Love and war

This is a theme that's around with the new film of The Odyssey but it's nothing new.  Two of our major classical music groups combined to do a program on this very topic, Guerrieri et Amorosi, Warriors and lovers, highlighting madrigals by Barbara Strozzi and Claudio Monteverdi, two major composers in mid/late-1600s Venice, Monteverdi older than Strozzi but both prolific and renowned, if Barbara is lesser so these days.  And a few instrumental pieces by Apeiron in respite by GB Vitali and Scarlatti.  Madrigals were written for solo voices, one for each part, and MD Dan Walker highlighted the challenge of this fluid music for a choir and Oriana did a wonderful presentation to my ears, capably accompanied by our renowned locals Apeiron Baroque as a quintet.  The themes suggest a more martial awareness by CM with an amorous sinfonia exploding into martial music, love portrayed as a literal disaster although later Cupid being praised rather than Mars.  Maybe because this Eighth Book of Madrigals is dedicated to the newly crowned Holy Roman Emperor.  Other the other hand, I note a sweetly sung song about an Athenian Maiden raped by the King of Thrace (lyrics by BS's father), a song on affections of the mind (Yearning, desire...) and an argument over sources of joy which resolved to a single kiss.  But this is just a sampler and my notes are just a borrowing from the program anyway.  But the song, the accompaniment, the vocals solos were a thing of great pleasure.  Again a warmly received concert and a full hose at Wesley for an imposing musical pairing.

Oriana Chorale was accompanied by Apeiron Baroque at Wesley with a program of madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi and Barbara Strozzi.  Oriana Chorale was conducted by Dan Walker (MD) with sometimes soloists Ali Hardy and Jade McFaul (sopranos), Oliver Bruhl, Cody Christopher and David Faraker (tenors) and Patrick Baker, Neil Bulleid and Joshua Dunne (basses).  Apeiron Baroque comprised John Ma and Brad Tham (violins), Marie Searles (harpsichord), Anton Baba (cello) and James Holland (theorbo).

Good Friday

It's Good Friday and thanks to a request from the venue, there is no applause after these Holy Week concerts.  Absolutely apt, although the music was delicious.  This was a larger order than the Lamentations: SATB vocals with 6 instruments, although we only heard 5 given absence due to sickness.  The composer was Christoph Graupner, prolific and a contemporary of JS Bach.  Apparently, his cantatas (1,400+) are well preserved and his reputation has grown through recent decades.  We heard "Where is Jesus going?" (GWV1119/39) on Christ's departure and faith and trust in divine guidance, and "We know that tribulation brings patience" (GWV1121/44) on suffering as a pathway to spiritual endurance, character and hope.  I quote from the program, of course, given the German was not obvious to my ears.  But lovely four part singing, occasional solos from all parts, enticing counterpoint and harmony and effective interplay of vocals and instrumental parts.  The instruments were two violins, viola, bass and harpsichord.  The missing instrument was cello, which certainly would have added  considerable embellishments in the mid-range, but the solo bass took on a clear, effective presence which also responded with and to vocals.  Fascinating to the ears of this bassist.  Then the quiet and pleasure after the two cantatas and perhaps some dissonance with the Easter story.  Thus is history and modernity.

Singers Greta Claringbould (soprano), Maartje Sevenster (alto), Will Millard (tenor) and Andrew Fysh (bass) performed two Graupner cantatas at Wesley with accompaniment from John Ma and Lauren Davis (violins), Brad Tham (viola), Isabella Brown (bass) and Marie Searles (harpsichord).

Something else that evening

Our Ornette-enacting duo was in the afternoon and the evening was something completely different, although playful and rhythmic as before, if from another era.  This was four harpsichords playing Bach and more at Wesley with a string quintet accompaniment.  The promise of John Ma the Wednesday before.  The main work of the day was the final piece, Concerto for four harpsichords Amin BWV1065. This was not nearly so well known as BWV1060 and BWV1062, played by two harpichord pairs earlier.  Thees had us just beating and beaming with grins in our seats.  They are hugely popular, played with gusto and many smiles, and a joy to all.  Other pieces were an overture-suite La Bizarre Gmaj by Telemann and a Sonfonia no.4 Amaj by Solnitz.  This second was somewhat obscure and to add to confusion was played attacca into BWV1065 which ended the peformance.  We'd heard so much, with so much joy, so much attention and screeds of notes and love that I was surprised to see my watch showed only a one hour concert at the end. But with Bach one hour can be eternity (in a good way).  All that intricate and playful interaction between parts, those falling sequences and quaver to semiquaver accelerations are such joy.

Harpsichord divas was a performance at Wesley by Arianna Odermatt, Callum Tolhurst-Close, Marie Searles and Marko Sever (harpsichords) with string accompaniment comprising John Ma and Lauren Davis (violins), Brad Tham (viola), Clara Teniswood (cello) and Hayley Manning (bass).

Lucky with our locals

John and Marie are our locals but I pinch myself when I say it.  Like many who spend time studying and performing in European music circles, they are wonderful, informed and skilled but they are here and super friendly and helpful and open.  A concert with John is a fireside chat with delicious music.  He joked at one stage of changes of movement between styles of music, from modern through to early or vice-versa, but that they had settled on baroque.  And baroque it was.  Early 1600s to later 1700s with CPE Bach.  All played with skill but also knowledge and joy.  What a pleasure.  So today it was CPE Bach to start, then going back in time to Schmelzer, Telemann, Uccelini and Fischer.  A few movements dropped to fit in the time allotted, which they admitted to sometimes overreaching.  This was just a casual Wednesday lunchtime concert, with a grand performance 4-harpsichord-and-strings feature coming on Saturday.  Expect no less from our much loved John and Marie.  BTW, the program also said that Marie is also studying jazz piano.  Enquiring minds!

John Ma (violin) and Marie Searles (harpsichord) performed at Wesley.

Bass and beyond

Pippa Macmillan was coming to play with John and Marie in Apeiron Baroque and I was in.  Pippa is now in Australia but is quite and international, with degrees for the Royal Academy of Music and Juilliard and appointed Professor of baroque double bass at the RSM, that school next to that other Albert Hall, and performing with Tapfelmusik, Florilegium, Austn Brandenburg Orch, Austn Haydn Ens and the rest.  She was playing violone with the gut strings and those gut frets and a big Dragonetti period bow.  But how lithe and quick and unrelenting in her drive.  No slowing down with this rhythm section!  Otherwise, this was a joy of baroque historical overview with a program called Something old, something new.  Thirteen composers, mostly C15th, some C16th and just two contemporaries.  Ariosti and Albinoni and a string of lesser known names, seldom encountered.  All held together with backgrounds and stories from the ever-engaging John Ma, himself of considerable European history, and Marie Searles on harpsichord, again of Euro-connections.  The group would move through tunes, with Matt Greco, again a Euro-aligned and Aussie-busy concertmaster and soprano Susannah Lawergren up front for a series of tunes, not least a fabulous modern work but Michael Bakrncev who was in the audience, and if I remember right, was listening to the world premiere of this composition, a touching song of a mother laying in bed with her new child while her partner rings updates downstairs.  The text was by Cate Kennedy and the work was called Thank You.  Just glorious music.  Otherwise, the modern works were Allemande from the Jorn Borsen Harpsichord sonata and Spring from Dominick Argento Elizabethan songs.  And several Canberra advanced students invited by John and Marie, Brad Tham, Alex Monro and Dante Costa, all well known in local circles.  Just wonderful playing with that stellar bottom end, a varied and intriguing program from the ages and some delightful, welcoming patter.  Another great outing.

Apeiron Baroque performed at Wesley Church.  AB was led by John Ma (violin, MD) and Marie Searles (harpsichord, MD) with Susannah Lawergren (soprano), Matt Greco (violin), Pippa Macmillan (violone), Michael Bakrncev (composer), Dante Costa (flute), Brad Tham (violin) and Alex Munro (viola).

Contemplating the body

These days of modernity and medicines we protected from so much, but Easter remains a brutal story from ancient/mediaeval history.  I felt this with a jazz gig on Good Friday evening but primarily with a concert for Holy Week at Wesley in the afternoon.  The music was Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri, a great powerful work of early baroque (I guess) with five voices and accompaniment with a theme of Christ on the Cross expressed in 7 short movements totalling ~60 minutes: ad pedes; ad manus; ad genua; ad latus; ad pectus; ad cor; ad faciem.  That is, an immersion in the horrors of crucifixion, specifically this one: contemplations on the feet, knees, hands, sides, breast, heart and face.  Not at all modern, but powerful, not least in Latin.  Each movement started and ended with a SSATB "concerto" then arias by various individual voices or parts.  Accompaniment was mainly violin, viola, cello, harpsichord, but for some time, adding organ and viola da gamba 1,2.  All period instruments.  And this was a stunning experience, so well sung by several of our local luminaries, and similarly accompanied.  Just a work of power and beauty seldom experienced.  Stunning.

Buxtehude Membra Jesu nostri was performed at Wesley Church on Good Friday.  Performers were Greta Claringbould and Jade McFaul (sopranos), Maartje Sevenster (alto), Dan Walker (tenor), Andrew Fysh (bass), John Ma (violin), Lauren Davis (viola), Clara Teniswood (cello), Rachel Walker and Caroline Downer (violas da gamba), Marie Searles (harpsichord) and Ariana Odermatt (organ).

Somewhere around baroque

I'd talked of baroque music, but this is really earlier, I guess, still baroque but early?  It's certainly not Bach.  Perhaps I think baroque given the gut violin strings and plucked string tones of the harpsichord.  This was John Ma and Marie Searles playing duo.  Marie with several solo tunes, one imitating birds and another guitars and castanets.  Apparently.  It's intriguing and challenging even if not particularly identifiable in these days of samples that really do copy and manipulate sounds.  Otherwise, John and Marie together played another imitation or representation of Turkish music, and a standard style of Adagio and Courante, and a dedication to a composer's fellow musician, La Sabbatina dedicated to Roberto Sabbatini, and a perhaps an even stranger one to our ears, Diverse bizzarie sopra la vecchia sarabanda or pur ciannona.  These were interesting and various oddities...  The composers were all around 1650-1770 and with some pretty obscure names.  Henry Eccles was obvious enough, but otherwise be Blaineville, Pogletti, Forquerau and Matteis.  But as always from John and Marie, much joy, much playful, bouncy, capable playing and even much education in composers and the times.  You couldn't want for more.

John Ma (violin) and Marie Searles (harpsichord) presented and performed at Wesley.

This is CJBlog post no. 2,950

Light but

This was billed as light classical and it was that but my favourites were three film themes at the end of the concert.  They were Somewhere over the rainbow, Let's call the whole thing off and Moonriver.  Now, these aren't as complex as the Elgar and Massenet and others that preceded them (perhaps other than Fritz Kriesler), but the clarity of their structures and the simple inevitability of their melodies touched me.  And the way they were so well played, of course.  These were not improvised jazz renditions, but written scores, but played by some devastatingly capable players.  They were John Ma and Marie Searles.  John is better known for playing baroque on period instruments but he told me how punk and ska were influential in his younger life, so film mid-20th century film music seems not so out of field.  Apparently Marie was influenced by the Beatles (which I understand fully) so the glorious and outspoken accompaniment from late C19th onwards is also not inconceivable.  Perhaps the most amusing conceptually was variations on Happy Birthday in the style of Beethoven.  Who would'a thunk it?  And yet it's done.  But those film themes were lovely, delightfully and touchingly played with simple, known melodies of intro/verse/chorus.  John told the story of Moonriver being initially rejected when a listening party went unmoved, but then reinstated after considerable protestation from Audrey Hepburn.  See where it is now!  A classic theme from a classic movie.  Performed at a classic concert of great skills and beauty with a lovingly moderate conception.

John Ma (violin) and Marie Searles (piano) performed at Wesley.