Symphony under the Spanish Stars

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W.A.Symphony Orchestra

Pioneer Women’s Memorial, Kings Park

 

reviewed by Neville Cohnslava

 

If, at a performance given by the W.A.Symphony Orchestra at Perth’s acoustically perfect Concert Hall, a number of concertgoers brought picnic hampers with them from which they extracted platters of rice salad, cheese and tomato sandwiches, a bottle of champagne loudly popped and slices of rock melon which they proceeded to variously devour and drink, it would cause an outcry and a request to leave the venue immediately.

But if the same scenario plays out on the beautifully grassed, gently sloping grounds around the Pioneer Women’s Memorial in Kings Park while listening to the WASO, no one would raise an eyebrow. And that was very much the case when an audience of some three thousand had their picnic dinners as twilight fell over this idyllic setting and the local ducks waddled importantly around the grounds in the hope of a free feed. The weather (which can make or break an evening of this sort) was near-perfect.

 

As an hour-long prelude to the program proper, we heard Guapo, an instrumental ensemble that focusses primarily on the music of Piazzolla, more of which would be heard later in the evening. It was a thoroughly professional presentation.

Music amplified by electronic means seldom sounds entirely satisfactory, certainly not as it would reach the listener in, say, the Concert Hall with its wondrously fine acoustics. And having a near-constant, if relatively muted, input from an open-air concert being given at the WACA ground by Fleetwood Mac was not a welcome contribution to the proceedings. But, these reservations notwithstanding, there was more than sufficient evidence that the WASO is getting back to the form that made so many concerts memorable in 2003.

Extracts from Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo did not fare well, though, largely due, for much of the time, to conductor Benjamin Northey’s relentlessly rigid rhythms which lent a mechanical quality to the performance. Later, there was rather more rhythmic give and take in a rare airing of Gershwin’s Cuban Overture.

A brief weakening of concentration and an occasional slip of the finger aside, guitarist Slava Grigoryan did well in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, although in the opening pages of the concerto, guitar sound was overly amplified. But it was in an arrangement for guitar of Albeniz’s piano piece Sevilla that Grigoryan came fully into his own in playing that was stylish and, in its more virtuosic episodes, nimble, controlled and accurate. And I liked the expressiveness and beauty of tone with which he essayed the slower passages of the piece.

Cathie Travers, whose musical versatility is a byword, contributed to the concert not only as accordionist but also as arranger. I very much liked her re-working of Piazzolla’s Milonga del Angel which, to a notable extent, conveyed that haunting, bittersweet quality that lies at the core of so much of Piazzolla’s music. Most of the Argentinian tango-meister’s music was conceived for small groups of musicians; it’s seldom heard in arrangements for symphony-size orchestras. Certainly, it was a new – and engaging – listening experience for me.

There was more Piazzolla but in more intimate mode in Romance del Diablo with Travers playing a veteran Titano accordion in ensemble with Grigoryan, Graeme Gilling (keyboard), Daniel Kossov (violin) and Boguslaw Szczepaniak (double bass). Here, too, the essence of Piazzolla’s tango-based ideas were captured like a moth in the gentlest of hands.

Both these arrangements deserve to be heard under better acoustic circumstances.

In passing: there were roars of good-natured laughter (doubtless due to Western Power’s lamentable handling of the power crisis a short while ago) when an offical from that utility drew the winning ticket from a barrel to give a lucky concertgoer $500’s worth of electricity.

 

Copyright 2004


WAGNER, SCHNITTKE & BRAHMS

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Cremona Quartet
Gweneth-Ann Jeffers (soprano)
Andrea Katz (piano)

 

Fremantle Town Hall

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

Soprano Gweneth-Ann Jeffers came to Fremantle Town Hall from Winthrop Hall, where she’d sung Berlioz’s Nuits d’Ete only days before at the opening of the Wigmore Chamber Music series.

Wagner provided the curtain raiser. The Bayreuth Master is, of course, best know for his colossal music dramas. But when he turned his mind to it, he could produce musical miniatures to woo the ear.

His settings of six poems by Mathilde Wesendonck (with whom the composer was having an affair at the time) are very fine – and Gweneth-Ann Jeffers with Andrea Katz at the piano were more than up to the challenge of these deeply probing songs to which they responded with a depth of understanding that invariably sounded entirely right.

Stehe Still! was memorably treated, its sense of urgency convincingly evoked. Whether in revealing the high emotion that informs Schmerzen (Anguish) or evoking the melancholy of Im Triebhaus (The Greenhouse), the two could hardly be faulted. I particularly liked the piano postlude to the latter; it was finely crafted

Later, Andrea Katz joined forces with the Cremona String Quartet in Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor. In the two opening movements, much was made, quite properly, of the lyrical aspects of the writing and this was confidently brought across. But although the Cremona players were splendidly virtuosic in the scherzo and finale (which is music in the grandest of grand manners), the same could not be said of the presentation of the piano part where more muscular tone, greater clarity and flamboyance as well as a significantly more emphatic attack (notably in the drumming motif of the scherzo) were needed to complement string playing of often blazing intensity. In this sense, the closing movements of the quintet were uneven and unsatisfying.

In their own right, the musicians of the Cremona Quartet were gloriously in their element in Schnittke’s String Quartet No 3. Schnittke, something of a musical magpie,is second to few in his ability to fashion meaningful music statements making use of the most unlikely ideas, procedures and styles. In fact, listening to the Cremona Quartet here was rather like peering through the peephole of a slowly revolving kaleidoscope cylinder containing not only the usual shards of coloured glass but a miscellany of odds and ends, some quite unexpected, such as, say, peppercorns, as well as a few cogs from the innards of a pocket watch. The Cremona Quartet was in dazzling form here, producing the most inspired and compelling playing of the afternoon and – after their superlative reading of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet – leaving one in little doubt that this formidable foursome is as versatile as it is gifted.

Copyright 2004

Israel in Egypt (Handel)

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Israel in Egypt (Handel)

 

St George’s Cathedral Chorus and Sinfonia
St George’s Cathedral

reviewed by Neville Cohn 

Unlike the bad old days when choirs singing Handel’s oratorios would routinely outnumber the accompanying orchestra five or so to one, we heard Israel in Egypt at St George’s Cathedral where, give or take a few, there were about as many in the choir as the orchestra. These would have been roughly the numbers Handel had in mind when writing the oratorio – and, some reservations aside, this worked well. But in so large a space as the cathedral, one sensed a need at choral climaxes for some modest beefing up of choral numbers to more adequately ride the crest of the accompanying orchestral wave which, in turn, could have done with some strengthening of the strings to underscore the grandeur of the oratorio’s more spectacular choruses.

In the minds of many oratorio fanciers, Israel in Egypt, qualitatively, ranks higher even than Messiah which has been Handel’s top box office draw for centuries. I dare say that because Handel’s take on the Old Testament Exodus story concentrates primarily on choral items, it is less attractive to concertgoers for whom Handel’s solo arias are the chief appeal. The loss is their’s because Israel in Egypt brims with some of the Master’s happiest inspirations.

“He gave them hailstones”, for instance, is magnificent music – and, under Simon Lawford’s direction, the trumpeters and choristers responded to it with commendable attack and follow-through. And Tim White’s thudding kettle drums added significantly to the choir’s response as they sang “But the waters overwhelmed their enemies”. Earlier, in “But as for His people”, vocal lines coalesced and separated in a consistently musical way. But in some of the less-convincing choral contributions, some weaknesses of the inner voices tended to blur details.

It was a particularly good night for the brass with trumpets adding a memorable dimension to “The Lord shall reign”. But if strings sounded dismayingly scrappy in the introduction to “The Lord is my strength”, they were much on their mettle in rapid passagework simulating the buzz and whine of flies, lice and locusts in the chorus about those plagues visited upon the Egyptians. I admired, too, the sturdiness of the striding accompaniment to “The Lord shall reign forever”.

Vocal soloists were drawn from the choir – and of these, Jonathan Daventry shone with an echt alto quality and clear diction that gave point and meaning to his account of “Their land brought forth frogs”. There was also an impressive offering by bass Andrew Moran. And if there was some forcing of the tone in Stuart Haycock’s aria “The enemy said”, his recitatives were uniformly polished.

Hopefully, this imaginative alternative to yet another airing of Handel’s Messiah will set a trend towards more enterprising oratorio choices for Perth. What about Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ which hasn’t been mounted here in years – or Handel’s Samson?

© December 2003


Christmas Oratorio (J.S.Bach)

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Christmas Oratorio (J.S.Bach)

 

University of Western Australia Choral Society

Winthrop Hall

reviewed by Neville Cohn 

Unlike Handel’s Messiah which, for many choristers and concertgoers, is inextricably associated with Xmas (even though barely a quarter of it relates to the Nativity story), Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is entirely concerned with events surrounding the birth of Christ.

Because Handel’s masterpiece is so frequently mounted in Perth, it is ingrained in the musical psyche of many, if not most, choristers who might well be able to sing much of it from memory.

Not so the Christmas Oratorio which, unaccountably (because it is one of the most meaningful and sheerly beautiful meditations on the Nativity), is only very rarely heard locally. And if in many of Bach’s choruses, attack was tentative, it might well have been due to lack of familiarity with a difficult score on the part of the singers ­ and possibly not quite enough rehearsal time to build up confidence. Inner vocal lines were not always as clear and carefully pitched as one might have hoped.

For all this, there was much that gave pleasure in the choruses that dot the score, largely due to John Beaverstock’s excellent choice of tempi – and an often pleasingly responsive orchestra. Apart from the opening movement, one of Bach’s most superb celebratory essays, in which the pace adopted was far too fast to allow its inherent joyousness to register satisfyingly on the consciousness, Beaverstock’s pace-setting was almost beyond criticism. In Glory be to God, an upbeat tempo and delightfully light choral textures combined to ravishing effect.

But it was in the work’s many chorales that the UWA Choral Society came into its own. There is a gravitas about many of these episodes that very effectively counter-balances the unsullied happiness that informs so much of the other writing for chorus. Here, too, Beaverstock’s tempi were beyond reproach. And the good, sturdy pace at which Rejoice and Sing was taken sounded entirely right.

Throughout, a small orchestra did wonders in support of both chorus and vocal soloists. It was a particularly good night for the trumpeters, with Jenny Coleman leading her sub-section with distinction, their silvery-toned fanfares and tricky high-register outbursts gauged to a nicety. This was especially evident in the introduction to Lord, when our Haughty Foe, given a gloriously ecstatic edge by the trumpeters.

There was a deal of fine horn playing, notably from Darryl Poulsen. And oboists, apart from some weakening of concentration in the introduction to part 2, were much on their mettle.

Of the vocal soloists, soprano Emma Pearson, after a tentative start, gave impressive evidence of growing vocal confidence. In Nought against the Power, she scaled the heights, producing a stream of ringing vocal tone that projected effortlessly into the auditorium. This was deeply affecting singing. And she came into her own yet again in the famous echo aria ­ Ah! My Saviour ­ clothing each phrase in glowing tone to which oboes responded beautifully; Katja Webb very effectively contributed the echo effect. Alto Emma Foster was clearly unwell but soldiered on gamely until the end. And although Stuart Haycock as the Evangelist brought pleasing clarity of diction to his many recitatives, there was a tendency to strain and force the tone. Baritone Andrew Moran sang with sense and sensibility.


© December 2003

New I Voci Singers

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New I Voci Singers

Perth Modern School Auditorium

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

In the lead-up to its first overseas concert tour, John Christmass’ New I Voci Singers presented the program they will offer audiences during their performances in Germany.

Guests of honour were the Governor of Western Australia, Lt-General John Sanderson and Mrs Sanderson as well as the German Consul in Perth, Mr William Hassell and Mrs Hassell.

Over the years, concertgoers have come to expect high levels of performance whenever the indefatigable John Christmass is at the helm – and this farewell concert was no exception.

A bracket of three Stanford motets came across as a finely stated musical triptych in which vocal lines separated and coalesced in a beautifully controlled and meaningful way. Here, and throughout the evening, the choristers drew on a deep well of expressiveness which brought freshness to familiar notes.

This was again apparent in a consistently stylish bracket of popular songs, including Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm and Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’, fine singing enhanced time and again by Alex Roberts’ thoughtful and stylish accompaniments at the piano.

In passing: this chamber choir sings these lighter items with such verve and impeccable grasp of style that serious thought should be given to preserving the best of the choir’s efforts in the genre on compact disc.

An instrumental interlude featured Philip Murray and Alex Roberts in a pleasingly musical account of Saint Saens’ Romance for flute and piano. And Mark Alderson came up trumps in the Toreador’s Song from Bizet’s Carmen, as did Justin Freind who, as always, sounded entirely in tune (no pun intended) with Gilbert and Sullivan’s Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes.

The very rarely heard Gloria by Puccini was the most substantial offering of the evening with Christmass coaxing a gratifyingly unified response from his forces in both vocal and interpretative terms.

Throughout the evening, a succession of images appropriate to each work was projected on to the rear wall of the stage. These visuals did much to enhance the overall impact of the performance notwithstanding the effective blotting-out of the lower section of each image by the dark, wooden gallery that runs across the rear wall of the auditorium.

The New I Voci Singers have maintained a high profile during 2003, featuring, as they did, in ANZAC Day and Commonwealth Sunday ceremonies, two Mozart at Twilight concerts as well as the annual Best of British presentation at Perth Concert Hall.

© December 2003