Bach's Goldberg Variations :

Bach's Goldberg Variations played by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, a concert I heard live then watched several times online. This was one of those uplifting concerts, memorable for their ability to express emotion. One of those concerts you'd love to hear multiple times.

Such concerts are difficult to put into words - thus the nearly four week gap between seeing and writing. Do see it if ever the Australian Chamber Orchestra play it in a hall near you.

Emmanuel Pahud and the ACO

The hall was dimmed ... just a pinkish light at the back - and then a flutist started playing CPE Bach's Flute Sonata in A minor. It was a lovely way to start a concert.

What was even better was the next piece,  JS Bachs Ricercar a 6 from The Musical Offering played by flute and orchestra.

I have just looked up ricercar:

ricercar

ˌriːtʃəˈkɑː,ˈriːtʃəˌkɑː/

noun

Music

noun: ricercar; plural noun: ricercars; noun: ricercare; plural noun: ricercari

1. an elaborate contrapuntal instrumental composition in fugal or canonic style, typically of the 16th to 18th centuries.

It was a fun and fabulous piece of music and hearing it for the first time I wondered why it is not played more often. Bravo Richard Tognetti for putting it in the program and to the ACO playing it with such verve.  Yes, it was an ACO concert and the flutist was the brilliant Emmanuel Pahud.

Bach Violins Concertos (and Haydn) with the ACO

Playing Haydn

Packed hall, mouse-quiet intent audience, immersed musicians, warmly-felt rousing applause.  This week's evening of Bach and Hayden with the Australian Chamber Orchestra was a winner and the audience was glowing as they left the concert hall.

The Bach Concerto for two violins (Richard Tognetti and Helene Rathbone) and Concerto for three violins (Richard Tognetti, Helene Rathbone and Satu Vanska) were examples of instruments/musicians playing in absolute accord ... but then the whole of the ACO does this with aplomb.

Horns, oboes and bassoon (baroque bassoonist Jane Gower) joined the orchestra for the Haydn. Haydn has to be played really well for me to enjoy it, and this was played really well.

Riveting playing by the Australian Chamber Orchestra

The Australian Chamber Orchestra is a phenomenon.

Last week I saw them play a concert of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven's Grosse Fuge and was reminded anew that a passionate, technically brilliant and astutely lead group of musicians can translate masterpieces into listening experiences that give one a glimpse into eternity. Music is one of the ways we can reach outside of our world, so I don't think it is hyperbole to talk of eternity.

As I sat listening, I felt so very grateful that this group of consummate professionals is willing to subordinate their other pleasures to a life of practice and study, enabling their audiences to travel outside of themselves, see meaning where they thought there was none and take courage to live. If you think I am using extreme language, go and see them and hear for yourself.

Richard Egarr, Satu Vänskä and the ACO

Harpsichord waiting for Egarr to appear

Baroque music. Somehow the name sounds so staid, as if the music might be constrained by tight corsets. Women did wear corsets in the 16th and 17th century but there was an exuberance in fashion at that time and if  the baroque concert I heard yesterday is any indication, that is what we should judge the music by.

Baroque music expert Richard Egarr conducted from the keyboard, or keyboards actually because he played three 'old' instruments.

Richard Egarr (from ACO website)

Egarr is a pleasure of a man, explaining to his delighted audience what they should be listening for in the context of the time and teasing the orchestra by his unexpected improvisations which is, he said, exactly what baroque musicians would have done. (In Melbourne a mobile phone went off and Egarr reportedly improvised to include the mobile tune in his playing.) The Australian Chamber Orchestra, who accompanied him obviously enjoyed Egarrs theatrical flourishes and whimsical  improvisations.

Another great pleasure of the concert was hearing ACO Principal Violin Satu Vänskä play the solo lead in Bach's Concerto for Violin in A minor. She  has the most malleable right arm of any violinist I have seen. It flows in a mesmerisingly fluid dance as she plays. She reminded me of a weeping willow in the second movement, swaying and bending as she played. She was supported by the delicate and precise playing of her ACO colleagues and it made me feel like weeping.