Joy of the dance

It was a pleasure to take in Musica da Camera with 2 basses from the audience.  This was such an interesting and inviting program and well presented.  The MD was Robert Harris and the title dances and suites and there were plenty of them, nicely bouncy and rhythmic for dance.  But RH is a viola player and the core theme was the presence of this lower sounding instrument, or at least moderately lower sounding for any cello of bassist.  Maybe not so much lower as rich and big and just a fifth below the violins.  And the bottom end filled out with Dorit Herskovits, Robert's wife and fellow long term professional.  But the program was the feature and so inviting.  Two pieces by Telemann, a concerto for two viols and an Ouverture-suite and a Schubert valse.  Then a truly lovely modern Australian piece, River Valley dawn by Emma Greenhill, picturesque in its presence.  Then five raucous and polytonal Greek dances from Nikos Skalkottas and a waltz and a tango from Elena Katz-Chernin and to finish the pizzicato polka from brother Strauss.  And these works had relevance to RH and DH, Dorit having studied with Elena, they having toured the Greek musics, Telemann being a favourite and generally the joy of the dance, too, I guess.  A lovely concert and nicely played. 

Robert Harris (director, viola) led Musica da Camera Canberra in Cook with a repeat at Gundaroo.  Bottom enders were Dorit Herskovits and Kate Murphy (basses).

Sprawl

It's a big sprawling concoction that perhaps only a composer's mother could love. That's the way we'd all been talking of it, from the orchestra and from the choir, but we'd come to love it as we understood it better ... or at least as we recognised its complexities and movements. Someone mentioned that the parts don't obviously fit together. Perhaps that's an explanation: certainly it was hard to play along with a recording; Lenny's role was central. But the outcome could be sublime. This is Vaughan Williams Symphony no.1 that talks of the sea and seafarers. It's turbulent and sea-like and it runs for 4 movements over ~70 minutes. The final movement alone is 30mins. We'll be unlikely to play it again and probably unlikely to hear it but it was great. Again, the ole "she'll be right on the night" came through. I could see it on Lenny's face towards the end, that sense of satisfaction with work done well. And the first half was similarly special: the Australian premiere of On the beach, a suite taken from the film score by Christopher Gordon. Sparse and intriguing and telling a story of tragedy that we are coming to understand in our climate changing days. And not just the premier but also the conductor in the building. Along with 130 players and choral singers and two vocal soloists of note on stage. This was a big show and overwhelmingly satisfying in full flight.

National Capital Orchestra and Canberra Choral Society performed Vaughan Williams Symphony no.1 and Christopher Gordon On the beach suite at Llewellyn Hall. Leonard Weiss (conductor); vocal soloists were Chloe Lankshear (soprano) and David Greco (baritone). Dan Walker (chorus master) prepared the CCS. The bass end was covered by Kate Murphy, Geoff Prime and Eric Pozza (basses).

Cello

Cello was the theme of this NCO concert. The feature was the famed Elgar cello concerto in the nice key of Dmin played by Canberran international and SSO member, Christopher Pidcock. Suffice to say, it's fairly difficult given its breath-like timing, in/out, fast/slow, but Lenny was there to follow and he's a master of the prompts so it mostly went well. Chris did a great job, virtuoisic and expressive, played from memory, obviously superbly imbibed. It was the last item of the night, other than Chris' encore of a movement of a Bach cello concerto (4th?) which was done with far more solid time than the concerto, even more steadily than I might have expected. Before the interval things were different. First up was Holst Somerset rhapsody, apparently Holst's first success and a rendition of several English folk songs. I liked the war-like steady bass runs most, but that was our feature. Then a world premiere from Chloe Sinclair called Autonomy. It was fairly short and an easy read other than for the timing: 3/2, 3/4,2/4, some 4/2. It looks tricky but that timing became self-evident as we played it and I liked this one. Then the hard one. Counting was an issue with Elgar, but the Vaughan Williams symphony no.8 Dmin had everything: space, speed, urgency, all manner of changing keys and syncopations. Lots of accidentals (how often do I play Fb?); odd timings like notes on 3 and 5 of 6/8; hazy interleaved themes; sudden accelerations. Even a movement that's just winds, then another movement that's just strings. It was modern, written just in the mid-1950s. I liked the complexity but it's this very thing that takes time to appreciate and double time to learn. Sometimes you never quite get there. Depends on skills and practice time and even memory for the particularly quizzical bits. But so it was. A few errors and a few passes but mostly acceptable and hugely satisfying to have studied and performed. This was at TheQ, a favourite theatre, under Lenny Weiss, a favourite conductor, to a full house. Megan got the last seat, only available after a no-show. And we played as a full, 4-member bass section. Great. Thanks to all.


National Capital Orchestra performed Holst, Siinclair, Vaughan Williams and Elgar at TheQ under Leonard Weiss (conductor) featuring soloist Christopher Pidcock (cello) and a world premiere from Chloe Sinclair (composer). The bass section was Roger Grime, Kate Murphy, Geoff Prime and Eric Pozza (basses).