Beethoven's 1st, 2nd, 3rd Symphonies with the ACO.

Beethoven is everywhere this year and I have no complaints at all. I can listen to Beethoven any time, anywhere. Today I heard Beethoven's Symphonies 1, 2 and 3 played by the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Anna Melville, Head of Programming with the ACO gave the introductory talk. I am not alone in enjoying her talks and the small presentation room was packed, with people sitting on the floor to listen. She talks about the context in which the music was written and adds a thing  or two about the music that we might otherwise not hear.

Anna Melville presents

ACO members were augmented by wind instrumentalists from the world over, and by students from the Australian National Academy of Music, ANAM. It was heart warming to see each of the young musicians playing beside their mentor. The ACO works extremely hard but they are a happy crew and I can't think of a better way to be introduced to the playing life than as a member of this band.   They were all playing on gut strings, perhaps a first for some of the students, and several disappeared to get strings mended when they broke. (Melville had told us that there is an expert in re-stringing instruments back stage.)

They all played magnificently and the audience was rapt. What a pleasure to know that these young folk have chosen classical music as their career choice. Or perhaps music has chosen them. Right in my line of sight sat ANAM student James Morley with his cello shining yellow in the hall lighting. I couldn't resist making a little sketch as he played.

James Morley with his cello

Imogen Cooper - a win win situation

Imogen Cooper plays

You have to be careful what sort of concert you hear after a five star Parsifal but I think I chose just the thing. I heard pianist Imogen Cooper playing Beethoven and Hayden at the Sydney City Recital Hall.

Cooper is as expert in her field as the Parsifal singers were in theirs and the program she chose was clever as well. Light-hearted Beethoven Bagatelles leading into a serious Hayden then a fun Beethoven Variations (yes, Beethoven can be surprisingly witty) before a sombre-piquant piece by Adès leading into Beethoven's Sonata 31, the final piece.

Cooper played the Bagatelles with impish charm. Actually charm sums up a lot of Cooper. She is humorous and enthusiastic and it shows in her music making. After the concert someone near me complemented her playing and she replied “ Well I enjoy playing for you so it's a win win situation."

After the fun pieces she jumped up off the piano stool to bow with a grin but the final Beethoven sonata was different. Captive to the music, she came back to us with much more difficulty. I find those exposed intimate moments so telling. The feeling was mirrored in her.listeners who clapped her back onto stage again and again - not so common in Sydney audiences.

Music played with aplomb and depth of feeling. Cooper and Parsifal have lots in common.

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.

Peter Serkin: an elegant banker-look-alike gives us new ears

A wave from
tier 3.

We have got so used to loud and virtuosic piano high-jinks that when a concert is quiet and meditative, it takes time to adapt. The SSO piano concert last night at Angel Place in Sydney was one of those.

The audience filed into the Angel Place concert hall and sat looking at the grand piano, shining in black splendor. Bathed in violet with yellow backdrop, the setting was a visual treat even without a performance.

The lights dimmed and onto the stage walked a gentleman in a perfect grey, striped, three piece suit. He bowed to the audience, looking for all the world like a banker from a by-gone era, one of those elegant if slightly stiff gentlemen common in the days when bankers were people you could trust.  This was Peter Serkin, distinguished American pianist and son/grandson of distinguished musicians. Perhaps you need a persona and lineage like this to present a concert such as he presents, music that no one has heard before and which defies the 'normal' concert experience.

Serkin has a reputation for championing contemporary music but the pieces he chose to play last night looked to the past. The concert started with pre-baroque adaptations and music from an Elizabethan song-book. They seemed so simple but it look me some time to change tempo. I am sure the pieces and Serkin's slow, quiet and contemplative presentation was a very deliberate choice, designed to help us move from an over-busy and intellectualised world into a space where we could 'really hear' the works he presented.

I found myself wondering as the concert started whether I would have come had I known what was on offer and it was only during the second half of the concert, listening to pieces by Max Reger, Mozart and Beethoven  that I realised Serkin's skill had given me a whole new ear. I had not previously heard the chosen Mozart and Beethoven pieces and as I listened I could feel my view of both composers changing. I felt as if I had previously only seen the surface view and that now I was suddenly able to delve much deeper. Mozart's Rondo in A minor was a revelation. The program notes say it is regarded as his most personal work and I can believe that. It is introspective, thoughtful and contemplative, but emotional at the same time. Beethoven's Sonata No 30 is similar.

I am so grateful to Peter Serkin for taking me to a place where I could really hear music I didn't know existed.

Australia Piano Quartet pop-up concert

Thomas Rann plays Cello

Beethoven and Shostakovich string quartets played with such verve and aplomb that you really sit up in your seat. That is what the Australia Piano Quartet served up to their audience on Thursday evening's pop-up concert at the UTS Art Gallery.

The APQ are Ensemble in Residence at the University Technology Sydney and on Thursday they played with guest violinist Andrew Haveron who is concertmaster of the SSO and was previously with the Brodsky Quartet. I was one of the lucky 20 people to score a ticket and am enamoured with this group's passionate playing.

Andrew Haveron plays violin

They play a series of concerts at the Utzon Room of the Sydney Opera house and their next concert on May 10th.

See them if you can!

APQ Utzon Room concert, December2014

David Robertson and Beethoven Nine

David Robertson presenting the
pre-concert talk

Normally pre-concert talks tell you a bit about each piece to be played but nothing much that sticks in your head for very long - at least that is my experience.

The talk on Saturday evening before the Sydney Symphony Gala concert (Berg, Bruckner, Beethoven) was quite different.

The SSO Chief Conductor David Robertson not only conducted the orchestra, he gave the pre-concert talk and it was fascinating and very dense.

Robertson spoke of the links between the pieces by Berg, Bruckner and Beethoven in a way that related it our experiences today. When he said that Beethoven wrote his Ode to Joy (Ninth Symphony) at a time when  people's rights were being suppressed and life was anything but joyful it made me wonder whether some musical genius out there is translating our current travails into joyful music.

The concert was a stunner. Soprano Miriam Gordon-Stewart sang  a heart rending and passionate Maria in Act III of Berg's Wozzeck and Simon O'Neill's tenor voice soared above the orchestra and massed choir in Beethoven's 9th. That is quite a feat in a hall with such underwhelming acoustics as the Sydney Opera House.

Tognetti's Beethoven (and Greenwoods' Water)

 

The Sydney Opera House was full today for the concert Tognetti's Beethoven.  The concert was a winner, delighting the audience. (And for those who wondered what that extraordinarily touching  encore was, it was Janáček ‘Goodnight’ from On an Overgrown Path.)

One of the pieces featured in the concert was Water by multi-talented Radiohead lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, a piece which got great reviews when it was premiered in London a month or so ago.

Personally I loved the Beethoven, all three pieces played: Coriolan – Overture, Symphony No.1, Triple Concerto.   If I had to choose between them, I would choose the Triple Concerto which I found very moving. The instrumental 'conversation' between violin (Richard Tognetti), piano (Yevgeny Sudbin) and cello (Timo-Veikko Valve) was inspirational and I kept thinking how much fun it must have been to practice.

Below is a great little video of Tognetti talking about the Beethoven and then the Greenwood collaboration.

And here is an ACO blogpost about Greenwood and the ACO