Haydn's Canberra Seasons

The concert was on 1 April so our practice in the morning, somewhat stilted and desperate, must have been a trick played on us, because the 3pm concert was an absolute blast.  This was NCO's annual get-together in Llewellyn Hall with CCS and a few singers out front and the music was Haydn The Seasons.  Now, this is a big work (a CSO member suggested "massive") and the orchestra practiced it for perhaps 8 weeks and only met with two of the singers on the Monday before the Saturday, and the other singer and choir only on the Friday night.  The arias and choral pieces were pretty much all there, but the repetitives were mostly removed, I guess to relieve the singers of such a massive task in preparation, and in a nifty and local way, they were replaced by a series of Canberra-related spoken word introductions form no other than Laura Tingle, ABC TV journo but also a member of CCS (I've seen her singing before).  I couldn't hear Laura from my location, but the proxy was well received and a very clever local innovation talking of magpies and trips to the coast and possums the like.  As for the performance, I'm not the only believer in the "she'll be right on the night" line, and the performance just proved the proposition.  It was a blast.  The were some moments of indecision or missed lines (Haydn is full of explosive and hugely challenging phrases, not just for the winds and others, but even for the basses) but the performance was thrilling and the exhilaration from choir and orchestra and singers on song was ever present.  And there were several fugues (3?), one at truly breakneck speed, all thrilling and structurally complex.  I love these things. And the gloriously delicate start to, what, winter?  And plenty more of interest.  Talk of massive, it was 2 hours playing with the repetitives removed!  Massive indeed.  But we did it and, as is the way, we partied and chuckled about it all after.  Just a blast, again, from our NCO/CCS collaboration.

National Capital Orchestra and Canberra Choral Society gather for their annual performance at Llewellyn Hall to play Haydn The Seasons.  Sarahlouise Owens (soprano), Ryan O'Donnell (tenor) and Sitiveni Talei (bass) sang.   Laura Tingle (narrator) replaced the repetitives with a Canberra Seasons theme.  Louis Sharpe (conductor) conducted and Dan Walker (chorus master) prepared the choir.  Our bottom end comprised Juliet Flook, Jennifer Groom and Eric Pozza (basses).

This is CJBlog post no. 2,600

Big day out

This was a big day, the annual concert by National Capital Orchestra with Canberra Choral Society in Llewellyn.  I dream of this day.  I get this massive grin as the voices ring out, the solo vocalists solo up front, the sound of the orchestra rings in this classy acoustic.  The audience may not quite look it, but you feel professional here.  Great lighting, this time the big e-organ, the stage managing and risers and the rest, always those voices.  This year was Rossini Petite messe solonnelle.  He'd become famous and rich and mostly retired from music, but later he wrote this work.  It's not Brahms or Mozart and it has some lightheartedness and melodrama from the Italian operatic scene, but it's also got some nice lines, a few involving fugues, a few but not too many challenges. At least for the bass, which is how I measure it.  Some players were a bit unflattering but I liked a few parts a lot and those voices were right behind me.  The basses were a line of five behind woodwinds and in front of 3 rows of choir.  We liked this.  We could see well, be part of the sound and project well into both the orchestra and the audience.  We got several supportive comments on our location, especially from violins, usually across stage from us, and given the foundational role of the bass, I reckon this could only be for the better.  From my part, I hugely enjoyed the performance, satisfied that my mistakes were mostly in rehearsal, as it usually is and as it should be.  Conductor Louis was a great pleasure in rehearsal and in performance.  We even got a mention on ABC Classic FM in the morning.  What more could you ask?  A fabulous outing and I judge a very worthy one.  But this was a big day and more to come...

National Capital Orchestra teamed with Canberra Choral Society to perform Rossini Petite messes solonnelle in Llewellyn Hall.  Louis Sharpe (conductor) led with Dan Walker (chorus master, tenor) and soloists Sarahlouise Owens (soprano), Sonia Anfiloff (alto), Ryan O'Donnell (tenor) and Hayden Barrington (baritone).   And five double basses.  

• Thanks to the indefatigable Peter Hislop for this and all the rest of his pics.

Singing art

Art song is a style. I'd heard of it, but looked it up: mostly solo voice with piano, excluding arias and chamber music with song and the like. I think of mainly romantic styles and sopranos on stage, but no doubt other voices do it too. So I went to an ArtSound Canberra session, invited to record. Sarahlouise Owens sang soprano with Natalia Tkachenko accompanying on piano. Like much that I do these days, it had crossovers in style and more. Mike Dooley was page turning for Natalia. He was also the main composer for the session with a lengthy and intriguing collection called truth and bearty which put four poems of John Keats to music. They were renowned poems that kids of my days read as school and the source of many quotes: Endymion ("A thing of beauty is a joy forever"), To Autumn, Ode on a Grecian urn ("Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all / Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know") and Ode to a nightingale. Mike did a great job, all rolling arpeggios and complex interpretations of iambic pentameters; even the sound of nightingales between stanzas. Then a strings of lesser known composers, often women: Linda Phillips with two Hebrew songs, Phyllis Batchelor with some love songs and more (love songs just have to be a staple of art song, as much other song to our days), Carl Vine and Horace Keats, two romantic males for this outing. It much have been a huge task to get this together, presumably for one concert. Sarahlouise was strong and firm, lively and entertaining. Natalia was more delicate, soft and responsive. So a lovely outing with my jazz mate Mike presenting yet another classical composition, this a song cycle and some wonderful performances. Just one last thing to note, not least on the subject of love. Mike's song cycle, his Keats poems put to music, were a commission by a man to his wife for their anniversary. More romance in song. We all liked that.

Sarahlouise Owens (soprano) sang artsong with accompaniment by Natalia Tkatchenko (piano) at Wesley. Mike Dooley composed the core song cycle to the words of Keats.

Clavicytheria and more

The clavicytherium was sitting on the edge of the stage and featured between tunes, but the real star of the day was Pierre Gillier Livres d'airs et de simplonies mélez de quelques fragmens d'opera. Sarahlouise, Lauren and Ariana gathered to perform this recently recovered collection of songs from the French baroque era (1697), This is a work of history by local academic Kathleen Gerrard who unearthed the manuscript in the vaults of the Versailles music library and has recently published the definitive text. Gillier was a student of Lully, and here produced a string of works of amusement to the aristocracy or perhaps the developing bourgeoisie, rich in stories of love and animals and references to classical mythology. It's all rather out of time for us, but fascinating and pleasurable and laugh-inducing at times with the accompanying translated texts. The trio did it great justice, Sarahlouise emoting as only a singer does; Ariana hard at work throughout but gentle on the soft harpsichord; Lauren sitting out the songs but taking book-ending and intervening pieces with her baroque bow and easy gamboling cadence. And Ariana intervened at one stage to introduce this new Wesley instrument, the clavicytherium: an old and now rare instrument, recreated in this copy, luscious with its carvings on the subject of St George and playing somewhat like a harpsichord, strings plucked. It's missing some strings and even that replacement is a slow task, but maybe we can expect a Wesley outing sometime. A lovely historical but intellectually-informed concert.

Sarahlouise Owens (soprano), Lauren David (violin) and Ariana Odermatt (harpsichord) performed Gillier and Rameau at Wesley. The Gillier was recently un-earthed from Versaille and published in a definitive edition by Kathleen Gerrard.

What is this thing called, love

It's a piece of nostalgia and theatre and comedy as much as music. NCO and CCS and a string of soloists performed Not the Messiah : he's a very naughty boy at Llewellyn last night to a crowded house and everyone had a ball. There's a generation out there that's brought up on Monty Python (I'm of it), so I'm not surprised at the turnout, but to some degree I was surprised at my own enjoyment of the event. I'd gone around thinking this is not Beethoven 9 or Mozart Requiem, especially because of the fairly simple readability of the music. But it's not complexity alone that makes for success in music and I wonder if I'd been snobby about the whole thing. I don't think so but I'd ignored the pleasure of a massed musical outing, of the joy of comedy and the essentially intelligent and well meaning humour of the Python crew and just the effectiveness of our locals to carry all this off.

120-or-so performers filled the stage physically and the hall aurally with a inundation of sound with the help Llewellyn's new phrased array; the orchestra did its musical job, enhanced even with a rhythm section with electric instruments (gasp); the choir sang a treat but also played up the night with discrete props; the soloists were a roguish joy as well as being wonderfully capable as singers; the brass wore sombreros and the pipers brought the house down. There were smiles and joy everywhere and congrats for jobs well done. Well done to Lenny, of course, who conducted this all and to SarahLouise who had done her parallel part with the choir. A huge turnout and a huge success.

National Capital Orchestra and Canberra Choral Society presented Not the Messiah : he's a very naughty boy by Eric Idle and John du Prez at Llewellyn Hall. Soloists were Louise Page and Demi Smith (sopranos), Nick Begbie (tenor), Tobias Cole (baritone), David Pearson (bass) under Leonard Weiss (conductor) with Ylaria Rogers (director) and SarahLouise Owens (chorus master). The bottom-enders were Roger Grime, Lizzy Collier and Eric Pozza (basses).

Again to move on

National Capital Orchestra performed Carmina Burana and more last night in Llewellyn with the Canberra Choral Society, Canberra Brass, Turner Trebles and a string of solo singers. It as a mammoth effort that had the stage packed. Two Steinways swapped places with the brass band; the fourteen children in the trebles choir fitted where they could, at one stage off stage; the basses arranged themselves so the singers could walk on and off. Never seen so many timpanis on one orchestral stage. So this was big and deliciously exciting. The Llewellyn stalls were pretty much sold out. The buzz was infectious. This is hugely popular and thrilling music, even if it's one of those pieces that experienced choristers are hark less for. Carmina B was the star of the night, deservedly, but Sean O'Boyle's River Symphony was also big and flowing and I enjoyed it immensely, and a little intro of Wagner Prelude to Lohengrin Act 3 was a blast. I was amused to hear someone say recently that Wagner has loads of ideas and uses them all at once. I could feel that. It's very attractive but a surprisingly tricky piece. The River Symph was pretty much that, flowing, big and lyrical, a tone poem at times with images of waves of strings and beauteous soprano paens. It's another that's big and no doubt expensive to stage. CB is a counting challenge. One conductor I know jokes that everyone can count to four, but these counts were all over with frequent changes of time signature written in an unusual format. This was a counting trial. But again, hugely satisfying, oddly unique and satisfying lyrical. Everyone knows it but not as you know it by playing it. Which brings me back to how strange this classical performance world can be. We work intensely on something for months (professionals, perhaps less time), but suddenly it's over, and on to the next. Over time, I expect you develop a repertoire with opportunities to return to old friends, but in the meantime, that's it. Like theatre but not like jazz, where a tune will be called frequently, so goes through ongoing development never to be finalised. And the development is different: classical is all interpretation and technical correctness; jazz is more harmonic and lyrical development and exploration. Both are valid, of course, but they are very different. I'm elated after the considerable success of CB but also slightly disoriented to leave it as a recent companion. Strange, this. But congratulations to excellent performances all round, by NCO and CCS and soloists and others and not least by my capable basso profundo colleagues, Roger, Juliet and Matthew.


National Capital Orchestra, Canberra Choral Society, Canberra Brass, Turner Trebles and soloists Sarahlouise Owens (soprano), Susannah Lawergren (soprano), Tobias Cole (tenor) and Jeremy Tatchell (baritone) under Leonard Weiss (conductor) performed Carmina Burana, Sean O'Boyle and Wagner in Llewellyn Hall. The bass section comprised Juliet Flook, Matthew Gambrill, Roger Grime and Eric Pozza.

Aware of the little known

We all know Mack the Knife, and many know it's from Threepenny Opera. Canberra Rep is presenting TO now and we got along. I was apprehensive when I realised it was 3 hours long with two short intervals. And based on opera, although this is more musical theatre. A musical friends had seen it and said it was strange or weird. Certainly, it was unusual not Broadway, but neither is it non-Western. It's political, from the Weimar Republic era in Germany, after WW1, subject to reparations, preceding Depression then Hitler. And it's a strange mix of eras. The program notes "interesting challenge, with today's Australian actors; representing 1928 Berlin beggars; impersonating 1837 Victorian English exploiters and the exploited; based on the 1728 original Ballad Opera" but observes that there's a similarity in the eras including "to our time of an ever growing between the rich and the poor, and literally millions of displaced people searching for succour". The story is of a battle between Peachum, leader of the London street beggars, and Macheath (Mack the Knife), leader of the thieves and cad, but it's also recounts the centrality of women. It's all unlikely but entertaining and fairly easy to follow. The musical interludes are consistently satisfying, wily, politically-rich. There were some decent singers here, classically or theatre-trained and I could mostly follow the lyrics. The stage is open and unadorned, the fully-acoustic band (nonet?) appears on a raiser behind, sheets are run in for a screen at various times, a street singer introduces the work with talk and the famed theme, Mack the Knife, and consistently loiters. Almost as consistent is the capability of the women and the occasional capability of the men. Macheath himself is terribly well played and sung, if an unadmirable cad in the plot. Peachum is fabulously played and very cluey. His wife, Mrs, has a liking for gin, but is hugely capable when dry and a capable soprano. Their daughter, Polly, has the hots for Macheath (not the only women in his retinue) and their marriage is the source of the Peachums' revenge plot, but she comes onside with the family as Mack reveals his ways. Mack has an old Brit-Army-in-India mate, Tiger Brown, now Chief Inspector as Scotland Yard, who has been protecting the thief. Eventually Mack is revealed, gaoled, escapes, gaoled again and almost hung, then unexpectedly reprieved. No claim is made for probability and characters talk openly of this and the background politics of it all. This is Berthold Brecht lyrics and Kurt Weill music, so the total is clever, non-conformist and relevant. Some quotes: “What is robbing a bank compared to founding one?”, "Though the rich of this earth find no difficulty in creating misery, they can't bear to see it", "The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it" and this essential one "Grub first, then ethics". This was a witty piece of musical theatre from some great writers with a political conscience and done very capably by our longlife local company, Canberra Rep. Congrats and very much enjoyed.

Canberra Rep presented Threepenny Opera by Bertholt Brecht with music by Kurt Weill. Key performers were Tim Sekuless (Macheath), Peter Dark (Mr Peachum), Sarahlouise Owens (Mrs Peachum), Tina Robinson (Polly Peachum) and Jim Adamik (Tiger Brown). The band was the Threepenny Pits comprising Kristen Nilsson and Caleb Ball (reeds), Fatzana Choudhury, Keydan Bruse and Elaine Johnson (trumpets), Jack Adolph )trombone), Peter McDonald (tuba), Gabe Trew (drums), John Yoon (piano) and Ewan (harmonium).

Christmas as in schooner

Christmas is a time for choral concerts (any other time, too). This year’s was SCUNA with a program called Celestial harmonies : music for contemplation and celebration.

There were some strange but intriguing associations in this concert. Three versions of O magnum Mysterium, from de Victoria (~1600), de Cristo (~1600) and Lauriden (1974). There were several Schubert songs, one by a small sub-choir of women (SSAA), another by soprano accompanied by clarinet and piano. Then Rachmaninoff. The Vespers (or better, All night vigil Op.39, no.1-7) was performed by the full choir with organ and soprano voice. The Vespers were choral and predictable, but the two piano pieces, splitting each set into two parts, was an unexpected bit of programming. They were Prelude in D flat major and Etude-Tableau in C minor. Just the thing to challenge the jaded Christmas carol ear: not particularly celestial but riveting and an awakener. Then a few final tunes to end a generous concert, an encore and a rendition of Laudate nomen Domini (Christopher Tye, ~1550), apparently the theme song of SCUNA. I found the choir gelled better with some simpler harmonies. These were relatively complex charts: not just SATB, but SSAATTBBP, where my P is Basso Profundo (apparently down to D). I fancied the extremes of sopranos and basso profundo when they clearly rang out. I enjoyed the interplay of voices passing through harmonies. I really enjoyed the firm, confident solo soprano of Sarahlouise Owens in combination with choir for the Vespers and clarinet and piano for a Schubert. Despite its odd presence and slightly wonky upright, I relished Anthony Smith playing Rachmaninoff. This was a turn-of-the-century Russian romantic blast of huge handfulls of notes. It’s a surprise to see Anthony outside his continuo, subsidiary role for a change. The whole was led by Andrew Kroll with casual seriousness.

Finally, I enjoyed visiting St Andrew’s, which I pass by regularly. I expect this is our grandest church, even in its unfinished state. Canberra has a batch of post-religious brick constructions that lack the solemnity and magnificence that’s due to churches. This one is still awaiting its dome, but it’s sandstone in a stubby Greek cross design, high and spacious, nicely detailed with quotations inscribed in Art Deco script and furnishings with swirly gothic decoration, and with a heaven-seeking tower and gargoyles. Too bad about the British desire to hang flags in churches (I only noticed one), but for 99-year old Canberra, this is magnificence. And as for that name: SCUNA as in schooner; a perfectly lame university pun. Ya gotta love it. SCUNA (ANU Choral Society) was conducted by Andrew Kroll in large mixed and small female formations, accompanied by Anthony Smith (continuo, piano) and featured Sarahlouise Owens (soprano) and Hannah Freedman-Smith (clarinet) at the Church of St Andrew, Forrest.