Acoustics excellence

It’s a big call but I heard this room, at least for the music that was played there and my position in it, as the most clear and firm acoustics I can remember, throughout the frequency range. The bass was wonderfully rich and deep and present; the violins were perhaps edgy; the solo instruments, harp then flute (and organ) then viola were clear and strong (other than the organ which seemed light on, quiet, thin). But I was in raptures over this sound. This was the former Wesley church in Clunes, Victoria, now restored as part of the campus of Wesley College, Melbourne, as a country campus. The music that sounded so good was a string orchestra with soloists playing various concerti by Vivaldi, Telemann and Haydn on modern instruments. I just luxuriated in the richness and fullness of the tones and the joy of music of this early-classical-cum-baroque era. Our pleasure with music is a function of sound in space. This just filled the room with clarity and fullness. The pieces were Vivaldi Concerto Dmaj for harp RV93; Vivaldi Concerto Dmaj op.10 no.3 Il cardellino for flute; Telemann Concerto Gmaj for viola; Haydn Concerto no.1 Cmaj for organ and oboe Hob.XVIII. The soloists were Elisabetta Ghebbioni, Andrea Dainese, Lawrence Jacks and Anthony Halliday. I met up with bassist Tim Nelson (the first double bassists so far at this festival) and also with an old mate from Canberra, violinist Louise Hillyard. A pleasure and a massive surprise!

Elisabetta Ghebbioni (harp), Andrea Dainese (flute), Lawrence Jacks (viola) and Anthony Halliday (organ) soloed for various concerti by vivaldi, Telemann and Hadyn at the former Wesleyan Methodist Church in Clunes. The Festival Chamber Orchestra comprised Yvonne Holley, Akeyo Matsumoto, Kate Carman, Wilson Blackman, Millie Koenders and Toni Williams (violins), Ann Smith and Louise Hillyard (violas), Kathryn Saunders (oboe), Miriam Kriss (cello) and Tim Nelson (bass).

NYC moments

Concert 2 in Castlemaine was a stunner of modern music with loads of international connections in an old-styled town hall, all rows of seats and high stage and musical distance. Nonetheless, it was another stunner. We’d heard Anthony Halliday and Tomomi Kondo Brennan playing duo with AH on organ a Snake Gully. This was a trio event, with Tomomi’s husband, trumpeter Joel Brennan, extensive travel, musical doctorate from Yale and now Senior lecturer in Brass at Melbourne Con. With this trio we could expect fireworks. We got them. A duo (tpt, pno) from Joseph Turin who wrote the music for Nightmare on Elm St and has been commissioned by the NY Phil: Two portraits for flugelhorn and piano (utilising both flugel and trumpet). Then AH playing Beethoven Andante favore with plenty of rubato and flexibility of tempo. AH amazes me with his playing from memory: he played from memory the other day and apparently has performed Well tempered clavier from memory. He obviously read for the more obscure pieces. The final work was a pairing of two contemporary numbers: Julliard lecturer Eric Ewazen’s Trio for trumpet, violin and piano (apparently he writes for unusual combinations) with a response called Summer breeze from Harry Sdraulig, a recent student at Melbourne Con who was in the audience. HS’s was shorter and more attractively melodic. EE’s was more complex in harmony, interplay, structure and the rest, but this was a much larger work in several movements. So, this was a return to the modern and particularly to contemporary US, with that Australian response and a blast from a storied past. A stunning concert with some fabulously inventive compositions and excellent performances. Loved this one!

Anthony Halliday (piano) Tomomi Kondo Brennan (violin) and Joel Brennan (trumpet, flugelhorn) performed contemporary music and Beethoven at the Town Hall in Castlemaine. Harry Sdraulig (composer) was present for the premiere of one of his works.

Snakes

This place was called Snake Valley and the concert was in a lovely old Uniting Church (built Presbyterian, 1861) in a field behind trees on the country road. The feature was a Fincham and Hobday organ. You get to know these names at this event. They were makers in Melbourne and this one dates from 1894. Some problems that appeared during the first up Bach were presumably remedied for the rest of the concert, but this is the nature of such a beast. I expect funds are tight for maintenance. The players were Anthony Halliday and Tomomi Kondo Brennan. AH plays organs around the world, not least in London and Leipzig, and has appeared here before. TKM has a history on violin from Japan through Canada and is now an associate principal with Orchestra Victoria. OV is the Melbourne-based orchestra supporting the Australian Ballet and Opera. So no slouches. The music was a mix of solo organ and duets from Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Haydn, Elgar, Mozart and Widor and Vitali. There were some tech hitches with the Bach but we could still enjoy the variations in tone and power that pipe organ can display, and some very capable playing of multiple parts. The duets featured the violin, with the organ surprisingly reticent when accompanying but also when taking a phrase. Perhaps the tech issue or perhaps AH’s artistic judgement. I much enjoyed TKM’s bowing as a class in itself, being close up, especially some very effective and even slurs and bouncing passages. Lovely ll round.

Anthony Halliday (organ) and Tomomi Kondo Brennan (violin) performed at the Uniting Church Snake Valley for the Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields Festival.

An organ at the festival

It took until the third concert to hear a genuine concert on one of the installed church organ of Ballarat. This was the Fincham & Sons organ at the Ballarat Central Uniting Church. I’m staying with a heritage architect who tells me this organ is of historical significance and protected on a State Government register ( “there are not many organs on that register, I can tell you”). The programmed organist, Italian Ferruccio Bartoletti, was sick and unable to travel. Anthony Halliday replaced him, amazingly with the same program with just one change. This was a program of Buxtehude followed by JS Bach. Standard names but varied. I enjoyed the sine-wave-like purity of the deep notes and considered the more edgy overtone-rich higher tones. I wondered about the sense of timing that follows those slow attacks on low notes. I chatted about the multiple manuals and the rows of switches for different pipes and pipe lengths and was surprised when I saw the range of other switches close up. I was amused to think how unprepossessing it is as a visual spectacle, just one organist with his back to audience, despite the impressive machine that’s under control. I followed tunes of interweaving counterpoint or sturdy bass lines or more chordal orientations. I enjoyed the Buxtehude but deeply responded to the inevitability of every Bach invention, with its ideas that never jarred, being always carried through to resolution. But mostly I liked the big, swelling tones when the machine let go. There was a little of this earlier on, but the Bach Passacaglia BWV582 was the summit of the day, all insistent and unyielding and just plain big. Obviously this sells organs to others, too, because it was the final piece. That was fun.

Anthony Halliday (organ) played a program of Buxtehude and JS Bach on the Fincham organ at the Ballarat Central Uniting Church.