Roberto Alagna in Sydney

Have you ever heard Nessun Dorma sung to the tune of Funiculì, Funiculà? No? Well people who attended the Roberto Alagna concert at the Sydney Opera House last night are one up on you.

After a successful and quite lengthy programme of opera arias, orchestral interludes and Neapolitan songs including the aforementioned Funiculì, Funiculà, Roberto Alagna and his collaborators, including the delightful Aussie soprano Siobhan Stagg who is making a name for herself in Europe, gave us an encore that got a great reception. In fact the audience gave Alagna a great reception from the word go, clapping furiously as soon as there was the smallest gap in the music. That was not surprising as Alagna is an engaging performer and, after all, who wouldn't want to be wooed by a tenor with a magnificent voice who is good fun into the bargain.

Anyway, after the first encore there was a short discussion between the performers and conductor as they decided about a second, and probably unplanned for, encore. Then as the conductor held up his baton for a repeat of Funiculì, Funiculà,, a voice was heard from the audience calling 'Nessun Dorma!' The public laughed, the orchestra began and then we heard a very novel performance of Funiculì, Funiculà. As each line ended, Alagna (and later Stagg) added the words 'Nessun Dorma' to the end.  It caused a great deal of merriment in the hall. Perhaps this version of the Neapolitan classic could be named 'the Sydney version'.

Cerebral Palsy and Music

You wouldn't think that someone suffering from a high level of cerebral palsy would be able to play a music instrument would you? Nor would you think they could play with a professional band but the Australian Piano Quartet and Jessica Irwin have proved that it can happen and that the result can be stunning.

Rebecca Chan plays

Congratulations to Rebecca Chan and the APQ for showing us how limiting  our preconceptions can be. The APQ have a residency at the University of Technology Sydney and for this project they worked with the folk who build software which helps the less-abled manage life.

Rebecca Chan wrote the piece Whispering Pectoriloquy in collaboration with the team which enabled Jessica Irwin to play synthsiser. Chan is a trained as a doctor and said she imagined synapses firing while writing the piece. I have a similar background (though I am a biological doctor not a medical one) and I thought the description very apt.

Jessica's Irwin's eye movements were shown on a screen so we could watch what she was doing, but even if we had not been able to visualise her work we would have been able to hear how good it was. The piece got a standing ovation at the Sydney Opera House Utzon room yesterday and it was well deserved. I am looking forward to hearing more of Chan's compositions.

Look Jessica Irwin up on her website - she is a phenomenon!

ACO and Sollima: Sequenza Ilaliana

Impassioned, fun, fabulous, mesmerizing. Yes, all of those things describe the Sequenza Italiana concert given by musicians of the Australian Chamber Orchestra with visiting cello-virtuoso Giovanni Sollima. I sat in the concert wishing everyone I knew could be with me watching this passionate and competent group of people.

Maxime Bibeau (Double Bass) and Satu Vänskä (Violin) played sequenza by Berio, pieces written specifically for their instruments and intertwined by the players to make a fascinating whole. Bravo Max and Satu! Satu later played a piece by Paganini, relaxed and happy and with her flying fingers showing us just how lucky we are to have her here in Australia. 

Giovanni Sollima plays cello like no other

When Sollima played I wished all the under 20's of my acquaintance could be with me. They would

have learned in a single concert the fun and joy of classical music.

Sollima plays every part of his instrument, not only the strings but the wood and even strut that holds his cello from the floor. I think he'd play the music stand if he had one. The interesting thing is that it doesn't seem contrived. The sounds he produces from wood and metal are different from those produced by the strings and are an essential part of his composition. By the time his piece finishes it doesn't seem strange that he is playing the instrument as a whole, wood, metal and strings.

I wrote yesterday about my pre-concert experience and to have it followed by a captivating concert such as this, well you can see why I was lost for words. All I can say is that it was a day I shall not forget.

Telling Tales

I had an experience today that I find very difficult to describe. 

It was a drab old day in Sydney, not cold but with lowering clouds and sporadic rain showers. Not a day you expect to be overwhelmed and left breathless and weeping in the space of a minute or two. 

Grey day today: Sydney Opera House from the MCA

As I walked out of Wynyard Station I was assailed by the scent of Narcissus flowers, harbingers of spring. I am still not quite used to Narcissus flowers being sold when autumn is barely over and 'winter' has not quite gripped us, but then what we call winter in Sydney is more like spring in harsher climates. 

This was what I was thinking as I strode off to the the Museum of Contemporary Art. I was going there to see 'Telling Tales', an exhibition that includes a sung work Sonic Blossoms by artist Lee Mingwei. A classically trained singer (there are several who take turns) chooses a random member of the public and sings a Schubert song to them. I am acquainted with one of the singers and was hoping to hear her sing. 

Goowoolem Gijam – Gija plants by Shirley Purdie

In the nominated third floor exhibition room there was a large work called Goowoolem Gijam – Gija plants by Aboriginal artist Shirley Purdie that took up most of one wall. The other works in the room were by artist Emily Floyd, comments on the Soviet Gulag which, as the wall plaques declared, resonate with Australia's offshore internment camps and policies affecting remote Aboriginal communities.

Some time after midday a tall smartly dressed man with a rather dramatic coat appeared (baritone Andrew Moran I discovered afterwards).  He led a woman from the assembled onlookers to sit on a chair in the middle of the room, then withdrew to stand perhaps eight meters away to deliver his song. 

I am not sure if it was the already emotionally-charged space, whether it was Schubert's music/words or whether it was Andrew Moran's extraordinary baritone voice but in the space of four minutes I was an emotional wreck. Is that too strong an expression? After the song I walked out of the MCA weeping and emotional, heading for a quiet corner where I could sit and think and figure out what had happened to me. Eventually I wrote a note (writing helps me digest experience) and emailed it to myself. 

This is what I wrote:

My body feels as if it is too small for my heart which has suddenly grown four sizes bigger. Half an hour ago I was was present when Andrew Moran sang a Schubert song to an audience member of the MCA. I was not the person sung to but despite that, this single song touched me in a way one is seldom touched.

It is true, I weep when I hear Liebestod at the end of Tristan and Isolde, but that is to be expected after four hours going through an emotional wringer. The Schubert song was only a couple of minutes long, but sung in a way that reached right past any defenses I might have had and left me breathless and weeping.

Now I am sitting quietly in a corner with a consolatory beer, trying to get a grip on myself before I go to the ACO/ Giovanni Sollima concert. Will the concert make my malady worse?

Now it is evening. As I returned home on the train I thought about this extraordinary day that has been almost impossible to describe. (More on the concert later.)  Ex PM Paul Keating struggles to explain the effect of Mahler's music has on him; Wagnerians join societies to search for words to describe their feelings;  I write a blogpost in an effort of describe a Schubert Lied. We all fail because there are no words.

 Addendum: here is the song I heard..  Du bist die Ruh sung by Peter Scheier:

 

Peter Schreier sings

Women and war

In the 1970/80s I lived in Germany and suffered culture shock. I learned the language quickly but a culture is much more than its language and learning to understand Germany was a challenge. It was the old world and I had grown up in the new world; it was Germany and I had grown up in an anti-German environment (my parents were both nineteen when WW2 broke out).

As an antidote and to gain understanding I decided to interview women about their war time experiences. My project grew and grew, and I grew with it. All in all I interviewed twenty two German and nine English women. I had to take a break in the middle as I was so overwhelmed by what I was hearing. I summarised the German transcripts in English and researched the period in the library in Wiesbaden. But then I started studying (not history) and put this project aside for some future date.

Now the future has caught up with me. It was a difficult project and perhaps that is why I put it off so long but I kept the box of tapes, transcripts and research and the box survived my many changes of abode.

When I looked at the transcripts again, I realised  that they are much more interesting than my original summaries. I am now re-translating the interviews from the original transcripts and digitising the tapes that survived the intervening years.

I am hoping to find a print outlet to take up this fascinating material, but in the meantime I have my head down and am busy in the world of 1940s Europe. It is non-visual,  thus the dearth of blog posts.

Sunset

Sunset today

Who can resist them, beautiful sunsets?

The sunset this evening was a stunner, with the gods shining a red torch on the undersides of the lumpy grey clouds transforming them into a sight to gasp at.  Then five minutes later they switched the torch off and it was all over ...

Education and Brexit: Go the Scots!

Those with more education vote to stay
(Guardian newspaper)

The Scots have a very long tradition of respect for education, believing that everyone from the top to the bottom of the social spectrum, both girls and boys, should have a decent education.
 

'In August 1560 the ... Scotland [became] a Protestant country. The Reformed Scottish Church recognised that education had to be a national priority, both for its intrinsic worth but also to ensure everyone could read the Bible.' [from: University of Edinburgh website]

This eventually lead to the enlightenment in the eighteen century, earlier than most of Europe.

Education is still important in Scotland and I suspect that this has had an effect on the Scots vote to remain in Europe. A more educated population is not as easy to mislead and the Scots may well thank their system in future years if it enables them to continue to reap the benefits that a European common market delivers.

Unknown creator (from Facebook!)

As I write, it is not yet clear whether England will actually leave the EU although the European politicians, understandably tired of being continually poked in the eye by the UK,  are urging them to take their bat and ball and leave. It looks as if it might be crunch time for the Brexit politicians locally as well now that all their posturing is shown to have been built on untruths.

Deservedly unloved on both sides of the channel.

Britain Brexits

They Brexited and everyone seems to be in a state of shock, though I don't know why. It seems to me that the British people have been skeptical about the value of Europe for a long time.

I was brought up in a pro-British household where grandmother still called England 'home', so I was amazed when I lived in Europe to discover how behind the times the English were. Whenever there was a proposed change for more equality, for example for women, it always seemed to be the British holding back the change. Ever since then I have wondered whether a Brexit might actually help Europe (though I feel sorry for the British).

The British view of Germans continues to be one influenced by war propaganda and the TV series Hogans Heros. - so they think Germans are evil or buffoons. An English friend who teaches German in an English school told me that when the soccer world cup was held in Germany, English reporters sent reports back saying 'People here are actually quite cultured.'  They were astonished that the German police danced in the streets with the crowds.

The elites have obviously found it in their best interest to keep the uneducated uneducated, all the while ripping them off unconscionably. Why are they surprised when the hens come home to roost? As someone immediately wrote on my twitter feed The United Kingdom 1707 - 2016. 

Addendum on 25June:  this morning I heard Sadiq Khan, new Major of London, say that over the past 20 years whenever a Prime Minister has gone to Europe to negotiate a deal, they have come home and criticised the EU.  I thought it a very valid point and now I wonder how they will manage without this convenient whipping boy.

APQ plays Liebestod

The woman in the seat next to me at the Australia Piano Quartet concert at the Sydney Opera House Utzon Room yesterday was reduced to tears by their playing of the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. As she blew her nose afterwards and tried to recompose herself, I reflected on the power of music to move us. The piece had been arranged by the APQ for quartet so there was no soprano, but this music is so evocative that an instrumental version played by a virtuoso group like the APQ is capable of exciting extreme emotional response.

Schumann's Piano Quintet in E flat Major (Anna de Silva Chen joined the group as second violin) followed Liebestod. Wonderful music played with passion.

Lang Lang in Sydney

Lang Lang at the Sydney Opera House last night
(Photo by Christie Brewster from SSO Facebook page)

I saw virtuoso pianist Lang Lang play Tchaikovsky, Bach and Chopin last night and I have been trying to find a suitable noun to describe him ever since.  He is virtuosic of course and he is young and he is charming, but still there is so much more to him. I have decided the word is 'tender'. He plays the piano with such tenderness, even when he is playing Chopin's fiery Scherzi.

I was sitting in a box opposite the piano so although I couldn't see his hands on the keyboard I had a good view of his extraordinarily expressive face as he played. He smiles a lot, finding all sorts of amusement in the music. His body moves and jumps as it reflects the stories he is telling with his hands.

I was entranced to see his hands when he lifted one or other off the keyboard occasionally because they hovered like expressive, relaxed, floating flowers describing the melody in the air.  His audience couldn't help be captivated.

He is a remarkable ambassador for classical music, one of those rare pianists who can fill the opera house concert hall twice over (he is playing mostly Grieg next Saturday).  He is very keen for the next generation to learn the beauties of classical music and has developed an app to encourage them. How many other classical musicians have developed an app to help youngsters learn (or any app at all actually)? That says so much about him.

Oh warmth!

"Don't throw it away before you need to, you just create more landfill," said the technician when I told him my heat pump was no longer working as it should.

The first arctic blast of winter blew through last weekend and I had rung him for advice. This house, like so many in Australia, is very cold in winter (I measured 9C inside on Saturday and we still have autumn) and the heat pump struggled to bring the temperature up to 15C.

When the technician saw the unit he said it was probably 20 years old and the company that made it (Sharp) no longer existed. In an old house everything seems to need replacing at once and, like the guttering, the heat pump was overdue. So I bit the bullet and ordered a new one - a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries split system. 

This morning it was installed and yaaay, I have heat!  The new system is much quieter than the old and probably much more energy efficient as well. It heats, cools, and generally just hangs out on the wall.

Ikea-Meccano

I am a sucker for Ikea build-it-yourself furniture. My favorite toy as a child was a Meccano set and Ikea is Meccano for adults. I doubt I would be so tempted by Ikea furniture if I didn't have to screw it together and, like Meccano, know that the bits fit together faultlessly.

After building kitchen cupboards a couple of years ago there has been a hiatus but last week I gave away the small bar table to a student who needs to stand at her computer instead of sitting all day.  As a replacement I bought an island bench.

Ikea staff had to help me load the three heavy boxes into the car and I drove home carefully, aware that they could become lethal missiles in an accident.  By the time I had them in the kitchen at home I was too tired to think, but still I couldn't resist opening the boxes and reading the assembly instructions before I went to bed.

Kitchen 2016

The island bench is easy to construct but you end with it upside down. It was far to heavy for me to turn over, even with ingenuity, but my friendly neighbour and her son came to my rescue. Once it was the right way up we stood admiring it and asking ourselves why the kitchen looks much bigger with this big bench than it did with the small bar table. It has made a remarkable difference.

Kitchen 2013

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.

French tea

When I was in Paris last year one of the few things I bought was some tea from the Dammann Tea shop.  It was labeled Earl Grey Yin  Zhen I bought it mostly because I liked the little black and maroon tin.

When I got home and tried it I wished I had bought two tins as it was a delight to drink, large leafed, with some lavender petals and not too much Bergamot flavouring.  It has become my preferred afternoon brew and I have been drinking a cup most days, but eking it out to make it last, using just half a teaspoon of tea for my one cup pot. Today I drank the last brew from the little tin.

Lamenting my dwindling Paris tea and wondering if I would have to visit again to get some more, today I discovered in the local supermarket a tea labeled French Earl Grey Tea. It is from a UK company called 'Higher Living' and I could see though the cellophane that it is large leafed black tea with lavender (and rose) petals.

Tomorrow I will see if it tastes as good as my Paris tea. I might not have to make the trip after all!

Gutter glitter

Back to things more prosaic -  in this case, guttering. The gutters on this old house were long past their replace-date and when they were removed last week I'm told they were so thin in parts that "it was like cutting paper".

I calculated it would take two days for the guttering to be replaced on house and garage, however four men arrived at 7:30am, worked like clockwork and by 12 noon they were finished.

old gutters

New gutters: what a difference

Portrait of an eleven year old

Kurtis: acrylic on canvas
100 x 70 cm

My portrait of eleven year old Kurtis is finished. It is a large work (though not ginormous) but I find I enjoy making large portraits. As usual it went through several iterations and some frustration on the way to completion. It took me a lot of fiddling to get his face just right and as usual, I thought it would never 'work'.

I had originally intended to add one of Kurtis's drawings in the background (his favourite subjects are drawing and maths) but instead I added a hand. He posed for me next to the painting so I could draw his hand.

First charcoal sketch

Katie Noonen and the Brodsky Quartet in Sydney

Last week when I heard the Katie Noonen singing with the Brodsky Quartet (broadcast from Brisbane by ABC ClassicFM) I was sorry I hadn't arranged to see them in Sydney. Then I got an email from the Sydney City Recital Hall, realised that they were performing in Sydney the following Monday and bought one of the few remaining tickets. I saw them last night.

Katie Noonen at the Sydney Recital Center

The first half of the concert were classical pieces set to poems by Judith Wright which had been commissioned by the group and written by Australian composers. They were remarkable; enjoyable despite being miked. (Katie specialises in pop/jazz/rock and I imagine her very distinctive voice transports better with a mike.) Her mother, I discovered later, is soprano Maggie Noonen and they sometimes perform together.

I loved the classical songs but I suspect many of the audience were like my neighbours who enjoyed the post interval Elvis Costello jazz songs better. The audience obviously knew and loved these songs and sang along with Fragile,  the very last song of a generous two and a half hour performance.

Hopefully the Judith Wright poetry compositions will be played often and in a few years audiences will be able to sing along to those as well.

Omega Ensemble in Sydney

When I saw that the Omega Ensemble had put Wagner's Tristan and Isolde Vorspiel and Lebenstod at the beginning of their concert program last week I wondered if the programmer had had a mental lapse. How do you follow such music? Abrahmsen has a rich creamy voice and as she sang the Liebestod I wished it had been at the end of the evening instead of the beginning. (She sang Strauss's Four Last Songs as a finale.)

Maria Rospopova plays

Fortunately the composer of the second piece, Andrew Ford of the ABC music show, was on hand to introduce his own piece Contradance which followed the Liebestod.

The first thing he said was 'Well, how do you follow that? Perhaps by me keeping talking so there is a sufficient gap."
That is exactly what he did and by the time we heard Contradance we were in the right mood. Contradance was so different to what went before that there was no clash, but still I was pleased he had taken the time to create a gap.

Thirteen musicians performed on the evening but I was fascinated by the pianist Maria Raspopova. She is tall and sits very straight at the piano with her long legs tucked underneath. She added wonderfully to the sound of the group and was a pleasure to watch.

It was a successful evening, even if I would have wished for Isolde at the end instead of the beginning!

It you stand on a pedestal ...

Captain Cook .  St Kilda Park, Melbourne.

If you stand on a pedestal, sooner or later this is what will happen to you.

You'd look cranky too.

Melbourne Airport to the city

There are two ways to get to Melbourne airport from the city. You can take the speedy private Skybus for $18 or you can take public transport which is half the price: the #901 bus from the airport to Broadmeadows, then the train to the city.

Before I went to Melbourne I had read on Tripadvisor that Broadmeadows is a bit dangerous and taking the Skybus the the city is preferable so on my way there that is what I did. By the time I left however, I had a valid public transport myki card and getting to the airport would be included in my seven day pass.

I asked my AirBandB hostess about Broadmeadows being a bit dicey and she laughed aloud.

" Oh that's advice for country Nanas coming to town!" she chortled. " And besides, you have been staying on Gray Street St Kilda which is the ice capital of Melbourne!"

So I decided on the cheaper alternative and set off with bag, purse and small backpack via Broadmeadows.

The small backpack (purchased in Melbourne) was one item more than I normally carry and I left it behind me when I changed seats on the train.  Luckily for me one of the good citizens of Broadmeadow noticed me leave it behind and called to me not to forget it. 

So much for travel advice about dangerous suburbs.