The Totally Huge New Music Festival

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The Totally Huge New Music Festival

Breaking Out

PICA

 

reviewed by Stuart Hille

The term ‘Young Composer’ has always perplexed me, particularly as I have had the label cast upon me when receiving scholarships, fellowships and overseas grants. Perhaps ‘student composer’ (without a sense of condescension) or ’emerging creative voice’, as this concert showed, would be more accurate. After all, several ‘young composers’ represented on the evening were not really all that young.

It is akin to the much used term ‘pre-compositional plan’. After all, once you start thinking about a composition and toying with attendant ideas then you are composing and not dwelling in some subconscious hinterland. But, having raised this question of tautology, one could not help but notice definite similarities shared by all the works on the evening.

While there was a plethora of colourful and original ideas throughout, there appeared to be a consistent notion that these alone could carry a convincing, dynamically shaped and, let us be honest, audience engaging piece of music. When being confronted by contemporary music, audiences, in general, are not concerned by mathematical or ‘pre-compositional’ structures. They need exposition, development, climax and a sense of sonic direction.

The first work for example ­ Bunch of Fives ­ by Jennifer O’Connor started with ideas that lured the listener for the first thirty seconds or so, but thereafter became a litany of Stravinskian gestures. It missed Stravinsky’s sense of proportion, direction and, especially, positioning of climaxes, though.

Moreover, it is all very well to explain in the programme notes that an augmented fifth is meant to be magically, mathematically different to a minor sixty but the human ear, imperfect as it is, only registers the sound ­ not the concept.

To put it another way, what looks elegant and well-rationalised on paper does not automatically translate into a convincing aural experience.

Similar to O’Connor’s work, Robert Thorpe’s Holiday in Cambodia showed strong and convincing germination (exposition) but became unravelled in the structural fruition (development). There was so much action on stage, remembrances of Les Noces, harmonic unevenness and rhythmic inflexibility ­ in all a veritable onslaught of sensory information ­ that one could not focus clearly on the shape and direction of the music.

One suspects that the composer became too involved with secondary parameters rather than a sense of direction, signposted by sub-climaxes, zeniths and nadirs. One cannot leave primary parameters in subordination.

The works that followed by Stuart James, James Lee, Hannah Clemen and Rachael Dease cannot be detailed within the scope of this critique but the major point has been made. The heart of the matter concerns a reluctance to fully plan an overall architecture ­ one that is satisfying to the listener (not just the composer) and demonstrates an interplay of simple ideas and their development.

Perhaps the best cross-section can be drawn from Negative Tendencies by Stuart James. There was a strong and imaginative use of harmony here, but the dynamic shaping was so slow, deliberate or even laborious that one experienced that uncomfortable feeling of not knowing when the piece was going to end. This may indeed reflect the tragic circumstances of the work’s impulsion but, with respect, an audience will not be moved by the deeply felt emotion of the composer if he or she denies them a convincing sense of direction.

Stylistic and structural considerations aside, there is one vital concept that should be impressed upon all these composers. If you want your creative endeavours to reach a wider audience and achieve better media attention then you must attend to it yourselves. Contemporary music concert organisers can only do so much, because their time, funding and manpower are far from infinite.

Approach ABC TV, radio stations, national newspapers, university departments or wherever you might find an empathetic voice, otherwise you will not reach beyond the already converted.


Mozart at Twilight

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Kings Park

reviewed by Stuart Hille

It might be pleasant enough sitting on the lawns of Kings Park, enjoying a late summer sunset, wining and dining and listening to the music of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Indeed, al fresco BYO dinner concerts are delightfully arcadian in concept but the reality, from a purely musical point of view, can be something quite different.

One feels that organisers and patrons perhaps become caught up with an idyllic notion and in doing so, forget some basic but important points.

As we experienced during this particular concert, the principal considerations here are Perth’s notoriously fickle summer evenings and its growing reputation for providing less than ideal amplifying systems.

Putting the two together and placing the musicians, in period costume, within a large gazebo, produced, on this occasion, the impossibility of a reviewer giving an accurate critical analysis and the distinct possibility of the performers being noticeably uncomfortable.

The Amadeus Players opened the concert with an account of Mozart’s Divertimento in D, K136 that simply wafted away in the strong breeze. There also appeared to be some slight distortion coming from the speakers. Moreover, these early divertimenti by Mozart, most likely written as the classical version of ‘dinner music’ aer fairly lightweight to begin with, so combining this with Perth’s summer wind and questionable electronics made for a hapless auditory experience.

Anna Sleptsova bravely followed with a rendition of Beethoven’s ‘Les Adieux’ piano sonata. The frustration, knowing this pianist to possess a fine talent, of being unable to perceive the nuances of her interpretation, became quite acute. And one can hardly blame her for adopting some unusually fast tempi. After all, a quick exit from the stage from a difficult situation was probably the most prudent approach.

Baritone Andrew Foote singing two Mozart arias (which are arduous even under the best circumstances) and Jane Rutter, performing a selection of works with Sleptsova and The Amadeus Players, were similarly disadvantaged. Costumes and wigs were going wild in the wind, amplified sound would grow and disappear according to the prevailing gust and Rutter even managed to entrap a flying cockroach in her coiffure.

In fact, this critic felt beaten before he began and decided to leave during the interval before the disenchantment increased. If the situation had become only marginally worse, it could have provided material for a Monty Python sketch.

One does not say this vindictively or to engage the reader in a piece of cheap humour, but rather to earnestly plead with organisers to put the musicians foremost: what setting best enhances their talents, what amplification can best cope with the elements and what music is better suited to outdoor performance. Even a full brass concert would have struggled under these circumstances.

Being lulled by a BYO dinner and wine supped on the beautiful lawns of Kings Park, without thorough planning, is throwing caution to the wind, so to speak, when attempting to mount a serious concert.

(It should also be noted, that as matter of simple courtesy, ALL performers’ names should appear on the programme leaflet.)


Percy Grainger Tuneful Percussion (complete)

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WOOF!
MOVE MD 3222
TPT: 00: 51:20

   reviewed by Neville Cohn 

Woof! is made up of four versatile, focussed young percussionists who seem positively to revel in this constantly diverting music. Old favourites such as “Country Gardens”, “Shepherd’s Hey” and “Irish Tune” (Danny Boy) sound here freshly minted, engaging reincarnations of little compositions that have a secure place in the affections of thousands. In 1998, Woof! discovered, or re-discovered, Grainger’s so-called tuneful percussion instruments which after decades of silence can again be heard played by musicians who clearly know exactly what they are doing – and do it very well. There are, as well, a host of other performers – variously on strings, flute, piccolo and harp as well as solo and ensemble singers (members of the Osmond College choir) – who contribute to one of the most engaging CDs I’ve encountered in years. Blithe Bells is a delight, with its webs of glowing vibraphone tone contriving to sound both exotic and tranquil. Another haunting miniature is Bahariyale V. Palaniyundi, scored for harmonium, a set of Indian bells – and various drums tapped discreetly and hypnotically. A marimba ensemble offers Sailor Song, a jolly, irresistibly whistleable Grainger original.

Although Grainger grew to despise his hugely popular setting of Country Gardens (claiming that most English gardens grew vegetables rather than flowers). “So you can think of turnips as I play it”, he once bitterly remarked. An arrangement for “hammerwood foursome” is divertingly jaunty, sounding for all the world like an inspired child’s toy orchestra. At the other end of the emotional scale is “The Lonely Desert Man sees the Tents of the Happy Tribes”, a setting of nonsense syllables sung in an unsettlingly forced tone that sounds the essence of a terrible melancholy. There are fascinating liner notes by Alessandro Servadei.

 


Virtuoso ROLF SMEDVIG (trumpet)

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Bach, Bellini, Haydn, Paradis, Holborne, Hummel, Albinoni, Borodin, Saint Saens, Mozart, Tartini, Smetana, Mendez, Falla

Telarc CD-80550
TPT: 00:56:39

   reviewed by Neville Cohn 

 

Sydney Smith once equated heaven with eating pates de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. No pate came with Rolf Smedvig’s Telarc CD-80550, a 17-track compilation called, very appropriately, Virtuoso. But an abiding impression of this collection – although it does not apply across the board – is the celestial quality that borders on the ecstatic, of some of Smedvig’s playing. This is typically evident in the finale of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 with Smedvig negotiating the master’s soaring line with the nonchalance of mastery. This astonishingly accomplished trumpeter is no less convincing in movements from concertos by Haydn and Bellini that unerringly reveal the sunny, optimistic moods of the writing. Listen, too, to the Badinerie from Bach’s Suite in B minor (arranged from the flute original by Smedvig).

It is the essence of irrepressible high spirits. And for sheer virtuosity, one would have to search far to find another trumpeter as agile and accurate as Smedvig in a transcription of the “Rondo alla Turca” from Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A major.

Throughout the compilation, difficult leaps from one note to the next are accomplished with a fearlessness – and accuracy – that places Smedvig to the fore of trumpet athletes. I particularly liked his arrangement for Empire Brass ensemble (with its unusually energetic tuba) of “Danse Bacchanale” from Saint Saens’ Samson and Delilah. With castanets rattling away in the background, these five gentlemen blow up a sensuous and exotic musical storm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Sydney International Piano Competition 2000 (Concertos)

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ABC Classics 461 654-2 (2-CD)
TPT: 2:32:25

  reviewed by Neville Cohn

A 2-CD pack on the ABC Classics label is devoted to performances recorded during the 2000 Sydney International Piano Competition, including those of top laureate Marina Kolomiitseva’s astonishingly persuasive account of Liszt’s Grande Etudes de Paganini. They mark her irrefutably as a worthy winner; these excruciatingly taxing pieces hold few fears for the young Russian who invests each of these studies with poetic insights. Her virtuosity is extraordinary, her hands sweeping up and down the keyboard as nonchalantly as if dusting the furniture. This, as well as faultless tremolo (which gives an imperious quality to the playing), makes “Etude No 2” unforgettable, an amalgam of dazzling flourishes and heart-easingly expressive filigree arabesques. In “Etude No 4”, staccato notes evoke images of sparks in stygian darkness. Kolomiitseva is triumphant, too, in Tchaikowsky’s Concerto in B flat minor – and how wonderfully she invigorates this most tired of war horses. Drawing from a deep well of expressiveness, Kolomiitseva, whether expounding the concerto’s lyrical qualities or hurling great bolts of sound, Zeus-like, at the ear, plays as if the work were specially written for her.

Also spilling out of this splendid musical cornucopia is Vera Kameneva’s account of Mozart’s K467 in C, now known to millions as the Elvira Madigan Concerto. A born Mozart player, Kameneva brings an exultant quality to the opening of the work. Often, the presentation pulses with vitality, as meaningful in its way as delicato note-streams, fragile as gossamer. And the finale glows with power. Christopher Hogwood, too, sounds in his element as he directs the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Yet another instance of high calibre keyboard ability is Evgeny Ukhanov who gives a near-perfect assessment of the music in Rachmaninov’s Concerto in D minor.