Fremantle Chamber Orchestra

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Rudolf Koelman, violin

Fremantle Town Hall

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

I cannot imagine a more striking event to bring music at Eastertide to a close than a frankly magnificent account of George Conus’ Violin Concerto.

Arriving in the city almost unheralded, Rudolf Koelman, who was for some years concertmaster of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and one of Heifetz’s last pupils, proved himself a prince of the violin. In what might possibly have been the Australian premiere of the Conus concerto, Koelman left no one in any doubt of his superb gifts.

Conus, incidentally, who was born in Moscow and died there as recently as 1933, is nowadays a largely forgotten man due, perhaps, to never having developed a strikingly original compositional style. His concerto, of which Heifetz was a ardent champion, sounds as if it might have been written under the strong influence of Tchaikowsky. One has only to listen to the opening measures of his Violin Concerto to realise how strikingly they call to mind the introduction to the older man’s Piano Concerto No 1.

Koelman, who plays a fine Pressenda fiddle dating from 1829 and is entirely worthy of it, brought infallible accuracy and agility on the fingerboard, a sublime bowing technique – and very real musicianship – to his performance. Beautifully controlled double stopping was another fine feature of a performance of enviable finesse, presented in the grandest of grand manners. Bravo!

As curtain raiser, we heard Mozart’s early Symphony in G minor K183 with Jessica Gethin presiding over events. A clear-cut and unfussy beat coaxed a consistently disciplined response to the first movement. Here was a stylish performance that bristled with vitality.

If there were some minor intonational lapses in the slow movement, this might well have been due to the distraction provided by latecomers impatiently and rudely knocking on the hall doors. I very much liked the quality of the woodwind choir in the trio section of the Minuet. Small lapses notwithstanding, this was a most pleasingly meaningful account of one of Mozart’s finest early symphonies.

KoelmanHearing this orchestra which consists, inter alia, of well-above-average teenage musicians and a sprinkling of older instrumentalists was revelatory. If this performance is indicative of the standards that the FCO routinely brings to its concerts, then it is a major addition to the city’s music scene. It deserves support and, if the size and enthusiasm of the audience for this concert are anything to go by, the FCO is certainly receiving it.

Copyright 2006 Neville Cohn


Requiem (Mozart)

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Collegium Musicum

St Jospeh’s Church, Subiaco

reviewed by Neville Cohn

It says much for the persuasiveness of the singing of Collegium Musicum and accompanying orchestra that, for the duration of Mozart’s setting of the Requiem Mass for the Dead, one forgot how comfortlessly hard and unyielding the pews of St Joseph’s Church, Subiaco are.

Under the unflappable guidance of Margaret Pride, the Requiem unfolded in the most powerfully communicative of ways. In the opening Requiem aeternam, Dr Pride set an unusually slow pace which allowed this achingly poignant music to register most powerfully on the consciousness. Certainly, maintaining a sense of momentum at very slow speed was a remarkable feat of musicianship on the part of all concerned. And the skill with which the fugal writing of the Kyrie was essayed approached the magnificent.

Here, and throughout, the accompanying instrumental ensemble had the very real advantage of leadership from Paul Wright. Its account of the Dies Irae was electrifying in its intensity, to which the choir responded as if galvanised.

There were some fleeting problems with vocal intonation in parts of Tuba mirum.

The opening of the Sanctus was the sonic equivalent of a blaze of light but Hosanna in the Benedictus needed more emphatic treatment.

Uniformity of tonal sheen from the strings made the concluding pages of the work, in particular, all the more satisfying to hear. Throughout, Catherine Cahill and Ashley Smith brought a touch of distinction to the basset horn parts.

As ever, St Joseph’s first-rate acoustics allowed both the Requiem and Bach’s Christ lag in Todesbanden BWV4 to be heard to best advantage.

Copyright 2006 Neville Cohn


Baroque Masterpieces

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Stabat Mater (Pergolesi)
Jane Davidson (dir.)

UWA School of Music
Winthrop Hall

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

In many years of attending concerts at Eastertide, I cannot recall a performance as powerfully communicative as Jane Davidson’s production of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Her sure feel for what works in theatrical terms brought both music and play into vivid perspective.

Presented in the style of a Passion play, it featured an eleven-strong cast of women, all dressed in drab, russet shades, except for Mary who wore a pale blue sash over her garment. The women sang, often beautifully, the anguish of Cavalry reflected both in facial expression and choreographed movement.

Davidson’s directorial touch, otherwise sure and experienced, wavered briefly towards the close of the work when the corps, dancing ring-a-roses-style around the risen, smiling Christ bordered on the twee in visual terms. Its antithesis was David Jones’ first appearance as Jesus, almost buckling under the weight of the cross as he staggered towards the stage along the hall’s centre aisle in the company of two guards who were made up to appear the apotheosis of brutality and coarseness. And Jesus’ agonies groans as his hands and feet were nailed to the cross was an horrific counterpoint to the accompanying music.

Earlier, we heard Nicole Jordan and Filipa La in stark and sober black as soloists in Monteverdi’s Cantate Domino, their finely sung lines quite overshadowed by aerial artist Theaker von Ziarno who, clad in a white body stocking, made a sensational entrance from an opening in the ceiling, twisting and turning her slow way down two lengths of white cloth which reached to the floor. She returned towards the end of the program as the closing measures of Schutz’s Es steh Gott auf were sung, again by Jordan and La.

Paul Wright led an instrumental ensemble with his usual disciplined artistry although positioning the players to one side of the hall may have been the main factor robbing instrumental sound of some of its bloom. As ever, Stewart Smith was discreet and musicianly at both harpsichord and organ.

In passing: I imagine I’m speaking for many in saying that, having for years endured Winthrop Hall’s uncomfortable seating, the new arrangements are very much a change for the better. Certainly, it will ensure that attending concerts there will be as comfortable for rears as ears.

Copyright 2006 Neville Cohn


Faith Court Orchestra

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Conservatorium Auditorium

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

During her long life as violinist, Faith Court did much to enhance the music life of Western Australia. Even at the venerable age of 90 years, the Court matriarch kept her fingers in trim by daily practice on her violin. And her philanthropy and that of her family continues to support the arts, with contributions to scholarships of $100,000 over the last decade.

At the weekend, we heard the chamber orchestra made up of Conservatorium students and named after Mrs Court in works by Mozart, Sculthorpe and Shostakovich. A number of members of the Court family were present in the audience.

It was in the second movement of Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony that the Faith Court Chamber Orchestra was heard to best advantage. Here, there was splendid attack and follow-through as the youthful string players’ bows bit the strings of their instruments to reveal the essence of some of the most anguished writing in the canon. Certainly, the emotional intensity that informed the playing here augurs well for this youthful ensemble as the musicians were taken through their paces by conductor Jon Tooby.

In the slower movements that open and close the work, though, one felt a need for a more uniform tonal sheen, especially from the higher strings – and a more smoothly fluent unfolding of the piece, tricky, of course, at slow speed but not impossible. On the evidence of the evening’s offerings, however, there’s good reason to believe that with commitment and focussed rehearsal this is a realisable goal.

Jonathan Paget was soloist in Peter Sculthorpes’s Nourlangie for guitar, strings and percussion. Paget brings way-above-average understanding to this work, his doctoral thesis having been an exploration of the language of Sculthorpe’s music for guitar.

It’s a many-facetted work that calls for high musicianship on the part of all concerned and Paget acquitted himself admirably here in a performance that was in the best sense tonally satisfying, intonationally exact and interpretatively probing.

There are small but crucially important parts for percussion and Daniel Hall, in particular, rose to the occasion in his skilled use of the mallets on a set of bongo drums, in the process providing excellent rhythmic underpinning. And Elizabeth Lyon skilfully conjured up simulations of thunder from a suspended metal sheet.

In his concerto, Sculthorpe was much influenced by the swarming bird life around Nourlangie in Kakadu National Park – and accompanying players were much on their mettle in glissando swoops up and down the strings of their instruments as they simulated the cries of Kakadu birds.

In the outer movements of Mozart’s Divertimento in D, Tooby set a blistering pace, so much so that there was little opportunity for the music to breathe at phrase endings. As well, at so rapid a tempo, note streams lacked clear definition. And rather more lift to the phrase might well have enhanced listening pleasure in the central andante.

Faith Court grew up in England in a home full of music. Her father – Sydney Wardley – was a piano tuner and cellist. When Faith was very young, she would sometimes accompany her father to Portsmouth to visit Nelson’s flagship Victory to tune the keyboard instrument in the famed admiral’s cabin.

Later, the family migrated to Australia where Faith’s evolving career saw her playing the violin in cafes, accompanying silent movies or in orchestral pits for musicals. She also played in the WASO under the direction of conducting greats such as Malcolm Sargent and Thomas Beecham. And during the war years, Faith Court worked tirelessly as a member of concert parties or orchestral ensembles to bring music to the troops.

Copyright 2006 Neville Cohn


Defying Gravity Percussion Ensemble

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Conservatorium Auditorium

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

For those coming new to an ensemble such as Defying Gravity, it would probably be fair to say that a prime expectation would be an encounter with music offered at significant decibel levels. And while this would certainly be true of the opening work – Prime by Askell Masson – much of what followed carressed rather than assaulted the ear.defgrav

Prime is a solo for snare drum. Abrupt, peremptory, loud outbursts figure prominently in a short work which Daniel Hall presented with authoritative confidence.

After this assault on the ears, one turned, as if to a refuge, to the gentle murmurings which Callum Moncrieff coaxed from the marimba. His account of Prelude to the Dawning Day by Takayoshi Yoshioka was balm to the ears, its gentle pianissimo shadings calling Debussy’s Gardens in the Rain to mind. It was a fine foil to Dreams of Foreign Shores by the same composer, music marked by emphatically stated rhythms.

 

More often than not, Defying Gravity offers ensemble pieces. This program – aptly called Defying Gravity Flies Solo – was a departure from that practice; four of the eight works on offer were solos with another calling for two marimba players. It was a compilation that gave regular followers of Defying Gravity an opportunity to hear what its members are capable of in a solo role. There’s a lot to be said for this: percussion groups usually devote all or most of their time to ensemble pieces so it’s rare to encounter ensemble members in a solo role – which is a shame as, on the basis of this presentation, there’s a world of often fascinating music that remains largely under wraps.

This was glowingly apparent in Catherine Betts’ account of Mark Glenworth’s Blues for Gilbert. Written in homage to the composer’s teacher, it requires a soloist of refined musicianship to give point and meaning to its gentle ideas. This young musician was clearly up to the challenge as she clothed the work’s arabesques in a nimbus of glowing tone.

In a program almost entirely free of mishap, we also heard Joshua Webster in Emmanuel Sejourne’s Nancy, which came across as a little essay in wistfulness, the more satisfying for the care lavished on phrasing of the most musical kind.

It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast between these discreet musings and the explosion of sound that is Manfred Menke’s Dinnertime.

Rosie Halsmith, Kaylie Melville, Holly Norman and Ella Mack were perfectly cast as the exceedingly bad mannered diners, who rush on stage noisily to seat themselves at table as they cook up a rowdy storm by impatiently and vey rudely banging their wooden spoons on the table as they wait for a dinner that, like Godot, never arrives – and on the evidence of their boorish table manners (which included bumping the underside of the table with their knees) it’s just as well. One shudders to think of what might have happened if the meal failed to win their approval. The quartet rushed off stage as abruptly as they had made their entry, leaving behind more than a few broken spoons under and around the table and an audience that burst into vociferous applause.

Tango Suite was a disappointment, though. This reworking for two marimbas and bongos of Piazzolla’s music while beyond reproach notationally, revealed little of its interior mood.

Holly Norman played Matthias Schmitt’s Ghanaia on the marimba to most effective accompaniments by a quartet playing, inter alia, jingle bells, a cow bell and a jemba drum.

All these works were played from memory with the exception of the opening snare drum solo.

Thirteen players were mustered for the finale – Nigel Westlake’s Penguin Circus, an engagingly extrovert affair with, inter alia, parping hooters and simulations of steam train whistles adding to the fun.

Copyright 2006 Neville Cohn