Tag Archives: Musical Enterprise

RECITALS

 

Geoffrey Lancaster (fortepiano)

 

 

Eileen Joyce Studio, UWA

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

Some time ago, during a TV interview, famed mezzo Cecilia Bartoli was asked whether she thought she had been touched by the finger of God. Modestly, she said she doubted it  –  but, tongue in cheek – she conceded that the Lord might possibly have waved ‘hullo’ from a distance.

 

After listening to Geoffrey Lancaster’s artistry in this series of Haydn  recitals, I’d like to think that God Almighty would not only have waved to him but invited him in for afternoon tea.

 

Perhaps once in a generation, sometimes even less frequently, there’s an opportunity to hear Haydn’s complete keyboard sonatas. Perth concertgoers were offered this rare opportunity in July.

 

Geoffrey Lancaster is one of the very few fortepianists anywhere in the world to have taken on this immense challenge. And in these recitals, it was at once apparent that he has in abundance those crucial attributes essential to embark on so vast a musical enterprise: fearless, superbly educated fingers, an intellect of highest order, rare expressive insights – and the staying power of a primed athlete.

 

Not the least of the many delights of the sonatas (more than fifty) was Lancaster’s linking commentary deriving from a lifetime’s consideration of these wonderful but often neglected  keyboard gems. Lancaster’s knowledge of the circumstances surrounding each of these gems is encyclopaedic.

 

As well, in the style of Haydn’s day, the performance of each sonata was prefaced by a brief prelude by the performer: an extemporaneous flourish here, a little series of rapid arabesques there, some scales up and down the keyboard – and then the magic of Haydn interpreted by a keyboard master at the height of his powers.

 

Rapid passagework that called strings of perfectly matched pearls to mind – and the extraordinary richness of Lancaster’s ornamentation of the music – were two only of the many factors he employed to expound Haydn’s idiosyncratic musical argument in the most persuasive and satisfying ways.  

 

I noticed a few members of the audience closely following Lancaster’s performances in the printed score and scribbling comments in the margins, doubtless interpretative insights of a valuable sort to pass on to pupils.

 

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of this series. The chances of encountering these works here again soon as a cycle, are very, very small. In over fifty years of busy concertgoing, this has been the first opportunity I’ve had to listen to many of these extraordinary works in a single series.

 

Currently, Lancaster is recording the Haydn cycle of sonatas for the Tall Poppies label. 

 

 

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W.A.Youth Orchestra

 

Perth Concert Hall

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

I came to the Concert Hall on Saturday evening wondering to what effect the W.A. Youth Orchestra would engage with Stravinsky’s Rite of  Spring. This is one of the 20th century’s most complex and demanding scores, a work that even the most experienced of fulltime, professional orchestral players needs to approach with caution. It is a score that constantly challenges the players. Its rhythmic complexities are like a musical minefield; there is danger at every turn. And there can be no passengers in a work such as this. Total concentration is essential to avoid this musical enterprise from finishing on the rocks.

 

A one-hundred-strong WAYO (with more than fifty of its players aged 19 years or more) came through this protracted ordeal with banners flying high.

 

Performances like this don’t just happen. There would have been a gruelling preparation for this performance, with the WAYO musicians fronting up to rehearsals that ran from 10am to 4pm from the Monday to the Friday preceding the performance as well as during Saturday morning at the Concert Hall. There would also have had to be intensive preliminary study of the score and dedicated supervision by tutors to come up with a result as meaningful as this.

 

All this investment of time and skill paid handsome musical dividends.

 

Tze Law Chan presided over events, taking his young charges through a reading that most effectively evoked the powerfully atavistic nature of Stravinsky’s barrier-breaking score. Incidentally, at its first performance in Paris, the work (to choreography by Nijinsky) so infuriated the audience that the gendarmes had to be called to cope with the riot and fistfights that broke out in the theatre. Stravinsky was bundled into a hansom cab to distance himself from members of the audience who might have wanted to assault him – or worse.

 

There was also a performance of Beethoven’s Emperor concerto with Thomas Hecht as soloist. Apart from trivialising the keyboard flourishes in the opening moments of this most loved of piano concertos, the presentation was most impressive. Here was a reading that took up an interpretative position at the emotional epicentre of the concerto. Not the least of the pleasures of this account was the extraordinary range of tone colours that Hecht brought to his performance, so bringing freshness to familiar notes.

 

Hecht is blessed with near-infallible fingers; the slowly ascending trills in the slow movement were faultlessly spun. Throughout, wonderfully flexible wrists and an unflagging pace added to the overall impact of the performance. It was a tour de force to which the WAYO players responded with a consistently meaningful accompaniment.