Hiding amongst the bustle

There’s a bustle of people before an orchestral rehearsal. It seems a whirlwind to a jazzer who’s used to quartets and quintets. We were at the Albert Hall for a rehearsal of Bach cantatas to be performed for the Canberra International Music Festival. We are billeting one of the viola players and driving a cellist so we had entré. I was amused by the busyness and the activity, but then the music pulled me up as I was writing this. Bach cantatas are superbly beautiful, dignified and majestic. It wasn’t sounding so sharp and the horns sounded a bit cold, but the glory shines through. This is a reading gig, of course. The practice doesn’t repeat choruses. This is lengthy runs of bars, then stops for advice from the conductor, then perhaps comments from the singers. These are mature players so there was discussion, expansion on themes to clarify understanding. Perhaps some questions on stage layout. Twenty players and eight singers, all sitting as discussions continue. Some were injecting comments and suggestions. I guess, like a captain, the conductor directs, but this seemed pretty chummy and collegiate. Then back to Bach’s perfect balance.

A bit later I realise the other side of the bustle is the need for patience. It takes time for groups of people to do things. Conductor Roland Peelmann moves the singers and players around: singers in pairs, up front and in the wings; the trumpets standing behind; the strings spread out and pulled back. The playing is still relaxed and a little rough. Feeling out the band. This is the necessary, preliminary business, not the performance. Casual. T-shirts not skirts, although there’s still some black. There’s a fair bit of time spent just sitting around. Then back again, singers to a row behind, back to standard configuration. Then a line of classic Bach and it’s sounding great. What’s the change? This has livened. It’s more challenging, perhaps more practised at home. Rolling swells of strings, then counter-tenor and gathered voices. These are only eight singers – not a choir – but they are four clear lines.

“No French ballads: da da da DA”. So said Roland when the baroque lost just a little of its formal elegance. This is not music to emote even if it’s of great grace. There’s intellectual rigour and protestant propriety here: masterful and ordered. I doubt he’d present this way on stage, but Roland is a physical and profoundly spelling out the piece.

It goes on like this. Two hours, no stop. The orchestra gradually settling into a whole. There were some terrific individual performances. The singers were wonderful. Max McBride was rock solid as sole bass. Paul Goodchild excelled on the piccolo trumpet and got some gentle applause from his colleagues. Then the larger orchestra ends to give way to a delightful quintet, but before the orchestra leaves the stage, Roland has another gem about Bach: “Did you notice? It finishes on a chord with three sharps … three crosses. Bach’s never short on symbolism”. How much can there be in this music? I’m floored.

Roland Peelman (conductor) was rehearsing the Song Company with guests Rachael Thoms (alto), Tobias Cole (counter-tenor) and Andrew Goodwin (tenor), and the Canberra Festival Camerata with Calvin Bowman (chamber organ) and Clare Tunney (continuo cello).

For love of intimacy

Megan and I attended Concert 31 of the Canberra International Music Festival to hear the renowned acoustics, but it’s also a favourite era of Megan’s. The session was tagged “Discovering unknown Schubert masterworks”. The repertoire was Schubert Symphonies nos 10 and 11 along with Graeme Koehne’s Sleep of reason. The two Schuberts were Australian premieres, presumably for the orchestrations rather than the pieces. It was the no.10 that went first, then the Koehne with big sweeps of strings and obvious filmic resonances, then interval and the no.11 with paired cellos. I particularly remember a lovely segment at the end with one pizzicato cello accompanying a bowed cello melody. But the whole effect was quite magical. I understand the excitement over the venue, but also the reticence and I’m relieved that at least a decent alternative use has been selected. But this night was very special. I didn’t hear the sound as precise or particularly well balanced and it wouldn’t suit many musical styles (I expect jazz included). The buzz of conversation before the performance was like a noisy hip café where you can’t hear your partner speak. (Thinking back, I wonder if this will be a problem for an artists’ workshop and gallery). But this suits strings and orchestra and it was big and full and enveloping. I noticed bells ringing with a vibrancy I’ve never heard before. The strings were enveloping and the basses were stunningly present. One of the performing bass players told me later that they’d reduced numbers for some performances because the sound was so intense. But the key issue was the intimacy and intensity of the experience. This was something to savour in a way that our recent Sydney Symphony in the cavernous Opera House was not. There were errors and questionable intonations and the rest, but I’d choose this anytime over a precise, professional but distant music experience. The atmosphere was aided by the lack of facilities, the rough seating, the earthy location, the cables on the ground and the poor lighting, the musicians’ clutter at the back beside the trestle-table bar and the rest. But the musical effect was a stunner. I sometimes think back to mediaeval days when the greatest musical experience was the travelling troubadour every few months. We are now surrounded by excellence and excess but much of it is recorded or distant or disembodied. This was everything that is not. This was intimate and exhilarating and a musical treat in a space of accidental excellence. The works were Graeme Koehne Sleep of Reason, Schubert Symphony no.10 orchestrated by Brian Newbold and Schubert Symphony no.11 orchestrated by Joseph Joachim. The performers were noted in the Festival program as Timo-Veikko Valve (cello), Fredrik Sjölin (cello), Canberra Festival Camerata, ANU School of Music Orchestra, Danish String Quartet, Édua Zádory (violin), Anna McMichael (violin), James Wannan (viola), David Pereira (cello), Justin Bullock (bass), John Harding (conductor), but I’m not sure this is 100% correct.

Eight seasons

I jest. It’s really just four seasons each from two composers. The seasons were the premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Four [Australian] Seasons and Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires and the performances were in the Great Hall at Parliament House for the Canberra International Music Festival.

Kats-Chernin is a bourgeois favourite these days, given her comparative fame as the composer of the theme music for ABC RN’s Late Night Live. She deserves it. Her music is tuneful and very accessible and often memorable. Don Aitken commented that recent “classical” music has been written for the audience whereas a few decades ago it was written for fellow composers. Not sure of the truth of this one, but lots of straight music and music making is more accessible now, with conductors speaking from the podium and more movement and sexier images (viz. ACO) and more lyrical compositions. K-C’s seasons start with Spring and cover an Australian year with lazy, hot summers and the like. Spring felt right to me. I counted them off. I’m not sure I would have otherwise picked the remaining seasons, but the music was quite beautiful none-the-less. And I loved the piercing clarity of Anna McMichael’s solo violin. The work was a commission of Canberra author Barbara Blackman and was performed by Anna McMichael (violin), Elena Kats-Chernin (piano, composition) with the Canberra Festival Camerata under John Harding (director).

The other four seasons were from Buenos Aires and Astor Piazzolla. I’d heard the theme in his operetta Maria de Buenos Aires. I enjoy Piazzolla’s energy and attractive tunes and iconoclasm and I particularly liked his operetta for its odd but intriguing storyline and view of a city. But I find his music is pretty samey. A friend is a listener to AP and said after the performance that Piazzolla reuses his themes. Maybe it’s the nature of the bandoneon which was his instrument. But you have to love the vibrancy and passion of the tango and especially AP’s un-danceable version of it. It is truly a buzz. Again this was a work featuring a violin, although here it was interacting more individually, conversationally with other strings, especially viola and cello, and they had equally passionate, if shorter, segments. And was this passionate! Lara St. John stood to play (the musicians mostly did) and this was full body involvement: twists and bends, very unlike the concert hall, even unlike the jazz club. It was certainly a physical performance. But I liked her violin: all sorts of scrapes and effects, some lengthy unison pizzicato at one stage, big intervals, lots of slides, taps, the lot, and lovely, clearly ringing high notes, despite all the passionate performance. And were they harmonic slides on bass by Justin? Lots of passionate fury and very attractive melody, but again I didn’t catch the seasons. My AP-listening mate agreed these were more variations on a theme than identifiable seasons, and I think there were more than four musical segments. Whatever, this was vibrant and passionate and seemed to me to be epic and tragic at its heart. I don’t feel that way about the seasons, even the Canberra winter, but these are passionate people. Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires was performed by Lara St. John (violin) with the Canberra Festival Camerata and John Harding (Director).