Tag Archives: Tongue In Cheek

RECITALS

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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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Petite Messe Solennelle (Rossini)

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Conservatorium Chorale

Music Auditorium, WAAPA

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

After enormously industrious years during which he churned out opera after opera (many of them masterpieces), Rossini devoted nearly all the rest of his life to laziness. As time ticked by, he began to worry how he’d be received at the gates of heaven. Would the shameless old wizard be ushered in with ceremony or turned away to a less than attractive eternity elsewhere? So he devised a sacred choral work that he hoped would be his entry ticket to celestial bliss. But, Rossini being Rossini, he couldn’t resist the temptation to send up the Mass – and a good deal of Petite Messe Solennelle is firmly tongue in cheek. It most certainly is not small and a good deal of it is anything but solemn. Most importantly for posterity which couldn’t care tuppence whether Rossini got into heaven or not, it’s full of good musical things.

 

A rare airing of the work on Thursday drew a full house to hear it to the

accompaniment of piano and harmonium – but one wondered why the second piano called for in the score was not used bearing in mind that such an instrument was already there onstage.

 

It is no small challenge to direct a work of this nature with a choir consisting of students from first through to final years, many with voices still very much in the process of development. Under these circumstances, the general quality of ensemble, despite occasional raggedness, was encouragingly disciplined with quality of corporate tone, for the most part, commendable. Certainly, momentum was very well maintained throughout.

 

Rossini’s Mass is peppered with solos and the standard of some of these was less than one might have wished. But two contributions stood out for their general excellence. Ryan Sharp – not to be confused with the racing driver of the same name – produced at all times a stream of finely shaped, warmly mellow tone. This is a voice that holds great promise.

 

As is often said, good things are worth waiting for – and this was most certainly the case here with the concluding Agnus Dei which was memorable for a frankly thrilling performance by Bernadette Lucanus. Clearly the beneficiary of the most skilled training, the musicianship she brought to bear on her solo, in which she clothed each note in beautifully refulgent tone, was one of the high points of the evening.

 

Micheal McCarthy, who works tirelessly in the cause of choral music, presided over events with distinction.

 

Lavish laurels to David Wickham whose musicality and musicianship at the piano deserve the highest praise. Stylistically, tonally and expressively it was musicmaking at a very high standard. And at the wheezing harmonium, Stewart Smith was no less on form, his solo near the conclusion of the Mass a model of its kind.