This year’s overkill

I thought I’d sit back, relax and listen to the last orchestral concert of the Australian Youth Orchestra Music Camp for 2012. I had as many pics as I needed and perhaps I’d attended more than my fill over the last 8 days: 8 concerts over eight days; 4 concerts over the last 2 days alone. Just how good was this orchestra! My comparisons are admittedly limited. They have youthful energy and commitment, the best professional guidance and a few weeks of musical immersion behind them. On the other side, they are still young and I assume they are not yet professional, even if they are amongst best for age. I don’t judge here (not for nothing that I call these posts "reports" not "reviews") but I felt very comfortable with their performances throughout. I was very seldom discomforted by intonation, the feels were apt, the tempos were steady, the interpretations were nicely mature and sensitive, and the ensemble playing was comfortable. I was disappointed by the last concert, but from the music not the performance. The tunes just didn’t entertain me on the night. I may have been in a minority of one: not just Megan and Sally enjoyed it, but the applause was explosive and I was surrounded by standing ovations. So how did this sourpuss find it?

First up was Nelson Cooke Chamber Orchestra with Janacek’s Suite for string orchestra (1877). I heard imploring strings, flowing, liquid lines, searching decays and dynamics, massed strings and high violins and some attempt at Beethoven passion in the last movement. But it felt overly earnest and the emotions seemed unexplored to me: too much heart on too big and obvious a shoulder. Next was Paul Dukas’ Sorcerer’s apprentice (1897) from the Alexander Orchestra. After Janacek and a missed dinner because the restaurant couldn’t handle the numbers between concerts, I guess I wasn’t in a mood for more light-hearted amusement. This just seemed like so much energy expended for so little purpose. All very clever and entertaining but I just wished for the naughty broom to return to its bloody cupboard. It would have saved so much effort and anguish. Finally Sibelius’ Symphony no.2 (1902) by the Bishop Orchestra. This was introduced as written in response to the warmth and light of Italy. Now, I know Italy. My guess is Sibelius encountered a labyrinthine Italian bureaucracy while in Italy rather than spending time frolicking in sun-drenched Umbrian meadows. This was lots of swelling tones and dynamics and turgid emotions. Competently constructed but with instrumentation that felt too simple and uncomplicated. It all seemed too obvious for the emotions being presented. None of the passion of Beethoven, the wit of Mozart, the intellectual clarity of Bach or the elaboration of Shostakovich. But I’m just me: everyone else seemed to love it.

Of course, the Llewellyn Hall exploded at the end. The excitement and release at the end of the music camp must have been overwhelming for the three hundred or so people involved. The tension released at the end of a live broadcast to ABC FM just added to it all. There were standing ovations, cheering, whoops and hollers, smiles and hugs. And my week had been quite stunning. Eight concerts ranging widely in style. At the end, I understand better what I like and wish to explore, as well as what I’m happy to pass over. The AYO is a wonderful gathering of talented people and the institution is fabulous and seemingly of international status. Congratulations to all involved, and I’ve already set aside a week in 2014 for another session of overkill.

Penultimate

We’ve reached the last day for this year’s Australian Youth Orchestra Music Camp. For the students, the mood must be lively and tinged with just a touch of sadness at parting, but there are still a full afternoon of concerts, from three orchestras, all recorded and one broadcast live to ABC FM. Farewells and tears can wait. I feel the mood of the music is getting lighter and more accessible. It’s not a change that I prefer, but so be it. More on that for the later concert. The afternoon, though, is interesting and varied.

The Nelson Cooke Chamber Orchestra played the first two pieces. First was resident composition tutor Iain Grandage’s Wild geese (2011). It’s an evocation of the Catalpa Rescue, the 1876 escape of six Irish Fenian prisoners from the then British penal colony in Western Australia. It’s quite short and unsettling piece, starting pregnant with expectation and proceeding through massed attacks and imploring strings. Then to Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia no.4 in C minor (1821). What a prodigy he must have been. This work was written at aged 12 as a compositional exercise and only published in 1959. This is a mix of baroque and classicism: contrapuntal lines ending in long unison segments; a pensive and aristocratic middle movement, and a final movement with some fabulous deep lines of bass and cello, then to finish with the whole ensemble playing ornamented lines in unison. Enlivening for musicians and audience.

The Bishop Orchestra followed with an unconducted performance of Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni (1787). This work moves between D minor and D major to convey the story of the seducer Don G. I heard it as argumentative and enticing in various parts, which fits the story of lust and retribution. One description was the “terrors of the sinner’s life” although there was quite a deal of pleasure mingled in there, too, and this remains a light an enticing piece and certainly not in the realms of the Russians. The orchestra ended with smiles and a certain confidence, so obviously they enjoyed the performance. The Bishop then welcomed William Conway to conduct Bartok’s Hungarian Pictures (1931). This is the Hungarian folk tradition entered into the classical repertoire. Interesting for its use of alternative tonalities, like the whole tone scale and pentatonics which each appear here. There are butterflies and pastoral scenes; there is busy-ness and the unsettled harmony of the whole tone scale; there are huge crescendos and bustling strings; there is lushness and bouncing rhythms and bows; there are dances and transcribed folk melodies. Modernism through reversion to arcadia.

After the interval, we retired to the Llewellyn dress circle. You’ll see the different views in the pics here. I’ve seldom seen it much used, but it was the haunt of the musicians at the AYO events. The experience is hugely different from the front rows. In the front rows you share the experience with the performers: everything’s intense and local; the sound surrounds you and changes directions with different instruments; you see some musos and miss others. The dress circle is the experience of the critic and recording engineer. The sound is more unified and gathered, less intense and immediate, quieter but perhaps purer. The view is all encompassing, so you see the back rows of the strings and the brass and woodwinds and they all become identifiable and more part of the experience rather than just tones emanating from out back somewhere.

So this is how we heard the Alexander Orchestra for the second Mozart overture of this concert, this time to the Marriage of Figaro. This is well known music, of course: easy to comprehend, eminently lyrical and masterfully structured. But bigger was Schubert’s Symphony no.8 in B minor, his Unfinished symphony. The first two movements were completed, but the third, scherzo, movement was left unfinished. I remember it especially for the sorrowful bass theme starts the work and recurs in basses and other instrument. The Alexander finished the night with Richard Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel’s merry pranks. It’s a jovial and light-hearted series of settings - jumpy, tricky, whimsical and somewhat naughty – that resolve (almost) at the end with Till’s death by hanging. Mmm … folk tales can be anguished.

So ended the penultimate concert of the AYO music camp series. The Nelson Cooke Chamber Orchestra was led by concertmaster Mats Zetterqvist and performed Iain Grandage’s Wild geese and Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia no.4 in C minor. The Bishop Orchestra performed Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni under concertmaster Elena Phatak and Bartok’s Hungarian Pictures under conductor William Conway. The Alexander Orchestra performed Mozarts’s Overture to the Marriage of Figaro under concertmaster Glenn Christensen and Schubert’s Symphony no.8 in B minor (“Unfinished”) and Richard Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel’s merry pranks under conductor Christopher Seaman.

Beyond the wait

After a quick dinner, the Llewellyn audience for the Australian Youth Orchestra’s second concert was unexpectedly reduced, although there were no doubt plenty of virtual listeners to the ABC FM live broadcast. This concert was again orchestral, this time with just three works, but consistently modern and exploratory.

The Alexander Orchestra opened with a work by the AYO Music Camp resident composer, Iain Grandage’s Out of time (2004). This was joyous and full with immense sound. Iain was interviewed after the work and spoke of it as filmic and “celebrating the music of the orchestra”. I particularly liked his intention to “write things that performers like playing”. This was clearly like that. Big and satisfying.

The Nelson Cooke Chamber Orchestra followed with a modern Swedish piece, Anders Eliasson’s Ein schneller blick … ein kurzes auscheinen (= A quick glimpse … a brief appearance, 2003). This work was meditative and slow and of a limited tonal palette. I liked the livelier final movement with cellos and basses playing off each other in contrary motion and otherwise.

The final work was the one that most interested me in this session. The Bishop Orchestra performed Shostakovitch’s Symphony no. 10 (1953). On the outside, I’d not expect to like this. It’s brooding, it’s steady and even with quaver melodies, it tells stories with regularity and tone. I wondered if this was a modern romanticism. It’s also long, lasting a full hour, but this was an hour that I hardly noticed passing. That was a hint to me. This is like Russian literature: huge with dense complexity and epic breadth that speaks deceptively easily of the human condition: like Tolstoy or Dostoievsky. It’s anchored in the time after Stalin’s death and follows Shostakovich’s denunciation and withdrawal from symphonic composition. The themes are large and the concerns and emotions are deep. People who live in the sun don’t write music like this. Great composition performed with commitment and ardour.

So ended a long but invigourating pair of concerts. It speaks well for the Camp and its attendees. The music was an intelligent and broadminded view of music of the last century with one baroque teaser. The playing was wonderfully capable, always presented seriously and with considerable verve. The hammering feet of applause from these young musicians was full of youthful enthusiasm and involvement. This was a lengthy and satisfying first outing and I’m looking forward to much more over the coming week.

The Alexander Orchestra performed Iain Grandage’s Out of time with William Conway conducting. Nelson Cooke Chamber Orchestra played Anders Eliasson’s Ein schneller blick … ein kurzes auscheinen (= A quick glimpse … a brief appearance) with director Mats Zetterqvist. The Bishop Orchestra ended the concert with Shostakovitch’s Symphony no. 10 conducted by Christopher Seaman.

Eagerly awaited

I’ve been awaiting the return of the Australian Youth Orchestra since their last National Music Camp here in Canberra two years back. We’ve only experienced day 1 of the free concert series, but we were not disappointed: two concerts, both generous in time and variety, both intriguing and energetic and with a fascinating and, at least for me, obscure repertoire. And always that energy and passion and joy that the AYO is drenched in. This year I was more aware of just how young are some of these performers. The AYO takes musicians from 14 to 30 years of age, so there are seriously young players amongst developed students and semi-professionals. And the size of this undertaking is impressive. At one time, the AYO reported using 81 rooms. The day 1 concerts were orchestral: each featuring two large symphony orchestras and a chamber orchestra. The music camp has 250 young musicians as well as programs for music admin, music journalism and more. It’s an impressive undertaking and apparently internationally renowned. So what did we hear?

Concert 1 was called Orchestral Passions Concert 1. We can excuse the dismal title because the music was great. The Nelson Cooke Chamber Orchestra started it off with a piece of dignified baroque, CPE Bach’s Symphony no.1 in C major (1773). This is music of the era: at times delicate, sometimes bumble-bee busy with rolling waves of scalar lines, a slower, pre-romantic middle movement, and a third movement that sounded sometimes tragic before a return to rolling scalar lines. Lovely! The next piece was Barber’s Adagio for strings (1936). It’s not a favourite of mine, although maybe I could come at it as part of a bigger work (it was written for that). I find the strings too unrelenting and mewling and the feel too sentimental. I could see myself appreciating it just after a War-To-End-All-Wars, but I’m just not sad enough. The chamber orchestra has 30 players and visiting European Mats Zetterqvist as director.

The Bishop Orchestra followed with Elgar’s In the South (1903/4). It’s lush and attractive and rollicking and bouncing. Everyone loved the huge, fat, sweet tuba that easily overwhelmed 8 string basses, and otherwise it was exhilarating, pastoral, grandiose and sometimes muscular. I heard propellers and jack hammers, but later realised the work was written before flight. It’s from the turn of the 20th century and clearly speaks to Victorian England, although apparently its musical references are to Italy. It’s a 20th Century work, but only just: on the border of a new world and evoking a time that’s about to disappear. Nicely done and very attractive and indelibly conservative.

The Alexander Orchestra finished this concert. First was Stravinsky’s Four etudes for orchestra (1928). It surprises me how some earlier works sound more modern than other later works. This developed, exploratory, yearning for new sounds and experiences. It starts with a quizzical march, then proceeds to tonal variations, lots of crescendos and devilishly difficult syncopations, frequent silence and sparse, jagged melodies that have one note played here, another there, and dissonant harmonies and counterpoint that still flabbergast a modern audience. I had great respect for the players here: this must have been a difficult chart. But it was so well done and a favourite. Then to finish, James MacMillan’s Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990). Apparently it was an instant hit when premiered at the London Proms about 20 years back. This is a musical depiction of the torture and execution of Isobel Gowdie, a Scot who was tried for witchcraft in 1662. It was big and dramatic and emotional (strangely, I thought I heard bagpipes at one time!) with crescendos and sudden, massive dynamic changes. I was fascinated by an early passage of slides on the strings: strange and unearthly and very effective. Wonderful, new and dramatic, and unexpected.

Just the start, we thought, as we went off for a quick dinner. This was impressive playing and the repertoire was looking to be varied, modern and exploratory. And there’s lots more to come. The Nelson Cooke Chamber Orchestra performed CPE Bach’s Symphony no.1 in C major and Barber’s Adagio for strings and was directed by Mats Zetterqvist. The Bishop Orchestra performed Elgar’s In the South with Christopher Seaman conducting. The Alexander Orchestra performed Stravinsky’s Four etudes for orchestra and James MacMillan’s Confession of Isobel Gowdie with William Conway conducting.