Last of a batch

Trio Streeton was our sixth and last concert for this festival this year and it was delightful. We’re still talking of the variation in concerts: every one of the six have been vastly different. This final concert was classical / romantic, down the line. A renowned Australian piano trio (piano, violin, cello) playing Haydn, Debussy and Schumann, with an encore on our Aussie fave, Elena Katz-Chernin’s Russian Rag. The Haydn was his Gypsy Trio, no.39 in G Major; delicate, perfect, chamberly, pretty. Then a Debussy piano trio in G Major with 4 movements; cello arpeggios and passed melodies; introduced as an early work (aged 18 at the time?) and clearly that when you knew. Then a Schumann Piano trio no.1 in D minor, again in 4 movements: moody, mulling, emotive, intriguing canon in the second movement, a bouncy rhythmic theme and some deadly bowing; an emotionally composed and presumably mature work after the youthful work by Debussy. Then the encore that identified the LNL listeners (a moderate number clapped on announcement). The trio was great: expressive, uncluttered, nicely welcoming with their chatter. This is despite one replacement on the night: Teije Hylkema, principal cellist of the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra was sitting in. He did a great job. I wonder at the reading and preparation skills of such players, who can perform a challenging program at concert level and justify it presumably for just one gig. I liked this small format, too, with the few instruments of different timbres always clearly spoken and with evenly balanced roles. I tend to steer clear of the romantics but this was a delightful concert and I enjoyed it immensely. The historical venue and the Elena’s hugely catchy tune were just icing on the cake.

The Streeton Trio comprised Benjamin Kapp (piano) and Emma Jardine (violin) with Teije Hylkema (cello) sitting in for the night.

Liedism

Italian it and I may be, but I don’t get opera and neither do I get its German chamber offshoot, lieder or art song. I love combined voices as in choirs; I love oratorios with soloists (although they are said to be opera without acting); I love a pure soprano singing early music or a matron singing blues or gospel or a skilled jazz singer. But Schubert’s songs leave me flat. Maybe I’ll learn one day but I tried again with tenor David Hobson accompanied on piano by Catherine Day and it’s not yet. Not my scene. He’s much loved, a star of Carols by Candlelight and opera and Messiah and Spicks and Specks. He has a career; his voice is trained and he’s sung repertoire that I love. But these were songs of love and loss and longing and the words were of a period-piece worldview (the trusty tree, the oak that broke, the fading love like morning dew) and they were mostly in German anyway and this style has lots of vibrato. I hear the voice and admire the control. Much the same for the piano. Nice playing and supportive and quite vibrant in some later pieces (Britten?). So this is the fifth concert in this festival and it’s another very different style but it didn’t connect for me. Let the operistas judge this one for I don’t have the heart (or the interest) to. These players deserve better than I can give them. But then, “if you want anymore you can sing it youself, hee-haw” (Britten).

David Hobson (tenor) with accompaniment by Catherine Day (piano) sang songs of love, loss and longing at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

Endless variations

I’ve now been to four concerts at this Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields festival and the differences between them have been immense: a big Bach masterwork, a fine early trio with soprano and cornetto, a grand pipe organ and now a concert of recorder and accordion that ventures from Baroque through Scottish and Spanish and into contemporary Australian commissioned works. Wow. Who’d’a thunk it, doubly so on these instruments, but it worked a treat. The Ortiz and traditional Scottish tunes were more folky and harmonically simpler. Palestrina and Bach and Locke (I was less clear on the Locke) took us back centuries to a music that is obvious for the recorder. But this pair are far more adventurous. I was most taken by two contemporary Australian pieces. Firstly, Andrea Keller’s Where is everybody? It’s a meditation on the universe and our lonely place amongst infinite expansion. Genevieve played bass then sopranino then bass recorders, pairing notes of varying intervals over an accordion soundscape, then melody over shifting chords and mutating arpeggios. Andrea Keller. That’s Melbourne jazz territory; it just shows the wealth of crossovers in contemporary music. Then Damien Barbaler’s Shadow box, two excerpts from a 40-minute piece with video about memories and echoes. I was unsure how much improv was here, but it seemed frequent, especially in James’ response to Genevieve’s leads. In style, Megan thought Stravinsky, I thought Debussy or Ravel. Neither are anywhere near common recorder or accordion territory. So this concert was surprising and a huge eye-opener and a thing of wonder with its fine playing and inclusive pallette. Otherwise, I thought of the family of recorders, wondered at the ornate, Francophilic Loreto chapel the concert was performed in, committed to read up about the range of accordions and their various technical matters (not all have piano keyboards and this one didn’t). This was one fascinating outing.

Genevieve Lacey (recorders) and James Crabb (classical accordion) performed a vast range of musical styles at the Loreto Chapel in Ballarat.

An organ at the festival

It took until the third concert to hear a genuine concert on one of the installed church organ of Ballarat. This was the Fincham & Sons organ at the Ballarat Central Uniting Church. I’m staying with a heritage architect who tells me this organ is of historical significance and protected on a State Government register ( “there are not many organs on that register, I can tell you”). The programmed organist, Italian Ferruccio Bartoletti, was sick and unable to travel. Anthony Halliday replaced him, amazingly with the same program with just one change. This was a program of Buxtehude followed by JS Bach. Standard names but varied. I enjoyed the sine-wave-like purity of the deep notes and considered the more edgy overtone-rich higher tones. I wondered about the sense of timing that follows those slow attacks on low notes. I chatted about the multiple manuals and the rows of switches for different pipes and pipe lengths and was surprised when I saw the range of other switches close up. I was amused to think how unprepossessing it is as a visual spectacle, just one organist with his back to audience, despite the impressive machine that’s under control. I followed tunes of interweaving counterpoint or sturdy bass lines or more chordal orientations. I enjoyed the Buxtehude but deeply responded to the inevitability of every Bach invention, with its ideas that never jarred, being always carried through to resolution. But mostly I liked the big, swelling tones when the machine let go. There was a little of this earlier on, but the Bach Passacaglia BWV582 was the summit of the day, all insistent and unyielding and just plain big. Obviously this sells organs to others, too, because it was the final piece. That was fun.

Anthony Halliday (organ) played a program of Buxtehude and JS Bach on the Fincham organ at the Ballarat Central Uniting Church.

Way back machinery

Concert 2 was at the Neal St Uniting Church and this time we did hear the Fincham church organ although only as an improvised introduction to the main concert. . It wouldn’t have been heard during the festival otherwise. This was historically an older set and a much more moderate in size. Camerata Antica was a trio of soprano, cornetto and baroque organ and the music was of the sixteenth century with just a bit of the following. There were new techniques to learn and new instruments. I can’t remember hearing a cornetto before: somewhat like a trumpet tone, but curved, timber with leather covering, flute-like no valves, presumably conical. Apparently it was the major treble instrument of the period, before the violin took over. Also divisions and diminutions, which were explained as essentially a type of improvisation of the time. Music was from Byrd, Monteverdi, Frescobaldi and Bassano, Caccini, De Rore, Nauwach and Corradini, and two from Purcell in the next century. There was a mix of combinations: organ with soprano or with cornetto or with both, and the Gloria from Byrd’s Mass for 3 voices sung by the three performers (as STB?). It all worked in this space: informative intros, varied combinations, antique tones and ornamentations. The modest baroque organ with a brass-like cornetto and Anna’s wonderful, rich, pure soprano voice, high but not stretched, ornamented but not contrived. Lovely concert.

Camerata Antica is based in London with formation members Anna Sandström (soprano) and Matthew Manchester (cornetto). Anna and Matthew were joined here by David Drury (baroque organ).

Organ evangelists

A mate has moved to Ballarat and we’ve discovered the Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields festival. It sounds quaint, but this is the 20th iteration of this annual festival and the opening concert is a rendition of Bach St Matthew Passion so we were drawn to it for the weekend. It’s an odd time for a passion, this not being Easter, but so be it. The location as good: an impressive stone church from the Goldrush era, St Patricks, built when, for 2 years, Ballarat was the richest metropolitan area in the world. I expect that’s how they can run a festival around church organs: there are lots of sturdy, impressive, imposing buildings here, including churches presumably all with organs. That said, the organs for Bach were two portable baroque organs, with harpsichord, two orchestras, two SATBs and one soprano choir, a range of period instruments, traverso, theorbo, viola da gamba. So we had lighter string sounds and occasionally diverse tones. Of interest to me were two basses, one with each orchestra, one five string, another with C-extension. And an “Evangelist continuo group” and one smaller group that forms from the others to accompany Jesus. It sounded small in the big space to start, but our ears soon adjusted. We’d wondered if this would be truncated somehow, but no, this was the full 3 hours or so. It was sung in German, but the program had an English translation. I’d expected that following the script would interrupt the music, but no, it enlivened the story and the structure and highlighted the language that’s common to Bach and mass and Bible. And, despite Bach’s Protestantism, it’s a work that sits perfectly in the more ornate Catholic traditions, like the B minor mass that we heard recently. It’s a big work, choreographed with various solo singers moving to front and returning to choir. The busy Evangelist is up front, male, tenor, telling the story to Jesus’ bass. Daniel Thompson was Evangelist and he was fabulous, evocative and superbly voiced. Stephen Grant was Christ, central but less featured, well voiced and praised for his performance. Other characters were Peter and Judas and Pilate and a few false witnesses and Pilate’s wife and some others and the whole choir appearing as Jews who damn Christ and save Barabbas and sit in tears at the end which doesn’t quite reach the resurrection. Strange, that. So, in all: story well known; composition stunning and expansive and always dignified; performance impressive and sometimes breathtaking. A great start for a festival if strangely not utilising any of the (church) organs of the Ballarat Goldfields, but so what.

Bach St Matthew Passion was performed as the opening concert of the Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields festival. Performers included Gary Ekkel (director), Daniel Thomson (Evangelist) and Stephen Grant (Jesus). The Festival Baroque Orchestra comprises an Evangelist Continuo group and two orchestras led by Cath Shugg and Simone Slattery (violins). Laura Vaughan (viola da gamba) and Greg Dikmans (traverso) featured with others. Also Robert Nicholls and Bill Cawte (basses).