Just how good

Best composition?  I wondered about that but it's a stupid question, especially given my limited knowledge, but my favourite work?  I think so.  I've listed every classical piece I've performed in concert (now 506 with some repeats) and it includes Beethoven 3,4,5,6,7 and plenty more, but my faves are choral and this seems my most memorable of all.  Sitting through Brahms German Requiem by Igitur nos tends to confirm it.  Gloriously rich and attractive, emotionally dense, wonderfully informed bass lines, extensive chromatic and substituting lines, beautiful harmonies in voices to drool over, high sopranos, inventive harmonies and challenging fugues.  I closed my eyes and fell into this density, knowing it well after having played it myself.  I find when I've practised and performed a work, it stays with me, so I know upcoming phasings and predict every line.  Strange that practice, or perhaps performance, can be so permanent.  I can't play from memory but I can revisit and predict a listen.  Hayley did a great job on so many lines, slow or busy as they were.  Otherwise, just a small accompaniment of piano, single strings and woodwinds, 8 players in all in the arrangements, rather than a full orchestra.  And the choir and two soloists, bass and soprano.  Very nice soloists, but I preferred the massed parts, the power and precision and movements of lines in harmony.  My German was nil, so the words were of nothing, but still power remained and glorious, emotional music.  Brahms German Requiem: a work of beauty and huge emotional density.

Igitur Nos performed Brahms German Requiem at Wesley.  Matthew Stuckings (conductor) led a choir of 22 with two vocal soloists, Elsa Huber (soprano) and Colin Milner (baritone) and an octet comprising Rowan Harvey-Martin (violin), Elizabeth Chalker (viola), Alex Voorhoeve (cello), Hayley Manning (bass), Jodie Petrov (flute), Yu-Lan Chan (oboe), Lis Hoorweg (clarinet) and Emily Leong (piano).

Delights

In so many ways, this concert by Salut! Baroque was delightful.  It's a throwaway description but worthy and apt in this case.  The music was glorious early baroque music from Telemann and mostly contemporaries and the music often featured lines "stolen" from those contemporaries.  As Picasso said, "Good artists copy; great artists steal".  I thought Miles said that, but so be it.  Certainly Telemann did steal some lines, but it's also the development and more that's relevant and anyway, they get lost amongst his other 3,000 compositions.  Colin Milner appeared as Telemann himself, introducing tunes and some stories of Telemann and singing one piece and generally also being delightful.  Not least in the bird and cat scene.  And John Ma was there as orchestra leader and it was clear to see the respect for his interpretations and leadership amongst the performers.  John is MD for the next Musica da Camera concert and I'm learning tons of the baroque spirit and instrumental interpretation as we speak.  We are lucky to have John and such Euro-experienced musicians in our midst when they quite often return.  And the pieces were short and often essentially danceable, so again delightful, and that's a common aspect of music of this period, the waltzes and bourées and gavottes although often just expressed as Andante or Vivace of Allegro non molto or the like.  It was only one hour, but we heard some great bottom end from bass and cello and that remarkable theorbo, a delightful, quiet harpsichord solo, those lovely strings, 2 violins and a viola, and the winds, two recorders and a flute, often playing off against each other, and Telemann singing of the cat.  And a most unexpected gypsy number to end.  It was just one hour but a work of collection and performance that delighted.  Do I need to say I loved it and got a good few chuckles along the way.

Salut! Baroque performed the music of Telemann and contemporaries at Wesley.  Performers were Sally Melhuish and Alana Blackburn (recorders), Sally Walker (baroque flute), John Ma and Sarah Papadopoulos (baroque violins), Brad Tham (baroque viola), Tim Blomfield (baroque cello), Jude Hill (baroque double bass), George Wills (theorbo, guitar), Monika Kornel (harpsichord) and Colin Milner (historian, vocals) as Georg Philipp Telemann.

A blessed Easter 2

This was other (extant) Bach Passion performed in Canberra. Igitur nos with St John Passion at the other Manuka venue, St Paul's. It was a more moderate affair but no less satisfying. Only one orchestra of 14 players (small so that one muso suggested only half an orchestra) with Evangelist and soloists and a smaller but still involving, powerful and skilled choir of 23 singers. This was shorter and more accessible than the St Matthew Passion. More accessible because it was more comprehensible, being in English. The version was the Bärenreiter Urtext in both German and English, but this was sung in the English and it made a huge difference. I followed the text (given in the program with just minimal changes from that sung), but mostly I could catch the words, at least from the solo Evangelist who told the story; some of the choral parts were not so immediately clear and often repeated lines rather than narrated. I caught a few details of the story that I'd missed, names like Caiaphas and Annas and Malchas and a hyssop branch and the like. I was thrilled by the chorus when it entered, all big and full and often contrapuntal, and awed by the Evangelist's job on the night. Evangelist Daniel MacMillan was trained at ANU but is living in WA at present; he was flown over for this performance. The complexity of his job had me wondering if his part was originally improvised. It certainly wouldn't be these days. We had prime seats and enjoyed watching the strings, just metres from us, not least Kyle, busy on bass, and Greta who both played viola and stood to sing occasional soprano parts. And the guidance of Matthew Stuckings who got all this together and conducted. It was standing room only for the performance, on an afternoon with setting sun raising temperatures in the church and a smaller experience than St Matthews but another hugely satisfying performance. Truly a blessed Easter.

Igitur nos performed JS Bach St John Passion on Good Friday at St Paul's Manuka. Matthew Stuckings (conductor) led Igitur nos chamber choir and orchestra with Daniel MacMillan (Evangelist), Greta Claringbould (soprano), Veronica Thwaites-Brown (mezzo-soprano), Charles Hudson (tenor), Colin Milner (baritone, Jesus).

The Requiem the end

It was another she'll be right on the night and it was. Maruki played a combined concert with Canberra Community Voices and a few soloists. The main work was most of Mozart Requiem (what a pleasure to play that one!) but also a few other pieces to fill out the first half, not least with soprano soloist Lousie Keast (who also plays cello with Maruki when not singing up front). Particularly interesting for the bass section was our guest Chris Bainbridge (whose Mum and Dad were also performing, in orch and choir). He's a graduate of Maruki, ANU and ANAM and now studying in Vienna and an AYO bassist who's just toured Europe and China, performing, not least, at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. We were blessed. Four basses, a strong section. Loved it and I, for one, learnt a bit from playing with Chris. Otherwise, we played a gloriously beautiful piece, Mozart Ave verum corpus, a few overtures from Wagner and Rossini, some songs from Bizet and Puccini and some majestic choral numbers, Vivaldi Gloria and Handel Hallelujah chorus. And the soloists were excellent: Louise Keast (soprano and coordinator of the singers for this event), Veronica Thwaites-Brown, (interestingly, an excellent Maria in the Sound of Music that I played, amongst other more traditional performances), Lachlan McIntyre and Colin Milner. The Canberra Community Voices were directed by Kenneth Teoh (who, I read in the program, has played clarinet with the Berlin Phil, no less; a match for conductor John's time with the London Symph). But nothing can match the grandeur and beauty of great music like the Requiem or the pleasure in navigating the glorious and sometimes twisted basslines. A great pleasure all round.

Maruki Orchestra performed under John Gould (conductor). Canberra Community Voices is led by Kenneth Teoh (musical director). They performed Mozart Requiem and more at Albert Hall with singers Lousie Keast, Veronica Thwaites-Brown, Lachlan McIntyre and Colin Milner (vocal soloists).