The end

The first and final concerts are the biggies and this final concert was no let-down. Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber Missa Salisburgensis with a few other pieces by him, a Dixit Dominus, a sonata and Plaudite tympana. But how big and impressive are these works! The Missa is scored for 53 in 5 choirs (2 vocal and 3 instrumental), two “loci”comprising trumpets, timpani and sackbuts and two continui comprising organs, cellos and one double bass. All period instruments. The Pauldite also for 53, the Dixit for 32 and the sonata for a mere 6. This was all busy fugal writing for voices and strings, ecstatic brass and timpani. Loud enough to fill this large cathedral (which will dwarf most music) so we could sit back and relish the indulgence. You do wonder how much can be written around a few words (just the Kyrie went on for ages, I think with several movements) and how often Amen will repeat and how blaringly elated one piece can be. This was so. The concert drew in the locals, as the turn-out was big, filling the Cathedral. There was some lesser voices (not surprising given the fugal solo lines passed through the choirs) and some other slips, but this was a mammoth effort and a huge success. Congratulations to a large and varied group for pulling off an ecstatic concert. Loved it as did all the rest. A fine end to this modest but intriguing festival.

Performers were: Choir 1 (Newman College Choir, UMelb, SSAATTBB) Gary Ekkel (director), Hannah Irvine, Ruby Ekkel, Charlotte Crowley Katherine Lieschke, Clementine Isaacson, Ian Travers, Amelia Ekkel, Stefanie Dingnis, Hana Fraser, Christopher Roache, Paul O’Shea, Riley Soares, Matthew Bennett, Eamon Dooley, Lane Hyde, Jack Fang, Jack Bennett, Liam Headland, Tom Attard, Ben Russell; Choir 2 David Irving, Shane Lestideau (violins), Reidun Turner, Dylan Quinlan-Biskett, Rachel Walker, Miriam Morris (viols); Choir 3 Ruth Wilkinson, Ryan Williams, Hannah Coleman, Alexandra Bailliet-Joly (recorders), Kirsten Barry, Andrew Angus (oboes), Tristram Williams, David Musk (trumpets), Matthew Manchester, Peter Reid (cornetti), Julian Bain, John Gluyas, Glen Bardwell (sackbuts); Choir 4 (Queens College Choir, UMelb, SSAATTBB) John Weretka (director) Helen Thomson, Katherine Norman, April Foster, Jennifer Spiegel, Piri Jakab, Neera Kadkol, Brede Davis, Niki Ebacioni, Anish Nair, Stewart Webb, Robin Czuchnowski, Ben OwenJoshua Erdelyi-Gotz, Steven Hodgson, Kieran Macfarlane, James Emerson; Choir 5 Cathy Shugg, Simone Slattery (violins), Victoria Watts, Evlambia Vafiadis, John Weretka, Laura Vaugha (viols); Loco 1 Joel Brennan, Adrian Meyer, Louisa Becker (trumpets), Christopher Farrands (sackbut), Robert Allan (timpani); Loco 2 Louisa Trewartha, Hannah Rundell, Giulian Favrin (trumpets), Don Immel (sackbut), Arwen Johnston (timpani); Continuo 1 David Macfarlane (organ), Paul Zabrowarny (cello); Continuo 2 Ann Morgan (organ), Fiona Piggott (cello), Robert Nicholls (bass) Biber,

Really truly different

I’ve talked several times of different styles at this festival but this takes the cake. The penultimate concert was the Australian Chinese Music Ensemble playing traditional music of China (and Danny Boy and Click go the shears). It’s a fascinating and diverse sound for our ears. We’ve mostly heard it before but even so, getting some chatty background and hearing the individual instruments playing solo and especially being invited on stage after to see their scores and instruments close up and ask a few questions was fascinating. We heard of the pentatonic nature of the music, how it’s mostly now written with a number notation (jianpu) with dots above and below for octaves and a second stave for accompaniment. The pentatonics are comfy for us but the vibrato and pitch bends are strange sounding as are some tones. The core group was four males, joined by a woman for a solo on Guzheng. Interestingly, this instrument is mostly played by women and , at least here, she played solo. But then retuning is not trivial. Suffice to say, very different from the rest of the festival, informative and satisfying.

The Australian Chinese Ensemble performed at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute. Wang Zheng-Ting (director, sheng) led a group with instruments dizi, erhu, yangqin and guzheng (names not provided).

Dense impressions

Again the Venetian group Trio Leonardo unavoidably had viola replaced, so their performance was impressive but not like a long-standing group. It would be interesting to hear them with standard membership. Not that replacement Lawrence Jacks didn’t do a great job: he did an excellent job (he’s a retired player from WASO and MSO, so not unexpected). But the group had only rehearsed this material twice ant it’s not trivial stuff. This was high impressionism, Faure and Debussy, all space or floating air or urgency. They did it well. It’s not a style that I love and I wondered how an Australian group might play it. I expect quicker, more dispassionate. I wondered it it’s a thing of the new world, newer surroundings and the rest. But an impressive outing playing a vastly different style from what we’ve heard in this festival.


Trio Leonardo performed at the Daylesford Town Hall. TL are Andrea Dainese (flute), Elisabetta Ghebbioni (harp) and Lawrence Jacks (viola) sat in for Giancarlo di Vacri.

Player organs

Apparently that’s the generic term for orchestrelles as player piano is for the pianola. We were invited to Damon O’Donoghue’s home to hear several Aeolian Orchestrelles. Damon restores these machines. Apparently Mark Twain had one. The company was huge in its time, a US company producing player organs and pianos. These are instruments that play organ or piano mechanisms from a reel of performated paper while the performer chugs away at bellows and, for the organ switches stops. I arrived during the final movement of Beethoven 9th – the best thing I heard. But we had several others. The Canberra connection: Damon was the man of the Australia Fair Grand Concert Street Organ who used to play at Floriade. That was a sad loss.

Damon O’Donoghue demonstrated several Aeolian Orchestrelles at his workshop in Daylesford.

More aged mechanicals

Next up was Douglas Mews, another NZ organist (it was noted!), playing another early mechanical action organ after further last minute repairs from Ken. Douglas actually played one short concert twice, although opening all stops was only attempted n the first run. Apparently the bellows weren’t up to it. This was music from the Fitzwilliam Virginal songbook, mostly by William Byrd but also one self-portrait by George Farnaby. Douglas told us of the virginal and this music collection, how all keyboards of the era were called this in those times, about possible connections to the Virginal Queen (Queen Elizabeth) or to the virgula, a component in the mechanical action. I’ve been checking the tuning of the organs we’ve heard. Most have been ~A=444; St Pat’s was low, ~A=336. Interestingly, this was the one organ that was pretty close to A=440. It’s a matter of original construction (cheaper to build shorter pipes, was suggested) and tuning and expectations at the time, and Ken said it’s not feasible to retune whole organs. More organ lore..

Douglas Mews (organ) performed at Christ Church Anglican church in Daylesford. Ken Turner (organ repairman) of Goldfields Pipe Organs is performing multiple repairs during the festival. Cheers also to Nello Catarcia, the organist from Orvieto Cathedral, Italy, who dropped in and played a few bars.

Methodist in her madness

Thus did Martin Setchell introduced his personal history. He’d had young years in UK with a Methodist grandmother so attended churches like this one (Uniting Church, Daylesford). In chruch, he’d observed the pulpit in prime place, but the choir above and the organ above all. Thus he determined to play the organ. Most likely apocryphal, but amusing. This was Daylesford and it was a day of organs. First up was Martin playing Italian music on a mechanical action William Anderson organ, installed 1888. Two manuals, 3 couplers, tracker action, restored by George Fincham 1909 (to quote the language of the historical organ community). As with several other concerts, local organ repairer Ken was working till the last moment, and repairs held up the performance for ~15 minutes. Hot weather cracking joints, I think it was. Martin played Italians from 1550s and a few Germans who were influenced by the Italians and further developed the tradition (not least JS Bach). But the trills and varied notes were there, thanks to the tracker action.

Martin Setchell (organ) performed at the Uniting Church Daylesford.

Chamber bliss

I could tell from the first notes of Anna Goldsworthy playing a few bars of solo Mozart piano that this was special. The softly spelt tone (admittedly on a generous Steinway), the internal flow of the phrasing and the exquisite dynamics said so. Within four bars or so the others came in, perhaps first violin then cello. Not sure. But it was clear these people play together and had done for some time. There were fleeting glimpses one to another, especially from piano and cello, and the movement of lines from one to another was exemplary as was the shared understanding of each phrase. The pleasure and clarity of it all showed also in their faces. Anna’s face would curl in little smiles or perhaps firmness although again only fleeting. Tim would play fewer notes, sometimes stern in his low-end role. Not so much Helen, who was vivid in head and body movement but less so in facial expressions. Helen introduced the first piece, Mozart Piano trio Gmaj K496 saying it was his second but it plays like a perfect example of the format, like a type specimen. Anna introduced the second piece, changed from the program’s Schumann to Mendelssohn Piano trio Dmin, more ambitious and more a partner for the Mozartian perfection. Again, dense, committed, communicated, a revelation. We were up close, first row, middle, watching the details. I was amused to notice I was hearing the strings in stereo. Tim’s cello was so firmly and clearly intoned, right to the lowest string and notes. I fret over a weak low string so this clicked with me. I was amused to see just a hint of Anna tapping beats with her left foot. And that piano tone again and Helen’s bowing and that fabulous cello tone and just the pleasure and expression of it all. Just immense and just a revelation.

The Seraphim Trio performed Mozart and Mendelssohn. ST are Helen Ayers (violin), Tim Nankervis (cello) and Anna Goldsworthy (piano).

Backgrounding the organist

Jenny Setchell is wife of Martin and his page turner, photographer, recorder, stop setter and partner for their tours to pipe organs around the world. Once a journo, she’s capable writer with considerable wit and a good eye for the photo and the plot twist. She’s just released her second book on the organist’s life and she presented it to the Festival. Some instruments are to die for (for access but also for immense beauty). We saw pics, heard of the travails of a travelling organist and the pleasures of the audience. Every organ is different; you require an hour in preparation for every ten minutes of performance; there are from one manual to six or more plus pedals; then the string of stops, all named inconsistently; the access might be through mediaeval tunnels or rickety lifts or dangerous spiral staircases; communications may be by TV or mirror or none; pistons may group stops as an aide; sequencers have arrived on modern organs to manage set sets of stops; consoles can be machanical or electro-mechanical and detached; the cipher may come at any time, when a note refuses to stop playing (a great fear no doubt). There’s more. Then to fill the hour, a visit to their native Christchurch in NZ, once location of 77 pipe organs but now, after several earthquakes and 20,00 aftershocks (into Richter 6/7) only 3. We all were saddened by and for them. An interesting view of organs and organists at this organ festival.

Jenny Setchell (author) introduced her new book Organs & organists : their inside stories / Jenny Setchell (Pipeline Press). She previously published Organ-isms : Anecdotes from the world of the king of instruments / Jenny Setchell (Pipeline Press).

Interlude

Friday morning is time for an interlude and light music. This was in Ballarat, at St Paul’s Anglican Church, with Douglas Mews and for one tune, Andrea Dainese. Andrea (flute) was filling in for his offsider, Giancarlo (viola), who couldn’t attend at late notice. The organ was J Walker of London, 1864, nice sounding and full in this space, but with mechanical action replaced by a detached electrified console sometime over the last century. So the Lemare and several Ketelbeys were to relax and enjoy. Ketelbey’s foreign adventure were slim so his Japanese Carnivals and Chinese temples were none too authentic. Douglas played two NZ numbers, from Kaihau and Sondederhof. The Sonderhof was more Viennese waltz than Maori Bible. But, again so be it. Douglas introduced the Grieg and Elgar as real music and they were satisfying. The prayer and Temple dance from Olav Trygvason had we wanting to join the pagans. And Sospiri from Elgar was too sentimental, especially for a busy Friday morning; perhaps the Chanson de Matin was better. But I jest. This was meant to be light and it was. I enjoyed the organ tones and Daouglas’ and Andrea’s playing. A pleasant interlude.

Douglas Mews (organ) perforrmed at St Paul’s Anglican Church, Ballarat. Andrea Dainese (flute) joined in for Elgar.

HM or HRH?

I learnt this today: you address the Queen as Her Majesty, not as Her Royal Highness. Well, I’ll be. It was an interlude of mirth and jocularity and a little vocals when HM Queen Victoria appeared to her subjects at the Clunes Town Hall. The hall is itself an object of considerable interest, attractive despite considerable cracks. The Queen appeared to lead us in a hymn written for a possible new nation of Victoria in 1860. “To the people of Victoria / This attempt at a National Hymn for our Common Country / Sung at the Theatre Royal Melbourne 1860 / Words by WW Wendell, Music by S Nelson”. We had the words and attempted the melody, but it was not known and still tricky after three verses. The words work with Advance Australia Fair but that’s not the melody. Thanks Rachel. An amusing outing with a tricky melody.

Rachel Buckley appeared as Queen Victoria at the Clunes Town Hall.

Heat

The heat wave continued for the afternoon but it was obvious here at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Clunes. It was hot here, but the concert went on. Douglas Mews returned on organ with Andrea Dainese on flute for one sonata. The music was all Handel. The organ was due for upcoming restoration, lacking in some stops and long pipes and short on pedals, a front of false pipes removed to reveal the square wooden pipes below, but it filled the space and was responsive and crisp to my ears. This instrument is a mechanical action built by Hamlin & Sons in London ~1860. Only one other organ is known by this manufacturer and it’s in the UK. The music was Handel Excerpts from Rinaldo HWV7; Sonata Emin; Suite Dmin HWV428. The middle piece featured flute. Lots of short movements over three pieces. Stately and intriguing, but located in a hot room with audience flagging. Good on the performers to survive. Intriguingly, next door is the original church, a US-built prefab of style you see in films; common enough in the US but rare in Australia. This town is small but increasingly interesting.

Douglas Mews (organ) played Handel airs and dances at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Clunes. Andrea Dainese (flute) accompanied on one.

This is CJBlog post no. 1900

Acoustics excellence

It’s a big call but I heard this room, at least for the music that was played there and my position in it, as the most clear and firm acoustics I can remember, throughout the frequency range. The bass was wonderfully rich and deep and present; the violins were perhaps edgy; the solo instruments, harp then flute (and organ) then viola were clear and strong (other than the organ which seemed light on, quiet, thin). But I was in raptures over this sound. This was the former Wesley church in Clunes, Victoria, now restored as part of the campus of Wesley College, Melbourne, as a country campus. The music that sounded so good was a string orchestra with soloists playing various concerti by Vivaldi, Telemann and Haydn on modern instruments. I just luxuriated in the richness and fullness of the tones and the joy of music of this early-classical-cum-baroque era. Our pleasure with music is a function of sound in space. This just filled the room with clarity and fullness. The pieces were Vivaldi Concerto Dmaj for harp RV93; Vivaldi Concerto Dmaj op.10 no.3 Il cardellino for flute; Telemann Concerto Gmaj for viola; Haydn Concerto no.1 Cmaj for organ and oboe Hob.XVIII. The soloists were Elisabetta Ghebbioni, Andrea Dainese, Lawrence Jacks and Anthony Halliday. I met up with bassist Tim Nelson (the first double bassists so far at this festival) and also with an old mate from Canberra, violinist Louise Hillyard. A pleasure and a massive surprise!

Elisabetta Ghebbioni (harp), Andrea Dainese (flute), Lawrence Jacks (viola) and Anthony Halliday (organ) soloed for various concerti by vivaldi, Telemann and Hadyn at the former Wesleyan Methodist Church in Clunes. The Festival Chamber Orchestra comprised Yvonne Holley, Akeyo Matsumoto, Kate Carman, Wilson Blackman, Millie Koenders and Toni Williams (violins), Ann Smith and Louise Hillyard (violas), Kathryn Saunders (oboe), Miriam Kriss (cello) and Tim Nelson (bass).

Returns

Advent is that annual time of anticipation for Christmas. It means little now for most people, except maybe for the calendars, but it has a history. This concert was a recreation of an Advent cantata concert (Eine Abendmusik) as it may have been heard in C18th Germany. Appropriately, it was held on the altar in the impressive St Patrick’s cathedral. The performers were friends of director and bass vocalist, John Weretka. And perhaps to note, the concert was perhaps the longest I’ve attended here, although still only 90 mins (the concerts are nicely timed at 60 mins). Music was from JC Bach, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, but also a string of lesser known names, Capricornus, Froberger , Schleinm Muller, Bertali, Schmeltzter. The instruments were period, so theorbo and a family of viols, chamber organ and harpsichord, and baroque violin and bassoon. There were five singers, SSATB interestingly with a male alto. There were some faces I recognised, mostly from previous concerts at this festival, but also Rachel Walker from Canberra and Simon Rickards from AHE. This was a gentle concert, not loud in this immense space and sometimes overwhelmed by passing Harleys on the main road outside (especially the solo harpsichord). Vocal numbers were interspersed with instrumentals – sonatas and chaconnes and suites. I particularly enjoyed the vocals. There were some fascinating pairings of alto/tenor, soprano/soprano, soprano/bass in some tunes and I loved the crystalline first soprano (Helen Thompson?). A calm and beautiful set of period musics.

Eine Abendmusik was held at St Patrick’s Cathedral. Singers were John Meretka (bass, director), Helen Thompson and Amelia Jones (sopranos), Hamish Gould (alto) were Christopher Roche (tenor). Instrumentalists were the Consort Eclectus comprising Lizzy Walsh (violin), Miriam Morris, Laura Moore, Reidun Turner, Victoria Watts, Ruth Wilkinson and Rachel Walker (viola da Gamba) with Kristen Barry (oboe), Rosemary Hodgson (theorbo), Simon Rickards (bassoon) and Elizabeth Welsh (viol, viola) and Ann ? (harpsichord, organ).

Newness

This festival is diverging and that’s good. A festival is a place of concentration, of musicians, of instruments, perhaps of styles, and it’s this that’s interesting me. Also, it’s intense – in the case of festivals like this, two or three concerts a day. It’s musically tiring and here it has me becomign aware of the things I really respond to. To some degree, it also means tuning out from things I normally love and admire, but just doesn’t excite me quite like normal amongst the abundance. Arcadia Winds was a group that tuned me in. Five young players, lighthearted chatter, very informative introductions (like identifying the key features to listen to in each of Ligeti’s six bagatelles), an uncommon format (wind quintet) and some excellent playing. Arcadia Winds were Musica Viva’s inaugural FutureMakers ensemble which gave them recordings and tours and time. They are friends who date back before ANAM, but they formed there. This time, their flute was a sit-in flautist from ANAM, Eliza Shephard. You would hardly have known she was sitting in – great job done there. And being young, they read their new music (a century old now but not baroque/classical) from tablets with bluetooth page turners. So everything was new. It’s not a new audience, but they were feted by plenty of admirers. I was one. They played Ligetti, Bartok, Szervansky wind quintets which I suppose are common enough in this format but fascinating and harmonically and aurally challenging despite Euro-folk roots. And a new Australian work but Lachlan Skipworth, which appears to have been written with them in mind. Whatever, this was a harmonically and tonally fascinating outing with an energetic group on the way up. Excellent stuff.

Arcadia Winds performed Ligetti, Bartok, Szervansky and Skipworth at Neil St Uniting Church. Regular members David Reichelt (oboe), Lloyd van Hoff (clarinet), Rachel Shaw (horn) and Matthew Kneale (bassoon) were joined by replacement Eliza Shephard (flute) for the day.

An uncommon pairing

Well, a concert of harp and pipe organ is a concert of relatively obscure and uncommon instruments. As proof, I discovered a list of 44 pipe organs in Canberra and there wouldn’t be too many harps, although we do have an aggregation, mostly around Alice Giles. But they didn’t play together, just a segment each. Martin Setchell presented two small sets of English Edwardiana d Victorian music for organ, with names including Lemare, German, Clark, Bache Bridge and Hollins. Not a well known repertoire although the Lemare piece, Andantino in Db, had been ripped off for Moonlight and roses, so the melody was known for that and Lemare made considerable monies from the copyright case. The Scotson Clark Vienna March sounded all the world like a barrel organ – a very complex and expensive one in this case. The organ had problems with some stops so the second set was delayed, but this festival has an organ tuner on call to make repairs – the second one I’ve seen on the fly in few days. Visiting Venetian harpist Elisabetta Ghebbioni performed a spectacularly mixed set: from Phillip Glass Metamorphosis Two, through Albeniz to Handle Chaconne in Gmaj, which is a set of variations. I enjoyed this set, if more for the two ends, the Glass and Handel, but I felt the harp was lost in this space. Elisabetta has a great CV but she’s playing on a borrowed instrument. Well, as is Martin, but I felt this instrument really felt and sounded good here. Perhaps it’s the space or perhaps the organ’s relative youth or maybe its maintenance (if it’s maintained anything like the perfect gardens around the chapel). It’a Fincham & Sons of 1903, and apart from the breakdown, the sound was lively and fresh and big. The arched ceiling and surfaces may have helped acoustics. Again, I measured the organ slightly sharp, ~A=444, like the other organs other than St Pat’s which was similarly flat. Interesting.

Martin Setchell (organ) and Elisabetta Ghebbioni (harp) performed sets at Loreto College Chapel.

NYC moments

Concert 2 in Castlemaine was a stunner of modern music with loads of international connections in an old-styled town hall, all rows of seats and high stage and musical distance. Nonetheless, it was another stunner. We’d heard Anthony Halliday and Tomomi Kondo Brennan playing duo with AH on organ a Snake Gully. This was a trio event, with Tomomi’s husband, trumpeter Joel Brennan, extensive travel, musical doctorate from Yale and now Senior lecturer in Brass at Melbourne Con. With this trio we could expect fireworks. We got them. A duo (tpt, pno) from Joseph Turin who wrote the music for Nightmare on Elm St and has been commissioned by the NY Phil: Two portraits for flugelhorn and piano (utilising both flugel and trumpet). Then AH playing Beethoven Andante favore with plenty of rubato and flexibility of tempo. AH amazes me with his playing from memory: he played from memory the other day and apparently has performed Well tempered clavier from memory. He obviously read for the more obscure pieces. The final work was a pairing of two contemporary numbers: Julliard lecturer Eric Ewazen’s Trio for trumpet, violin and piano (apparently he writes for unusual combinations) with a response called Summer breeze from Harry Sdraulig, a recent student at Melbourne Con who was in the audience. HS’s was shorter and more attractively melodic. EE’s was more complex in harmony, interplay, structure and the rest, but this was a much larger work in several movements. So, this was a return to the modern and particularly to contemporary US, with that Australian response and a blast from a storied past. A stunning concert with some fabulously inventive compositions and excellent performances. Loved this one!

Anthony Halliday (piano) Tomomi Kondo Brennan (violin) and Joel Brennan (trumpet, flugelhorn) performed contemporary music and Beethoven at the Town Hall in Castlemaine. Harry Sdraulig (composer) was present for the premiere of one of his works.

Mozartiana

Off to Castlemaine for two concerts. The first was a lovely concert of Mozartiana on a very different style of organ. It was originally a Fincham organ of 1888, but updated with electro-pneumatic action by still extant Geroge Fincham & Sons in 1953. Thus the organist and manuals were on one side of the altar and the organ in a niche on the other side. Presumably impossible with a mechanical organ. But it was a big sound, able to fill a large and dark space. All Mozart. Not least his variations on Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman, or as we know it, Twinkle twinkle little star. And the well known Ronda alla Turka with its references to the music of the Turkish Janisseries. And his Leipzig (Eine keine) gigue which was apparently written in a visitors’ book by a young Mozart in appreciation of the chance to spend time on an organ. Or his Andante K.616 which originally accompanied automatons or waxwortks displays in the court he was working at. All fascinating snippets of Mozart’s spirited genius and all well played by visiting New Zealander Douglas Mews in a very dark and foreboding early gold-era church.

Douglas Mews (organ) performed Mozart at Christ Church Anglican Church on Agitation Hill in Castlermaine.

Returns

This one was a gentle return to the earlier, more sedate, dignified music of Mozart and Bach, except, due to sickness, a group version of the Goldberg Variation selections was replaced by a new viola player and several pleasant but relatively light quartets by Cimarosa. The other work was Mozart Quintet for Flute, harp and string trio KV299. I followed the second movement well enough (I’d played it with NCO). The other movements were less known but identifiable, but then all Mozart seems like that. His melodies just fall off the pen with immense inevitability. How could they be otherwise? The Cimarosi were played by a quartet of flute, violin, viola and cello. I wondered if the flute part is switched from or easily transposable to another violin. The Mozart added a harp and I wondered similarly about its role relative to piano, but the chords and accompaniment were sparser and the melodies less accompanied by another hand. Probably fairly different, although I remember NCO harpist Elizabeth once playing the harp part on piano in rehearsal. Interesting. Some nice playing, too. I particularly enjoyed the sit-in Helen Ireland and violin Natasha Conrau. Also flautist Andrea Dainese, although wind is an unknown quantity to me. Lovely

The Trio Leonardo performed Mozart and Cimarosa with visitors. Trio Leonardo are Andrea Dainese (flute), Elisabetta Ghebbioni (harp) and Giancarlo Di Vacri (viola). This night Helen Ireland (viola) replaced GdV. Guests were Natasha Conrau (violin) and Miriam Kriss (cello).

Different

This was different from the rest so far and a stunner, for me at least and for some I was chatting with. Different? Rachmaninoff Elegie Op.3, Barber Sonata cello & piano Cmin and Shostakovitch Sonata cello & piano Dmin. Yes, different, although they did encore with a more sedate Schubert Serenade. I loved it all. A strong, youthful and loud performance from Luke Severn and mostly from memory and a mature and relatively quiet performance from Elyanne Laussade on Steinway. When is a Steinway quiet? Was it a mark of Luke’s volume? But I was up close, second row. The Barber surprised and pleased me. I only know the common Barber which is attractive, but this one was more daring, more modern and yet hinted at those beautiful melodies (one phrase somewhere was almost identical) and based on a series of odd intervals on 2-3 of the bar if I remember correctly. Interestingly, the Shostakovitch was written just 2 years before, but in different countries. They are different. Shostakovitch was just fabulous, virtuoisic, fast or slow, bombarding or lento. And I felt more modern-comfortable with the harmonic movement in Shostakovitch; Barber seemed a bit less comfy to my ears. Great, challenging modern music (well, 100 years old now) and a change from Bach and Vivaldi (despite their comfy genius) and some players who did it justice. Fabulous and challenging.

Luke Severn (cello) and Elyanne Laussade (piano) performed Rachmaninoff, Barber, Shostakovitch and Schubert at the Wendouree Centre for Performing Arts.

Transport

I’m learning about pipe organs. For instance, there are 44 in Canberra (!), mostly in churches, but also in 3 private residences. Also, that there are homeless organs and they get moved. It’s obvious, really, that these loved, artisan instruments are valued by their (mostly) congregations. This concert was in a local town, Creswick, at St John’s Anglican Church, a lovely old bluestone construction from the time of the gold rushes. The organ was another Fincham & Hodbay (1989) which had been gifted by the Barkly Street Uniting Church when they sold the premises. The move was in 2015 so the setup is recent. It's fully mechanical and unusually the mechanism is visible from the organ loft. Unlike St Pat’s low tuning (well below A=440), this organ is slightly sharp (~A=444). It seems that all mechanical organs are somewhat varied in pitch. Understandable, as they are clearly a mammoth job to tune. Christopher Trikilis is a Melbourne-based organist. He performed a lovely set by Vivaldi arr. Bach, Lemmens, Bach, Zipoli, Mendelsshohn, Bajamonti, Wesley and Dubois. I expect the organ has its own collection of composers. He played wonderfully, with clear enunciation and steady timing and informative chatter. There was some inevitably noisy footwork but this organ is fully mechanical and we were sitting right under the pedals. We learnt of Italian organs having no pedals, thus the Alberti bass: an arpeggiated obbligato pattern moving through chords and inversions (1-3-5-3, etc). And CT was playing with a camera that projected on a screen up front, so we watched his hands and he’d nod to applause. Fun. A lovely concert with great organ and touching venue.

Christopher Trikilis (organ) played at St John’s Anglican Church, Creswick. And to learn more of pipe organs in Australia, visit Organ Historical Trust of Australia.

Organ Historical Trust of Australia