Celebrating Mozart with the ACO

Whoops, foot stomping and whistles echoed through the Angel Place concert hall last night. It is not really the sort of response Haydn and Mozart pieces normally elicit, but this Australian Chamber Orchestra concert was not the normal ...it was the exceptional. 

Richard Tognetti and pianist Dejan Lazić played solos that made us all feel as if the conversation was with us individually. They were ably supported by the orchestra, augmented by a group of equally good  wind instrumentalists.  How lucky we are in Australia having this exceptional group to play to us.

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.

A Tognetti/Leschenko treat

Battered sheet music waiting to be played.

The Polina Leschenko (piano) and Richard Tognetti (violin) concert at the Angel Place hall last week was a winner. They will play together in November this year at the Barbican in London and this was a sort of preliminary concert. After a marvelous Beethoven/Sculthorpe/Pärt/Brahms concert they played three encores, so lucky were we.

I was seated behind the musicians and couldn't help but notice that when Tognetti has room to move about the stage he gets on his surf board to play the energetic parts.  I couldn't resist drawing the surfboard into the little postcard sketch I made while they played.

ACO celebrates with Mozart

Richard Tognetti is celebrating 25 years
as artistic director of the ACO*

If you want to hear an inspired Mozart played by an inspired orchestra, go and hear the Australian Chamber Orchestra celebrate their 40th birthday. They are touring Mozart's Last Symphonies.

I went to the concert yesterday and it's a winner.  Three symphonies in one concert (two you have certainly heard before and one I wish we heard more often) and all of them foot-stompingly good!

* the photo is from the ACO program (slightly altered - I added a little colour to the sparkler ... )

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Dvorák, with a spring in his step

From left: From left: Richard Tognetti, Satu Vänskä,

Polina Leschenko, Nathan Braude, Jaka Stadler

Tonight's concert at the Maribor Music Festival was a delight. Gifted young pianist Polina  Leschenko and viola player Nathan Baude played work by by Rebecca Clarke and Frederic Chopin.

They were then joined by violinists Richard Tognetti and Satu Vänskä and cellist Jaka Stadler to play Antonin Dvorák's Piano Quintet #2 in A major which has a very strong melody line.  I can hear people whistling it in the hotel hallway as I write.

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

Richard Tognetti's words

Richard Tognetti

I am most amused to read the blurb by Richard Tognetti in the 2014 Australian Chamber Orchestra brochure. He writes: "...we will play music that aims to remove impurities from your soul, raise spirits in troubled times,offer aspirations to the distressed, honour the departed,suggest an alternative to mainstream religious dogma, motivate courageous exploits, give strength to the forlorn, bring maturity to errant teenagers, and alter the course of rivers...".
I subscribed, of course.

ACO2

Today I heard the youth branch of the Australian Chamber Orchestra play, the young musicians who are being mentored by the ACO (particularly Helena Rathbone) and who perform throughout regional Australia. Their current tour is giving them exposure to metropolitan audiences. The twelve young musicians and their five ACO mentors acquitted themselves wonderfully well at Sydney's Angel Place concert hall.

Bravo ACO2. Bravo ACO mentors.

(and cellist Daniel Mueller-Schott from Munich who played with them was a real treat!)

Archibald Entry

The Archibald Portrait competition held at the Art Gallery of NSW always features prominently in the media and is the cause of much discussion (and often controversy) in both art and non-art circles. I took my entry in on Tuesday. There were lots of trucks, vans and cars delivering paintings while I was there. It is always interesting to catch a glimpse of paintings submitted for the three big prizes given at this time of year: Archibald (Portrait), Sulman (Genre) and Wynne (Landscape.

The Soloist

Mine was a painting of Richard Tognetti, painted from sketches I did at the Maribor Music Festival last year.