Unexpecteds

This was a student choir and I could fully expect Bach.  But the other two works were not so obvious.  But then Tobias Cole was directing so maybe not so unlikely.  The unlikely matters were firstly a premiere but one member, Rebecca Hilliard.  Not every concert has a premiere and this was a very satisfying one, putting the words of a friend, Silvia Canton Rondoni, to music.  And it was very good with clear harmonies leading to dissonant extensions so tension then release.  Pleasing and interesting.  Secondly, an improv.  Now that is unexpected at a classical concert, especially when you are asked, as audience, to join in, if you wish.  No-one much did but the choir was lovely, testing, creative, first in voice and long notes then leading into clicks and whistles.  Wow.  The major work of the day was advertised and expected enough (being JS Bach himself) and mightily difficult.  Jesu, meine Freude BWV227, a good half hour of unaccompanied voice with text from Johann Franck and Romans, with parts soprano 1,2, alto, tenor, bass and rich and moving harmony and occasional fugue.  Difficult but Bach is always a work of genius and pleasure and challenge and they did it well.  So both unexpected and a pleasure.  That's to be expected from Tobias and a bunch of students.  A great pleasure.

ANU Chamber Choir performed Hilliard, an improvisation and Bach at Wesley under Tobias Cole (director).  The work by Rebecca Hilliard (composer, alto) was Even if for a short time, with text by poet Silvia Canton Rondoni, was a premiere.

A program for Easter and Anzac

The ANU Chamber Choir and Chamber Orchestra performed on stage at Llewellyn. I've done it before, but it's strange to join the performers on a massive stage and look out at 1330 empty seats. But nice. It's intimate, it seems acoustically quite live, boxed in by timber, and it's a decent sized space. This was a sellout, with performers and audience sitting on a flat surface, so sightlines were difficult, but so be it. There were two works on the program: Buxtehude and Haydn. Peter Tregear introduced them as selected for this Easter / Anzac week.

Firstly, Buxtehude's Membra Jesu nostri, a series of 7 cantatas each contemplating a part of Christ's dead body (feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart and head). It's a strange concept, but this is early music, pre-Enlightenment. They thought differently then, and they were in touch with death. Buxtehude composed this in 1680 but to stanzas of a mediaeval hymn from a poem of the high mediaeval period. The ANU Chamber Choir comprised about 30 performers, with some members coming out to solo. They were accompanied by a small chamber orchestra of 2 x violin (or violin and viola?), 1 x viola da gamba (sometimes 2), cello and organ. Peter Tregear conducted. The strings were using baroque bows. It was sung in Latin. The programs had Latin text with English translation. I followed the text and found it rewarding, giving the meaning and worldview, but also making the counterpoint and baroque embellishments obvious. Body of Christ; I kept thinking of that ghostly Mantenga painting, Lamentation over the Dead Christ, that resides at the Brera in Milan. This was truly another era.

The second work of the night was performed by the ANU Chamber Orchestra with conductor David Irving. This is much larger orchestra but about half the size of the CSO (two basses) with a full suite of horns and brass and woodwinds and timpani using modern instruments. This was much closer is style to our era, being early modern, early classical. Peter introduced the work as immediately post-French Revolution, but it felt light and attractive and the program quoted Haydn's pleasure at its inaugural performance: "... packed audience ... I took in this evening 4,000 guilden. One can make as much as this only in England". Music for a market but lovely none-the-less. This was Op.104, London Symphony, the last of 12 symphonies he composed for visits to London. Four movements, attractive and lively, very pleasurable, just a touch of the idyll, sometimes danceable, often grand and joyous and wonderfully pretty. Again, nicely played and delightful music.

Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the Mantegna

Thanks to our friends

The ANU put on a big free show last year when it was under the hammer and they returned with another this year. The intention is different, presumably to showcase the continued existence and success of the School, but the context of massive change at the School is the same. Head of School, Peter Tregear, introduced this year’s concert as a gift to the Canberra Community and friends and he plans to make this an annual free gig. Great. The School of Music clearly has many supporters in Canberra. Many were horribly disappointed by changes last year, but Peter and others have been working valiantly to rebuild the School and they need the support of friends.

This was another mix of styles and ensembles, if not the extended potpourri of last year’s event. First was DRUMatix with soloist Sean Connaughton performing David Mancini’s Suite for solo drumset and percussion ensemble. How can you not love this? Infectious grooves, intervallic rubatos, rich tapestries of tone and even harmony and melody from the vibes and marimbas. And tubular bells, various latin percussions and timpanis. This was all convincingly performed, joyous and infusive, and Sean’s drum solo was interesting and of a nice length and surprisingly rocky in this classical percussion context, but that’s the nature of a group like this. DRUMatix presents a catholic array of sounds and rhythms. I’m sold. Then a welcome to country. Then the Jazz Ensemble playing an arrangement of Stolen Moments by Miro and Miro’s For Woody. These are two great tunes. Stolen moments was a surprise with a few added bars which stretch and settle this already cool tune. It was good to hear John’s tenor again and El’s violin (which is ever more satisfying) and guitar hidden in the back row. For Woody is a burner and the solos were shared widely: tenor and violin again, then trumpet, alto, drums, percussion. I don’t find Llewellyn is a generous acoustic for jazz, but this was enlivened and harmonically sweet in the heads. Nice.

The fine music followed the interval. The ANU Chamber Orchestra played and the ANU Chamber Choir sang under Peter Tregear’s baton. Calvin Bowman joined them for sinfonia and chorus from Bach’s Wir danken dir, Gott, BWV29. This is classic Bach oratorio material. Peter Tregear introduced it as written for the inauguration of the Leipzig Town hall and lamented our current alternatives. It didn’t seem hugely complex but it’s totally satisfying. I found strings and organ a bit unbalanced and the instrumentals somewhat lost in this large space, but it grew as the voices joined in. Bach is nothing but a pleasure. Then Handel’s Ode to Saint Cecilia’s Day, HWV76. Saint Cecilia is the patron saint of music, so this was also an ode to music. It was performed by Chamber Orchestra and Choir with singers Rachael Thoms (soprano) and Paul McMahon (tenor) and instrumentalists Rachel Beesley (orchestra leader), Virginia Taylor (flute) and Julia Janiszewski (cello). Handel combined text from Dryden with his dignified and sometimes majestic orchestration. This is a larger piece with numerous movements, variously dance-like, expectant, undemonstrative, joyous, stately, majestic, in three and four. Nicely done and especially involving at the end.

It’s been a very demanding year for the staff of the School of Music, even if it was quiet one in public. I’m hoping for a more publicly visible school over coming years. Ode to Music was performed by staff and students of the ANU School of Music. Performers were DRUMatix, ANU Jazz Ensemble, ANU Chamber Orchestra, ANU Chamber Choir, Calvin Bowman (organ), Rachael Thoms (soprano), Paul McMahon (tenor), Rachael Beesley (orchestra leader), Virginia Taylor (flute) and Julia Janiszewski (cello) led by Peter Tregear.

Ending Easter

Three days later we were at it again: in Llewellyn Hall, with the Canberra Chorale and Bach’s St John Passion, this time with the ANU Chamber Choir and the ABC for a live broadcast to ABCFM radio. Perhaps it’s strange to hear a passion on Easter Sunday, but it’s a great work and satisfying either way. The concert started with the ANU Chamber Choir performing Arvo Pärt’s Magnificat. This was a delicate work of shimmering sopranos, high tenors, soft and swelling tones and gently moving harmonic colours. Wikipedia says it’s “divided into verse and tutti sections. The verse sections include one voice (often a soprano solo) which remains constantly on third-space C, as well as a lower, melodic line. The tutti sections make use of either three, four, or six voice parts. The soprano soloist joins in the tutti sections at times”*. Delicate and quite lovely. The rest of the concert comprised excerpts from the English version of St John Passion that I wrote up in my previous post. I found this a more confident performance than the world premiere of a few days earlier, but it was also the “best bits” with plenty of choral highlights and with an enlarged choir when the ANU singers joined in for the later passages. We spoke to Jesus (Paul Cambridge, bass) on the way out and he was obviously amused by having just a few lines, but so be it. Translator and Evangelist (the tenor who tells the story) Christopher Steele had been very impressive at the full concert and we thought even better here, more relaxed and vibrant (and less hard worked). Suffice to say, this was not the full work, and it suffered for that, but what there was was more confident and settled. This may have been just a minor reincarnation, but it was a gem.

The Oriana Chorale and Orchestra performed excerpts from the JS Bach St John Passion. The Evangelist and translator for this English version was Christopher Steele. The conductor was David Mackay. The ANU Chamber Choir was conducted by bengt-Olov Palmqvist and they performed the Arvo Pärt Magnificat.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificat_(Pärt), viewed 8 April 2012