Author Archives: flutietoot

Improvisation – Part 1

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Since it is now up to day four and I haven’t had much time to write , I’m going to focus on themes rather than trying to go back and give a day-by-day account. There is so much to think about that this will hopefully focus my writing a little and also help to preserve some of these thoughts and ideas for myself when I head back to Australia.

Improvisation class is at 2:30 every day, and has become one of my favourite times. It’s taken by Tom, the piano teacher, and focuses on ways to direct free improvisation so that we can produce meaningful and interesting pieces. Basically, instead of saying “just go for it”, we’re experimenting with parameters that can aid us creatively. I think this is ideal for me, as I’ve done some improvisation before in set styles (mostly jazz), but if I had to get up on stage and just improvise I would have no idea where to start. This lack of ability, in my mind, really sets a lot of classical musicians apart from those working in other genres – I certainly believe we should be able to improvise, but wouldn’t know where to begin.

We have had three classes so far, and they have made use of improvisation ‘games’. On Monday, we played Cobra, a piece/game where a prompter uses cards to direct the music. The cards can get us to play in groups or as individuals, to swap roles or team up and copy a partner’s music, and can save musical moments for later if they’re interesting. If musicians are unhappy with what’s going on, they can employ ‘guerrilla tactics’ – putting on a hat and doing whatever they want – for short period of time. The game is fast-paced and fun, though it is almost entirely up to the prompter how the form of the piece works out.

On Tuesday, as well as a game of Cobra, we experimented with ways that one of the group could vary elements of the performance. We started out working with short motives from each player, and Tom encouraged us to think outside the box a bit in terms of perceived meter. At the start, most musicians chose to play in four, while the more interesting textures came rather from us having the confidence to think in other beat patterns. Then, I was given the role of ‘director’, but only of how dense the texture was. While also playing, I had to walk between pillars in the hall, with the pillar closest to the stage indicating that we had to only play one note of our motif, and the farthest pillar that we had to play five or six. We then added people with the same control over dynamics and tempo, meaning that we all had to do a lot of watching. The piece was interesting from an interaction point of view, though it was interesting to note that the variables were not totally independent – musicians naturally play louder when they get faster!

Ready for SoundSCAPE…

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Tomorrow I will travel to Italy to spend two weeks playing at the SoundSCAPE new music festival in Maccagno. I’m really excited to tackle a huge range of contemporary music and to work with composers on brand new pieces!

This new section of my blog will be something of a reflection on the experience, tracking my development as a performer and my reactions to the music I hear and play. I hope that through writing I’m able to share what I’m sure will be an incredibly intense experience, perhaps even give some readers a new insight into why it is both wonderfully fascinating and rewarding to engage with new music.

For now, the bags are packed and the music is practiced. SoundSCAPE here I come!

 

Appalachian Spring – Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

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Hamer Hall, June 7th

This concert has been firmly on my calendar all year – a program of Copland, Stravinsky and the world premier of a new Piccolo Concerto by Australian composer Paul Stanhope felt like just about the perfect choice. It was great to see that I was not alone, though much of the rest of the audience seemed a little more excited about Firebird than the concerto (but then I’m a flautist!).

Appalachian Spring Suite, in its original form for thirteen instruments, was played sensitively and with careful attention to subtle variations of colour in the writing. Conductor Benjamin Northey seemed at times to be more a part of the chamber ensemble than strongly leading, giving the musicians room to play soloistically but at times resulting in a lack of clarity in the strings. Tempos were brisk, and the feeling of dance was never far away, though I wonder whether some of the audience were expecting the sweeping gestures of Aaron Copland’s fully orchestrated version of the suite.

Copland’s Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson is a work that springs less readily to mind in the context of an orchestral concert. Emma Matthews did a stunning job with what is clearly challenging music, singing with apparent ease and flexibility. Diction was clear throughout, and in the acoustics of Hamer Hall it was possible to enjoy the subtleties of Dickinson’s poems without needing to resort to the printed program. Copland’s orchestrations, however, felt a little inconsistent, at times supporting the singer beautifully and at others seeming a bit lack-luster. Dear March, come in and The Chariot stood out for their execution, with an almost dramatic intent on the part of both Matthews and the orchestra.

I can easily say that Stanhope’s new Piccolo Concerto was the highlight of my evening, taking its place easily alongside two giants of the twentieth century. The concerto was written for and premiered by Andrew Macleod (also the MSO principal piccolo), and was a fantastic showcase of exactly what the piccolo can achieve in terms of both expressive and dramatic power. The opening Hymn was stunning in its juxtaposition of colour, with the piccolo at times blending into the orchestral texture through doubling lower voices, at others standing out with ringing declamations. Macleod’s control of the instrument is stunning, with his ability to diminuendo to nothing on even the highest of notes particularly impressive. The second movement Scherzo: Wheels within Wheels worked at an incredible level of intricacy on the orchestral level, with a devilish-sounding solo part to match. If there was any irony at the “boutique” size of the solo instrument, then composer, soloist and conductor alike were at once laughing with the audience and utterly defying their expectations.

Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite rounded out the evening in a blaze of still more colour. Benjamin Northey, conducting from memory, egged the orchestra on to play at bright speeds with wonderful clarity.

Shadows – Melbourne Symphony Orchesta/Metropolis New Music Festival

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Melbourne Recital Centre, April 20th

A grand finale to Melbourne’s Metropolis New Music Festival, Shadows showed off the wealth of music that comes under the festival banner. It also made me wish that I’d had time to go to a few more of the numerous other concerts across the festival’s two weeks.

British composer and conductor Thomas Adès both programmed and conducted the concert, showing himself to be both versatile and daring in his approach to new music.  Adès’s works are almost approaching mainstream in both his native England and overseas. While maybe not so well-known to Australian audiences, the opportunity to hear these works conducted by the composer was not to be missed. The program was tantalising in its variety, juxtaposing the more conventional orchestral forces with solo cello and large chamber configurations, and Adès was totally at home on the podium.

Niccolo Castigliano’s Inverno In-ver was an intriguing study in the the variety one can achieve with a limited soundscape. In this case, the limiting factor was pitch – all eleven movements were concerned with the high and tinkly. The variety of sounds produced (if occasionally a little taxing on the ears) was mesmerising, a wonderful study in colour and orchestral texture. Each movement felt exactly right in its length and scope, and the work left the impression of having been treated to an exquisite tasting-platter of sound.

Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Kai for solo cello and ensemble dragged the audience out of this dream-like state into a harsher reality. The cello was constantly pitted against the full force of the ensemble (including bass guitar and drum kit), forcing soloist Steven Isserlis to respond with a dramatic and occasionally forced musical vocabulary. Isserlis executed the solo part with incredible sincerity and flawless technique, though the piece as a whole might have benefited from a little more contrast in colour and instrumentation.

Isserlis’s solo performance that followed the interval was breathtaking in a totally different way. Four movements of Gygory Kurtag’s Signs, Games and Messages for solo cello, the miniatures were delicious in their economy of gesture and idea. Isserlis’s performance captured this beautifully, demanding absolute attention of the audience as he captured even the most delicate of gestures. It was a pity that this segment of the concert seemed to be over too quickly – placed directly after the interval it took the audience the first few of these short movements to settle down and stop rustling! I could quite happily have listened to the whole work; the performance was one of the rare moments where it felt like soloist and work were perfectly matched.

While this may have been my high point of the concert, I was still suitably impressed with what followed. One of the winners of this year’s Cybec composition competition, Lachlan Skipworth showed that the younger generation of Australian composers are continuing to produce new and interesting works. His piece Afterglow, while not really resembling the piece described in the program note, was nevertheless refined and a pleasure to listen to. Framing a central piccolo solo (played by Andrew Macleod with his usual precision), the work showed an economy of gesture and interesting attention to the details of colour.

Adès, having shown the same enthusiasm for every piece on the evening’s program, finished the concert with three dances from his first opera Powder Your Face. Lively and catchy as one can be while still staying in the new music vein, the dances rounded out a spectacular evening (and I am told festival), and were certainly a crowd-please. For me – I’ll certainly give the opera a listen very soon, but failed to be quite as revved up by the dances as I thought I would be. Maybe, after reading the opera synopsis in the program, I wanted a little more drama. But then new music never intends to please universally, the challenge to confront the unknown is far more important.

Bring on Metropolis 2014, next time I will make sure to attend more!

Give Me Excess of It – Richard Gill

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My first attempt at a musically-related book review!

Richard Gill’s memoir Give Me Excess of It is a rather unusual blend of self-reflection and a survey of the Australian music and music education scenes of the last 50 years. The book is full to the brim with Gill’s personality, and his voice is clearly audible in every paragraph. Indeed, it sometimes feels that in his haste to get this done and then be onto another task, Gill dashed off a first draft and left it as was – no editing needed! Honest (sometimes brutally so) and witty but occasionally rather brusque, it was easy to imagine him reading the whole thing.

Gill’s memories of his early years are without a doubt the funniest. Though occasionally making himself out to be unbelievably stupid as a boy (hard to believe considering how far he has come since then) the various incidents are poignant and insightful. Gill seems almost pleased with himself at times, then shocked at others, but tells all with a wonderful clarity and attention to detail.

From the beginning of Gill’s tertiary years, there is a marked shift in narrative focus – it becomes almost exclusively focused on music. The young adult that we see making forays into the wider world is so single-mindedly focused on classical music that I would certainly forgive some of his students for being less than interested in what he had to offer. When, later, Gill meets his wife and gets married, it is mentioned almost in passing. His children seem to appear on the scene at around the age of two without any prior announcement, giving the impression that he was so focused on his various jobs that he almost failed to notice them himself. It is due to this, I feel, that the title of memoir is rightfully earned. It is a book about music, and anything else that makes its way into the pages is auxiliary.

Gill’s career – working with various tertiary music institutions, Victorian Opera, Opera Australia and the Sydney Symphony – is fascinating to read as a music student. His involvement and dedication has without a doubt given a huge amount to Australian opera and music education. For me, in particular, it was interesting to read about the history of Victorian Opera and how it has arrived at its organisational structure and method of presenting works. However, I wonder whether this would necessarily be the case for a broader reading audience, who might appreciate a few more amusing anecdotes and a little less name dropping.