti’s The Telephone and The Medium at the Hawaii Opera Theatre in Honolulu as well as productions of Mozart operas such as The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. He has also made a number of recordings as organist and is well known for his brilliant improvisations at the organ console.

 

The Crucible opens at the Geoff Gibbs Theatre (WAAPA) on Friday at 7:30pm.

Leith Taylor directs.