A German-Australian synthesis ... despite wars

I admire Chris Latham's CIMF and this was his last. Unfortunately, we had clashes and couldn't be so involved this year. Chris gathers some fascinating batches of musicians to play varied music around festival themes. It's the discovery that's most interesting about this festival - new music, composers, musicians - and it suits the educated nature of Canberra. Journalists take care here; as Jack Waterford says, there's always someone who's an expert in Canberra to provide corrections. This week was busy for us so we only managed 3 concerts (and one workshop) and they were the blockbusters: not quite the adventure of CIMF but a treat none-the-less.

The final concert was Brahms Australian Requiem. Actually, it's his German Requiem, but sung in English as it was first performed in full in Australia in 1898. This was the biggest concert of the three we attended this year, with perhaps 200 performers including choir, orchestra and two soloists. It's a grand work, classical in conception, in seven movements, deep with cellos and basses and variously mournful and recovering. The choir was big in the wet environment of the Fitters' workshop with all the voices nicely merged into one. We were up front, on the aisle but nearer the cellos and basses, and we strained to hear the violins and various woodwinds and organ, although I heard gentle harp later when the chart was sparser. It's a feeling of being involved but perhaps not the best balance. This is a great space for choirs and power and passion if less so for clarity. But what a passion and volume this work has. The two soloist, bass-baritone and soprano, were big voices. This was in English but I didn't catch more than a phrase or two, from chorus or male soloist. There was a transcript (good on CIMF!) but I chose to listen. This was a big and passionate work in a big-sounding space.

To finish was a simpler composition, a song arranged by local Calvin Bowman, To Gratiana by W Denis Browne, a composer-soldier who died in WW1. It was a fitting, simple and touching ending for the festival called The Fire and the Rose, with twin themes of the 100th anniversary of WW1 and the 75th anniversary of the start of WW2. Then some short speeches and introductions and a last post, minute of silence and reveille. Mmmm. You can't fault the music in this festival. The little we heard this year were just the big works and they were revelatory. I hope we can be more involved and more adventurous next year, under the new CIMF musical director, Roland Peelman.

Brahms German Requiem was performed in English by the Wallfisch Band, ACO2, Canberra Festival Chorus, Simone Riksman (soprano), Alexander Knight (bass-baritone) under Roland Peelman (conductor). W Denis Browne To Gratiano was arranged for voice and orchestra by Calvin Bowman (arranger), with Christopher Saunders (tenor) and the others above.

Music for my funeral

People have music at their funerals and I've often thought what I might wish to have at mine. We heard Mozart's Requiem tonight at the Albert Hall for the CIMF and it's profoundly melancholy and touching, but who would have the self-regard to think they justified it? Who could deserve it? We've heard a performance before. Everyone knows it. It was played here on period instruments (A430Mhz). It's tragic; it's truthful; it's redemptive and ecstatic. How can you respond to the choir singing ever-rising sequences? With tears or with unhinged laughter? It's just too profound. It's mostly choral, but there are passages of four solo voices: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass. They sometimes sing individually, but mostly with entwined voices, perhaps the tenor appearing through, or the soprano soaring, or the two women in harmony. This version was shortened from the commonly performed one. It was a version by Richard Maunder that's missing three passages (Sanctus, Hosanna and Benedictus) that appear to be Süssmayr not Mozart. Süssmayr was the student of Mozart who was supposed to have completed the work when Mozart died. I'll check our CD later to hear the missing passages, but there were more than enough renowned and deeply affecting passages here. This is music that you wish won't end. I heard it as a little rough in the orchestra at times but very nicely performed by both choir and soloists. The string sections were led by seasoned performers, but these were young players and they were apparently playing on gut strings for the first time. I know gut on a double bass and it is a very different experience so I feel for them; a baptism of fire. Mozart's Requiem was performed by Simone Riksman (soprano), Hannah Fraser (mezzo-soprano), Christopher Saunders (tenor), Andrew Fysh (bass), the Wallfisch Band with ACO2, Elisabeth LeGuin (cello), Albert-Jan Roelofs (organ), Song company with the Sprogis Woods Smith Young Artists and Roland Peelman (conductor).

Preceding the Requiem was another work of death and immense sadness, a Stabat Mater. Stabat Mater is a 13th Century Catholic hymn of Maria dolorosa standing under the Cross of Jesus. You can only imagine the depth of sorrow in this image. Stabat Maters have been written by many composers. Pergolesi's is the famous one; this was by Luigi Boccherini of Lucca. This version was a new edition by Elisabeth Le Guin for three voices. Elisabeth ventured from the US to play cello for this performance. I enjoyed this performance but was a little non-plussed by Boccherini's work. The first notes are appropriately mournful, but then the music becomes merely dignified, then perhaps dramatic, sometimes almost light and danceable and not sufficiently pathetic to my ears. None-the-less it's a worthy work, Elisabeth's work is admirable and I loved the three voices, tenor and two sopranos. I particularly enjoyed the tenor, although intertwined sopranos were also luxurious. Boccherini Stabat Mater was performed by Susannah Lawergren and Anna Fraser (sopranos), Christopher Saunders (tenor), the Wallfisch Band with ACO2 and Roland Peelman (conductor).

The painting is Pietro Perugino, Mary at the Cross (1482) National Gallery, Washington DC, USA. Click on pic to view larger

Just perfect music

There's so much that goes through your head after a decent concert. This was the Canberra International Music Festival and the concert was Bach (with some ring-ins) and we could only leave with beaming smiles and a rollicking gait. Firstly, we were talking of the Albert Hall as a concert venue, and how it's so good for chamber work of this size with an audience to sop up the reverb: live but not soppy; clear voices and ringing baroque trumpets; perhaps a little bass heavy (Max McBride was alone but filled the bottom end). And the experience is so European concert hall with an architectural experience that is so out of place in our new metropolis, with the large windows and suggested columns with Ionian scrolls and hinted flowers. Then the music. A jazzer said to me in passing that "he sure can write", meaning Bach can compose. It's an ironic throwaway line, of course.

I'd read that the Magnificat was originally written in Eb (the current version is D major). It was first performed at Christmas 1723 with two other new works. Bach had arrived in Leipzig in May that year and had already written 30 cantatas by Christmas. Genius. Magnificat (D major, BWV243) is ~27 mins in 11 movements for 5 voices and 5 instrumental parts. It starts with a joyous, vibrant canon on "Magnificat anima mea Dominum" (My soul magnifies the Lord), through various solo sung parts; two very different sopranos, perhaps over oboes or strings; bass over a ponderous but amusing accompaniment of cellos and double bass; countertenor and tenor with lyrical melody over violins with pizz bass and short cello. Always the lanky but sinuous Roland Peelman conducting by feeling every nuance. I can understand the value of a conductor when I see this man. Through more choir with a sudden stop (on 1+?) and an end with baroque trumpets and timpani; a 3/4 introduced with violins and cello responses, and again that neat, square and brisk bass; then countertenor with pure flute tones; three females singing over one cello and organ; a vocal canon starting elephantine and rising through male to male to female to female, dignified, then into an exultant final Gloria with trumpets and timp. This is not all, but an impression. Half an hour of the most perfect of music. I'd first thought this is the most perfect music during the final movement of the previous work, Bach Concerto for violin and oboe in Cmin BWV1060. This is three movements, instrumental with two solo melody instruments, with a middle movement in 3/4. It is fabulous and beautiful and unrelenting and sequenced, but it's also a piece I've heard a billion times on ABC RN LNL so it has the advantage of being ridiculously familiar. Elizabeth Wallfisch was to solo, but had fallen off a bike so was replaced by Matthew Greco at short notice. He did a great job, although he was often a bit quiet for the oboe. A fabulous work and very well done. I'm thinking European familiarity with this music, now. Albert Hall suited the baroque with intimacy and acoustics, but also the informality, reminding me of unexpectedly casual canteens at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Berlin Concerthouse.

What else? Before the interval was a short fanfare, Handel Battaglia from his opera Rinaldo, all trumpets and timpani and suggestions of battle (I missed this) and agitation and ferment. Then a change to the program due to Elizabeth's bike accident. Another Bach was replaced with an oddly unexpected but fascinating duo playing 900yo Armenian music of Gurdjieff and the Silk Road. These were two tunes played on duduk and organ: Grigor Naretski Fowl of the air was a mutating scale over a single note organ drone; Khatchatur Taronetsi Mystery profound had a more complex duduk melody over small organ chords. I heard lots of long notes; (I guessed) flat 3s and 6s but the scales changed; slithering legato and strangely Mid-Eastern vibrato. Lovely, diverse and meditative. Then one more Bach, his Cantata Es erhub sich ein steit (There arose a war) BWV19. It's magnificent but I don't hear the war reference without reading the German. As for performers, I couldn't help but love the baroque trumpets and timpanis when they let fly. I admired all manner of instruments - strings, oboes who had several featured passages, the lovely baroque organ, the cellos and bass that also had their features. But most of all I loved the voices. This was the Song Company presumably with a friend or two and they were glorious, as solo voices or intertwined in a canon. Precise and beautiful voices, both men and women. So, this was a huge pleasure and more coming.

The various Bach and Handel were performed by the Song Company with guests Sonya Holowell (soprano), Susannah Bishop (soprano), Tobias Cole (counter tenor) and Richard Butler (tenor). Musicians included Elizabeth Wallfisch (violin, unexpectedly not soloing) and the Wallfisch Band, Elizabeth's replacement Matthew Greco (violin) and Leo Duarte (baroque oboe). All around Roland Peelman (conductor). The Armenian players were from the Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble: Emmanuel Hovhannisyan (duduk) and Levan Eskenian (?) (baroque organ).