Shared paths

My path to jazz was from Cream and Hendrix through Yes to the great jazz rockers, Mahavishnu and Weather Report and Return to Forever, then through Music to midnight to the jazz tradition. I’m not alone and it seems I share this background to some degree with Mark Isaacs. I heard his Resurgence Band at the Jazz School at the start of his current national tour and it stunned me. His words on the cover of Aurora, the album he’s touring, talk of this very history and how it deserves revisitation. You can hear it clearly in this music: the infectious melodies of Chick Corea; the supple grooves of Weather Report; the soaring guitar and unison lines of RTF; the contortions of Mahavishnu. These were obvious. The rock grooves and the chunky bass patterns were par for this course and wonderfully solid but responsive. Not a swing in sight. But there was a real richness of composition. It struck me just like when I heard Chick Corea playing No mystery recently at the Opera House. Long and contorted and deeply involving, fascinating and lyrical and with great detail. This is written music and it demands good readers given the complexity of melodies and the counterpoint exercised by the front line instruments. But there’s also a live component here, of composition or at least arrangement. I noticed Mark signalling bass to come in (yes, bass dropped out several times in this music and the effect rendered orchestra-like variation) and he was otherwise conducting crescendos and the like. Conducting and orchestration are attractive words here, because the classical/jazz crossover was particularly identifiable in this band. Most charts were more like complex lead sheets - charted melody and chords - but at least the piano chart for Will of the Wisp was fully charted dots that crossed clearly into classical detail. And the accompaniment that Mark laid down sounded of classical technique and harmonic conceptions: complex and rich, technically impressive and conceptually whole. And his solos were coloured and mobile and full handed and expansive over the keyboard and sounded to me of twentieth century classical styles, rather than single note jazz sax. He did one extended passage that was classical in form. This was mostly minimalist, but I heard tonal colours that I associate with Debussy, but I’m little educated in this. Mark suggested to students that they listen to William Walton and Khachaturian concertos. I spoke to him afterwards and he said classical people say he sounds like jazz, and jazz people say he sounds like classical. That sounds right. Whatever, it’s a wonderfully attractive but also musically satisfying crossover.

And what of this band! One passage had me thinking of James Muller as Aussie pub rock on harmonic steroids. Here he was playing rock grooves with distortion and sustain, shrieks wrenched from his guitar, blatant and prolific with long lines that reached to the guitar heavens. Mostly it was those same shredded lines but cleaner and always defined and uplifting and exciting. Always virtuosic. James is one of those players who grabs a band by its … well you know what I mean. Matt Keagan appears to me as more restrained and concerned with tonal purity. But he too let go with intense and busy harmonic washes with a free-jazz lack of restraint, on tenor but also on a soprano that sounded of the Kasbah. I just love Brett Hirst’s playing so no surprise how I found that. This was fat and funky and in some ways a departure from the jazz rock tradition, which is usually fast and furious on e-bass. Double bass is slower, but the tone was delightful and I preferred it, and the chunky grooves sat so well and were so well varied. His solos, too, were stunners and quite unique - probably because double bass isn’t the common instrument in this rocky context. They ventured over the neck with blues and other lines, but to me they were infused with groove more than melody. And Tim Firth was wonderful: open to all the surrounding performers, bouncing ideas with his sidemen and highlighting features in the charts with clarity while chopping up the groove with improv and doing all this at nicely controlled volume levels. Suffice to say I liked the band!

I’d heard this very combination once before at Wang and they were playing music that was very similar. I must have been concerted-out because I didn’t get it like http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifI did this night. This was my own history and maybe I’d dismissed it, as jazzers easily write off jazz-rock. Not this time. I thoroughly enjoyed this music and after this night and the recent Chick Corea/RTF concert I have a new respect for it. This is a classy jazz-rock fusion with lyricism and virtuosity and richly informed classical influences. Fabulous and even awe-inspiring. Mark Isaacs (piano, compositions) led his Resurgence Band with Matt Keegan (soprano, tenor saxes), James Muller (guitar), Brett Hirst (bass) and Tim Firth (drums). Carlo Aurango is touring as their sound man.

Cyberhalides pics

Fate and the Bard

It was a week of Shakespearean coincidences last week. I viewed a video remake of Macbeth from the BBC ShakepeaRe-told series then attended a Canberra Rep production of Humble boy, a recent play on a Hamlet theme. But the strange thing was meeting Duncan during the interval who warned me of naming “The Scottish Play”. Spooky! Not really, but the plays were interesting.

The Macbeth was one of a series of four BBC TV plays. These were retellings in modern guise, with new script, in different surroundings, but basically following the plot of the original. And as you’d expect from today’s Britain, this was clever and engrossing. Joe Macbeth is the sous chef and Ella, Joe’s wife, is Maître d' for the Michelin 3-starred restaurant of celebrity chef Duncan Docherty. Committed chefs Joe and Billy Banquo are upset that Duncan gets the credit and his son Malcolm will get the business. Three rubbish collectors appear with predictions and deaths follow, and Joe must beware of head waiter Peter Macduff. Ring any bells? Beautiful stark imagery, clever interpretation and clear parallels. With TV like this you can really believe in a Cool Britannia.

The Hamlet derivative was an award-winning play that premiered in London around 2004. Felix Humble’s father has died. His mother, Flora, is planning an overhasty marriage to George Pye (the future Humble-Pyes). She was an ex-model with a taste for the good life who married a bright but mild schoolteacher with training in biology and who kept a well weeded garden and had a passion for bees. Felix, estranged from his mother, is an astrophysicist with a nervous stutter. There are various twists around old lovers (presumably Rose as Ophelia, but much more steady), an unknown daughter, the father’s ashes (Yorick’s skull?), the meek neighbour Mercy (Polonius?), Jim the gardener as the ghost and references to bumblebees and black holes and even to Glen Miller. It was entertaining and sometimes touching, and clever, especially if you know its source, Hamlet. The cast was James Scott (Felix), Naoné Carrel (Flora), Helen Vaughan-Roberts (Mercy), Jason Savage (Jim, the gardener), David Bennett (George Pye) and Jodi McAlister (Rose, George’s daughter). Humble Boy was written by Charlotte Jones and directed by Corille Fraser for the Canberra Repertory Society. Another clever piece of English literary art.

Blockbuster on slow burn

Thanks to Charles Martin for his photo of the Fitters' Workshop in its unreconstructed glory

[Open email to] Chief, Minister, ACT - Mr Stanhope (Katy Gallagher)

Your time as Chief Minister has been significant, long and successful, and you are renowned and respected as a supporter of the arts. Especially here in intelligent Canberra, this is an enviable reputation and one that will survive. Our future will have to be energy-aware and tread lightly in economics, sustainability and the like. Things will change and experiences will be important and I expect the arts will be central for that time. The Fitters’ Workshop would be a siren call as a unique experience. For this reason, I wish to make a final plea for retaining the Printer’s Workshop as a musical facility. It’s a rare facility of superior acoustic qualities. It’s just the sort of thing that Canberra arts can be proud of, but also the sort of thing that attracts visitors – performers and listeners. And for a modern country, it has that old-world charm that adds to the mystique. To convert this into a workhouse, however valuable the purpose (and that I don’t doubt) is a sad outcome, but it’s also removing a potential place on a visitors’ map, a place people will come to experience. Excellence is fleeting and hard to replace. Acoustics are engineerable but the perfect space is elusive. Don’t remove the Fitters’ Workshop from the national musical map in its infancy. It’s too valuable as a symbol and a place of pilgrimage in the musical scene. It’s essentially another blockbuster exhibition spread over time. And it’s not replaceable. I don’t wish to devalue Megalo, and I can accept they are not well catered for. I don’t know. But I imagine they will be well suited to a newer space, even if it costs a little more.

The loss of a gem, even at the most difficult time, is still a cost we can’t afford.

I hope you can find the way to save the Fitters’ Workshop as a concert venue. It’s a gem but also it’s an investment.

Eric

Nothing like playing

There’s nothing like playing. I missed what must have been an excellent gig the other night (Jonathon Zwartz was in town) but there’s nothing like playing. A few hours of your own gig makes the practice and commitment of time and energy worthwhile. Gossips played in another formation last night. This was instrumental, Real Book, Shorter-ly. Richard loves his Wayne Shorter but there’s not so much opportunity amongst the cabaret standards, but a night without a singer offered the real chance. We played more Joe Henderson than Shorter, but the simple modern forms with non-tonal harmonies were there. Also unusual (for us) was a house-style jam (slowish, bass on 1-2, snare on 3, one chord) that developed as a Bitches Brew-era jazz rock. And we even fitted in a few songs when an old mate, Caroline Faucher dropped in. Great night; nice, lively cocktail audience; too bad about missing Jonathon. Thanks to Callum who helped out, and Caroline who sat in for a few songs.

Eight seasons

I jest. It’s really just four seasons each from two composers. The seasons were the premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Four [Australian] Seasons and Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires and the performances were in the Great Hall at Parliament House for the Canberra International Music Festival.

Kats-Chernin is a bourgeois favourite these days, given her comparative fame as the composer of the theme music for ABC RN’s Late Night Live. She deserves it. Her music is tuneful and very accessible and often memorable. Don Aitken commented that recent “classical” music has been written for the audience whereas a few decades ago it was written for fellow composers. Not sure of the truth of this one, but lots of straight music and music making is more accessible now, with conductors speaking from the podium and more movement and sexier images (viz. ACO) and more lyrical compositions. K-C’s seasons start with Spring and cover an Australian year with lazy, hot summers and the like. Spring felt right to me. I counted them off. I’m not sure I would have otherwise picked the remaining seasons, but the music was quite beautiful none-the-less. And I loved the piercing clarity of Anna McMichael’s solo violin. The work was a commission of Canberra author Barbara Blackman and was performed by Anna McMichael (violin), Elena Kats-Chernin (piano, composition) with the Canberra Festival Camerata under John Harding (director).

The other four seasons were from Buenos Aires and Astor Piazzolla. I’d heard the theme in his operetta Maria de Buenos Aires. I enjoy Piazzolla’s energy and attractive tunes and iconoclasm and I particularly liked his operetta for its odd but intriguing storyline and view of a city. But I find his music is pretty samey. A friend is a listener to AP and said after the performance that Piazzolla reuses his themes. Maybe it’s the nature of the bandoneon which was his instrument. But you have to love the vibrancy and passion of the tango and especially AP’s un-danceable version of it. It is truly a buzz. Again this was a work featuring a violin, although here it was interacting more individually, conversationally with other strings, especially viola and cello, and they had equally passionate, if shorter, segments. And was this passionate! Lara St. John stood to play (the musicians mostly did) and this was full body involvement: twists and bends, very unlike the concert hall, even unlike the jazz club. It was certainly a physical performance. But I liked her violin: all sorts of scrapes and effects, some lengthy unison pizzicato at one stage, big intervals, lots of slides, taps, the lot, and lovely, clearly ringing high notes, despite all the passionate performance. And were they harmonic slides on bass by Justin? Lots of passionate fury and very attractive melody, but again I didn’t catch the seasons. My AP-listening mate agreed these were more variations on a theme than identifiable seasons, and I think there were more than four musical segments. Whatever, this was vibrant and passionate and seemed to me to be epic and tragic at its heart. I don’t feel that way about the seasons, even the Canberra winter, but these are passionate people. Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires was performed by Lara St. John (violin) with the Canberra Festival Camerata and John Harding (Director).

Night people

It was day and night when we moved from a quiet and deliberate Band Room to a vibrant but noisy Hippo to hear the Front and Siders Trio. I like to just listen, but I also enjoy the bawdier side of jazz. It’s more on edge and perhaps more adventurous. It’s definitely looser and more error-prone. But it’s got a life that concert venues, for all their admirable care and thought and precision, don’t have. And it’s a big part of our jazz history.

The Front and Siders are Luke Sweeting, James Luke and Mark Sutton supplemented by various ring-ins, playing standards and various originals. So, it’s a bit of everything in an environment that’s got a bit for everyone: cocktails, chatter, suasion, seduction. The band fitted with ease. These are seasoned professionals and it showed. Not showy but ever-solid and nicely spoken in accompaniment and solos and sometimes playfully at the edge. Luke’s volume was a bit low so I most noticed James and Mark. James was on double and playing with lovely discretion and solid tone, effectively holding grooves and embellishing them, and soloing with clarity and vibrancy. He was often-enough up amongst the high notes, but I particularly noticed an ease across the neck, in the so-called DMZ, high on the low strings, where strings are clumsy and notes sound less defined, but where you can form patterns and chords with high notes that you can’t do in the commonly-used areas of the neck. Mark was playing a storm. He was obviously reading and picking up a few tunes from James on the night, but once the grooves were established, his playing was sharp and sometimes devastating. Great stuff. And Luke is always great value. I was floored by a denouement bar of a quality that I’ve only heard on record: some tortuous descending line built on a symmetrical scale, diminished I guess, dropping into dissonance then out again as it wended through an octave. What advanced harmony. The sit-ins that I caught were Matt Handel and Alex Raupach. Matt particularly caught my attention with a solo on two chords that was well structured from sparse and lyrical to dense and abundant then back again.

I chatted through some of it, peered with ears through cocktails clinking and sometimes just sat back and enjoyed the ambience of seasoned players in a living venue. I guess I have to admit an occasional lapse from musical purity, because I loved it. The Front & Siders Trio is Luke Sweeting (piano), James Luke (bass) and Mark Sutton (drums). Matt Handel (tenor sax) and Alex Raupach (trumpet) sat in for occasional tunes.

Sweet composition

What I really noticed was the compositions when Jared Plane led his quartet at the Band Room for the Student Jazz series. The playing was great too, but it was the very neat and smooth compositions that caught my attention. It’s not that they were unlike anything I’d heard before (musicians are by nature magpies) but the chords just sat nicely and moved with melodies in unobtrusive ways and the harmonies supported interesting solos and the styles were varied. I hate rhythm changes was authentic bop; Reverence was devout; Passing time was laid back; Bridges was latin; Pichushkin was a free and unrestrained tune about a murderer. They all worked for me and I felt I could easily hear them in a commercial setting like a TV series. These were a set of mainstream tunes that were unforced despite changing time signatures and added bars. That was nice. It’s no surprise that Jared composes on a piano. These are not groove-based tunes written on bass. Guitarist Andy Campbell also provided a few tunes, and I was interested to hear the difference. My guess is that Andy composes on guitar, because his were rapid and flowing scalar melodies that fell easily under a guitarist’s hands and which featured some angular plays on time. Nice composing all round.

And the musos were enjoying their performance and playing well. Jared was comfortable and interesting in accompaniment and obviously enjoyed his solos: nice melodic things, varied in speed and plenty fast when required, extending right up to the highest thumb positions (I thought C thumb on G-string). Andy is more urban-chaotic in his solos: fast lines than bend and permute and stop and start; clear but iconoclastic. Max is lyrical and purposeful. He can easily drop into dissonance and flourishes, but his playing is always thoughtful and with musical intent. And Aidan is playing so solidly these days: busy but nhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifever overplayed; simple but sharp percussive statements with clear tone and deceptive ease. He took a few solos and they just sat so easily, moving through rhythmic colours and washes with relaxed skills. He’s a drummer who’s just easy to play with. Another pleasure.

Jared Plane (bass) led a quartet playing very satisfying original compositions with Andy Campbell (guitar), Max Williams (tenor) and Aidan Lowe (drums) at the ANUSM band Room.

Cyberhalides pics

Inevitably there’s a winner

I don’t particularly like competitions, especially in the arts, but I enjoyed the finals of the Australian International Chopin Piano Competition well enough. Not for the fact that there was a winner, but because I got to hear the same pair of tunes played three times in such different ways by the three pianists who reached the finals. At least this time we guessed the winner (I have a poor record at Wangaratta), but that’s at least partly a function of our preferences as much as the performances.

Each finalist performed the same two Chopin pieces for the final: the lullaby Berceuse Op.57 and the Concerto no.1 in E minor with chamber accompaniment. The chamber group was made up of some members of the Goldner Sting Quartet and a few ring-ins: Dimity Hall and Mark Ingwersen (violins), Irina Morozova (viola), Julian Smiles (cello) and Justin Bullock (bass). The Berceuse was a delightful piece with some unexpected dissonance and an echoed melody line towards the end that seemed devilishly difficult to pull off effectively (and to read). It certainly sounded different from each performer. The concerto was also very different on each performance so the repetition was no strain on attendees. The third movement is well known and, by the third time through, I was feeling the other movements were old friends. It’s a live version of the experience of re-listening to CDs, but this had the added diversion of different performers.

Peter de Jager played second so had the advantage of well warmed-up string accompaniment, but I noticed many other differences. I found his melodies were wonderfully clear and well identified against accompaniment in the other hand. I noticed this first when the melody moved from right to left hand, and the left took easy prominence. Peter is a composer, so I wondered if this might help him to clearly comprehend the parts and perhaps to channel the instruments that would otherwise play the parts in a full orchestra. I also noticed his firm tone and a parallel firm direction he gave to the strings and the ensemble playing. That had me thinking further. The preceding pianist, Gracjan Szymczak, was Polish and delicate and softly spoken; the following pianist, Oliver She, was Australian and firmer and louder, somewhat like Peter. Also, I’d noticed the frequent delicacy of Janusz Olejniczak, the seasoned Polish pianist who’d opened the Competition with a recital the previous Sunday. Could these be national characteristics, in performance style or training or interpretation? (Comments invited below). But I preferred the firmer playing that drew a very different tonality from the Steinway and provided needed volume for the piano to match the strings. Suffice to say, I enjoyed all three performers but felt more comfortable with Peter’s interpretations.

The strings were also a pleasure. There was a clear improvement from the first to second performance of the concerto (as in job interviews, never take the first spot). Cellist Julian Smiles was a delight to watch with vivid involvement on his face, open eyes to respond to the leading violin, and lovely, firmly fingered passages. First violinist Dimity Hall was strong and involved in her melodic, front-line role. I enjoyed the bouncy melodies and some longish pizzicato passages towards the end of the third movement and the interplay of the string parts as the second violin followed the first, or moved in unison with the viola or the viola played with cello and the bass offered a simple, deep paraphrase of the cello lines. Again I’m showing my ignorance, but I thought I understood the structure of orchestral composition better from seeing the interplay of strings in this quintet. Presumably the orchestral version has sections playing the quintet lines, with some highlights from the piano score taken or matched by instruments other than strings. Local bassist Justin Bullock didn’t have the most demanding part, but he did the job well and the role added immensely to the effectiveness of the strings in balancing the piano’s huge range.

Pianists Peter de Jager, Gracjan Szymczak and Oliver She performed for the finals of the Australian International Chopin Piano Competition. Dimity Hall and Mark Ingwersen (violins), Irina Morozova (viola), Julian Smiles (cello) and Justin Bullock (bass) accompanied in the Concerto. The judging panel was chaired by Larry Sitsky and comprised Emanual Krasovsky, Alan Hicks, Stephen McIntyre, Pamela Page, Piotr Paleczny, Arnan Wiesel and Charles Bodman Rae. And everyone was congratulating Arnan Wiesel for the good work in organising the competition.

JJJJJJJJJJJ

It’s not a scene I know, but I went along to hear local band Chasing Rabbits because some mates are members and I have great respect for them. What is this style? I guess it’s “alt” or “indie”. Indie means independent (of record labels and contracts) although it has social implications but Alt is the real social category. Here’s Alex Ross, the New Yorker’s music critic, in an article on Kurt Cobain: “Alternative culture proposes that the establishment is reprehensible but that our substitute establishment can coexist with it, on the same commercial playing field. It differs from notions of counterculture insofar as no one took it seriously even at the beginning: it sold out as a matter of principle. MTV seized on [alt.] … as a way of diversifying its offering, much as soft-drink companies seek to invest in new flavors.” (Edges of pop [essay] in Listen to this / Alex Ross, London, Fourth Estate, 2010, p.222). Good writing but harsh judgement.

But back to the band. It’s music of a type you often hear on Triple J. I hear it as singer-songwriter updated to post-punk times. (Often) female voices, singing of personal and social matters but without the folksy acoustic guitars, using rockier post-punk and -funk beats and importantly no macho soloist-as-individualist-hero mentality (jazzers take note!). I hear the style frequently but the concerns and the expression are not of time and popular music seldom spreads beyond shared youths. Chasing Rabbits had some very cool, angular beats, dirty, distorted bass with great chops and even one nice bass solo that I noticed. And Caroline, who accompanies her singing on piano and I guess created the music and obviously leads the band. There were themes of interest and seriousness and there was generational irony like the Alice-in-Wonderland references and the tune that started with a leaden wedding march. It’s a woman’s world (don’t get me wrong; it’s no less for that and can be quite an education for the guys) of teacups in a storm and stage patter that even touched on Caroline’s nice red shoes. CR were playing at the CIT MIC venue, which is a training facility with excellent audio and video capabilities, so there was live video on large screens, a big PA and great mics and a big and comfy space. I would have liked the voices to be beefed up with some studio treatment from the digital desks and the piano was not the greatest sound, but the feels were good and the tunes expanded far beyond three chords and the words had a purpose. Triple J live at CIT with video and the works; TV on the radio.

Chasing Rabbits is Caroline Wallace (vocals, piano), James Luke (bass) and Chris Thwaite (drums).

Knowing time

Jazz may have some rough edges (which it loves), but it’s a serious art so it ages gracefully. Dave McRae and Joy Yates were just that. An authentic link to an admired past, but one which we now seldom hear with such authenticity. In jazz, you become what you listen to, and that’s usually somewhere near the state of the art at the time that you are entering the field, so authentic representations of bop and Monk and that era are getting rarer as the era recedes. To my ears, Dave and Joy were wonderfully authentic in performing Bird and Diz and Monk and Lady Day. There was intensity along with a comfortable control of the medium and a decided pleasure in languishing behind the beat and so holding the band alive with tension. This was leadership with easy authority, all the while performing as entertainers as well as artists. For Dave, there was an comfort in toying with substitutions, moving through long, sustained eighth note lines then falling into descending chromatic chords or arpeggios or sixteenth note triplet chromaticism, seemingly rough or discarded, but really knowingly informed and played for the emotional strength. I heard the boppers in his playing, of course, but also the wiley and witty rhythmic games of Monk, and considerable Bill Evans exploration. I thought his stylish insights might end with the early ‘60s, but an original tune later in the night harked to later decades with echo-based effects and grooves over one chord with an oddly timed fill. Hamish mentioned how easy it was to play with Dave. I wasn’t surprised; he was clearly strong and authoritative despite the immense playfulness. Joy was somewhere in this vicinity, channelling Billie Holliday with the most soulful of singing, including a doleful blues of Billie’s that was unexpectedly added to the repertoire. Again, I could feel the presence of the jazz past, as a singer takes control, singing of tragedy and joy with jazz-era perceptiveness. For this was an era when jazz was popular music, an era of mid-century wars and depressions and racism: a time for languishing awareness, not feckless consumption. Joy had an arm-waving involvement, and sang with heartfelt simplicity: soulful rather than embellished, improvising with pitch and time rather than notes or substitutions.

Their support was no less capable. Lloyd Swanton played with often-closed eyes and concentration, reading the dots on several charts, and dropped into the most effective of solos at a wink from Dave. Clean and expressive lines and jazz solos that run up and down the fingerboard with clear expression and sharp intonation. I lost him a little in accompaniment given a low volume, but his solos were obvious in intent and beautifully precise. Hamish was similarly professional, reading charts, effecting feels with panache and dropping into solos and swapped fours on command. I particularly remember a latin solo played with hands, and more-so, fours swapped with Lloyd where the bass was a treasure of quotes, riffs, chords, plays on harmony and rhythm, and Hamish followed as a percussive echo. Very neat playing by highly experienced professionals.

A look at the history of Dave and Joy just obviates why it was a great night. Between them they can boast residencies at Ronnie Scott’s, touring with Dizzy and Mingus and MJQ, supporting Art Blakey and Elvin Jones, dancing with Danny Richmond, fill-ins by Joe Sample, singing alongside Anita O’Dea, performing with Buddy Rich and Chet Baker and Gil Evans, appearing at Monterey with Ellington, recording with Allan Holdsworth … and more. Breathtaking! Lloyd and Hamish have a few names in their past, too, of course. It was a great night of music, but also of entertainment. Dave McRae (piano) led a trio with Lloyd Swanton (bass) and Hamish Stuart (drums) and Joy Yates (vocals) sang for half the night.

Cyberhalides Jazz Photos by Brian Stewart

Fate

Maybe it’s fate or just coincidence, but we’d watched an episode of Kenneth Clarke’s BBC documentary, Civilisation, just the night before with the title “The worship of nature”. Then on Sunday we heard Janusz Olejniczak playing Chopin. The connection is Romanticism, of course. Olejniczak did a truly excellent job in presenting Chopin in a way that made this romantic sensibility meaningful to me. I’d heard Chopin and even played some waltzes in schoolboy piano lessons, but this was a new awakening. Somewhat like Rousseau himself, whose first profound experience of being one with nature was described by Kenneth Clarke as a formative moment for Romanticism. Kenneth Clarke also described the Romantic movement as quasi-religious*, replacing a European religious belief that was battered by science and the Enlightenment with an awareness and oneness with our natural surroundings, a new respect for the mundane (meaning earthly rather than uninteresting) and a reigniting of passion and emotions in place of classical intellect and self-control. Olejniczak’s Chopin was all these things. He played so delicately at times, raising individual fingers to form notes and massaging keys while notes played and suspending time with breathless delays. The waltzes and mazurkas and ballades were delightful and the nocturnes and scherzos were exploratory, but the Polonaises were impassioned. They had the marching, the loss, the grief that was open-hearted and fully vented. Powerful, full-handed music with block chords hammering up and down the keyboard as the awe of the Romantics joined with the angst of the nationalist.

Olejniczak performed at little notice. Apparently the original performer’s wife was taken ill, and Olejniczak, who was here to judge the Chopin competition, agreed to perform for the opening concert. He even played the same repertoire, but then they seemed pretty well-known pieces. It was dignified but emotionally rich concert that was received warmly by the Polish community and Chopin followers. There was a little mushiness in big chords. We moved back after the interval and although the music was clearer and more balanced at a distance, I missed the immediacy and involvement of the third row. But what miserable concerns! This is emotional music of wonderful inventiveness and at times awe-inspiring passion that was played with lucidity and authentic Polish authority. It was a memorable outing.

Janusz Olejniczak performed Chopin solo piano pieces at the Llewellyn Hall as the opening concert for the first Australian International Chopin Piano Competition.

* Summary of The Worship of Nature (Kenneth Clarke, Civilisation, ep.11): “Belief in the divinity of nature, Clark argues, usurped Christianity’s position as the chief creative force in Western civilisation and ushered in the Romantic movement. Here Clark visits Tintern Abbey, the Alps, and there discusses the landscapes of Turner and Constable.”