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.

Early elegance restored

Megan and I got an invitation to the launch of the Canberra International Music Festival 2010. This year’s launch was at the Albert Hall, one of Canberra’s earliest public buildings (meaning ~1920s). It’s a small, timber floored, multipurpose hall in a Georgian Revival style with faux classical columns, big windows, a strange little dress circle area over the foyer and a proscenium arched stage. All quite a mixture and odd for modern tastes, but it’s much loved and has been recently restored (although I didn’t notice much difference). There were drinks and hors d’oevres, followed by speeches by Dorothy Danta (Pro Musica Board president), Don Aitken (CIMF Chair) and Chris Latham (CIMF musical director), and the premiere performance of a work by Peter Sculthorpe, Kyrie for cello and strings, performed by cellist David Pereira and the ANU School of Music Chamber Orchestra. Megan described it as dreamy, evocative, wandering music that reminded her of Arvo Pärt. It was nicely played, too, although the massive reverb in the now curtain-free Albert Hall made the orchestra sound less fresh than it should have. We discussed the lack of curtains with some friends. They would have served several purposes in this reverberant hall with big windows in Canberra’s harsh outback environment: managing the sound and limiting extremes of temperature. I bet they will reappear. It was not a young crowd. The ageing of the audience is a concern of classical music. I hope the seriousness of the music will work its magic in the end. There’s just a touch of jazz on the program but it looks interesting: the Sprogis/Woods Jazz Composers’ Competition. It’s advertised as an award for emerging writers from the Jazz Department at the ANU School of Music. Bill Risby, Miroslav Bukovsky and Mike Price are judging. The final is in the Fitter’s Workshop (the venue with the “Stradivarius acoustics”) on 23 May. Check out the CIMF website for the program.

CIMF website