Category Archives: Concert Reviews

Be it orchestral, chamber or something totally different, I try to write a review of every concert I go to. Sometimes they’re written in a spare five minutes, at others they become musings on bigger musical ideas.

Aldo Baerten Flute Recital

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Aldo Baerten, flute; Stefan De Schepper, piano

Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London, October 5th

I seem to be getting along to a lot of Belgian flautist Aldo Baerten’s recitals (this is the third), and have now also had the opportunity to hear him play a piece twice! This performance, given at the Royal Academy of Music in London as part of the British Flute Society (BFS) Premier Flautist Series, was my favourite so far, mostly due to an engaging and varied program that showed off Baerten’s musicality and technical prowess on the flute.

Baerten opened with J.S. Bach’s Partita in C minor, BWV 997, and, while the performance was sprightly and imbibed with character, I felt that it was the low-point of the recital. It seemed like a bit of a warm-up for the soloist, and in many ways the stylistic understanding of pianist Stefan De Schepper  were more consistently visible. Of particular note, Baerten chose to start both slow movements incredibly softly, to the point that it made me rather nervous for him as an audience member!

The unquestionable triumph of the program was Hindemith’s Sonata, which I also heard Baerten perform at the 2013 Australian Flute Festival, and seems almost to be his signature work. Here, the sprightliness evident in the Bach came into its own, particularly in the concluding Sehr Lebhaft-Marsch, where it really did feel like the performers were just having fun together. Baerten has an impeccable control of pianissimo high notes, which this work gave him ample opportunity to demonstrate to sensuous effect. The colours created in these moments were utterly stunning.

I was pleased to see that Baerten had mixed Bach with more contemporary repertoire, programming two of Kurtag’s Signs, Games and Messages as well as a very new work, Suite for flute and piano, by Belgian composer Robert Groslot. I’m a fan of Kurtag, and particularly these little miniatures, and was delighted to hear them performed live. Hommage à J.S.B, in particular, was rendered with wonderful attention to the musical contour. The Groslot, while admirably performed, didn’t entirely hold my attention. Moments, in particular shimmering internal section of the Metamorphosis movement where flute and piano threaded in and out of each others’ sound, were fascinating. However, the whole was a bit pastoral for me, and lacked any logical compositional direction through the movements.

Baerten concluded with a flute and piano arrangement of Debussy’s Prélude à l’Après-Midi d’un Faune, a bold undertaking considering that most of the audience were flautists! Both his and De Schepper’s sense of colour was stunning, encapsulating the sweeping orchestral sounds of Debussy’s original. However, Baerten did take rather a lot of rhythmic liberty in the solo passages, and I was not the only flautist in the audience distracted by this.

The recital was followed with a short question-and-answer session, which I found engaging and insightful. I hope to hear Baerten (and hopefully some more twentieth-century works) very soon!

 

Concorso 2 Agosto – Bologna, Italy

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With a free night in Bologna, I came across the Concorso 2 Agosto concert which was to take place in Piazza Maggiore (on August 2nd). It was a lovely night, and so I ended up wandering around for a while and arriving part-way through what seemed to be a great concert – I’m sorry to have missed the first half!

On August 2nd 1980, a bomb exploded in Bologna Central train station, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.  As a commemoration of the bombing, the community of Bologna instigated the international composition competition 2 Agosto, in the belief that music would be “the more suitable instrument able to maintain alive both the victims’ memory of that infamous act, and the lesson that we all should have learnt from that event.” The nature of the competition changes each year, and in 2014 composers were invited to write music for one of four short films that they could find on the official website.

I had been told of the massacre and its commemoration when I was in Bologna four years ago, but hadn’t equated it with the date that I would be there this year. Hence, I was surprised to arrive at Piazza Maggiore and find it heaving – more the sort of audience I would have expected for a festival concert than for a composition competition. Yet on the stage was the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna under the baton of Timothy Brock.

I arrived in the final minutes of American Kyle Hedak’s work Atticus which received second prize, but remember more of the piazza’s ambiance than the music itself. Then came the third prize piece Duel at Schrapnell by French composer Matthieu Lechowski. To be honest, I was surprised how conventional this sounded. The film was a black-and-white short telling the story of two gentlemen who desire the affections of the same woman, and who end up in a very silly duel in the process. The music was conventional to say the least, and sounded like it had been composed for the original film at the time it was made. Highly programmatic, it enhanced the action on screen but, I feel, could have gone further to comment on it for our times.

Agosto 2

Piazza Maggiore and the visuals for Flames

I much preferred the final work on the program, the musical/electronic project Flames by MaterElettrica created specifically for and premiered at the concert. Here, I felt there was a much more contemporary attitude taken to contemporary music and its relationship with the visual element. The short film was more abstract, depicting a hand drawing lines and shapes, which where then erased. However, the erased shapes kept returning in flashing colours to accompany the next round of drawings, creating an ever-evolving, multi-coloured video that became increasingly complex. The music was similar in that it also gradually increased in complexity, but it also maintained an independence. I suppose the difference here is that I could have really enjoyed the music in and of itself, but its pairing with the visuals made it spectacular. By contrast, the previous piece had been so subservient to the film that I would have felt a bit confused with the music alone.

This prompts me to ask the question of what the composers were seeking to aim for in the competition? Were the judges looking for music that complemented the film, as I saw in Lechowski’s work, or did the first (Benjamin Baczewski, Poland) and second (Hnedak) prize winners do something drastically different? I suppose the best way to find out would have been to go to the whole concert!

Overall, though, I was genuinely impressed that Bologna had so thoroughly embraced a composition competition as a suitable commemoration of the August 2nd bombing. The feeling in the piazza that evening was one of excitement and celebration, and it is a wonderful initiative to remember such a terrible event.

More info available at: http://www.concorso2agosto.it/
You can also watch the videos that the composers could choose from, but alas not the performances themselves.

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!

Performance #1 – Peter Hill, piano – Australian National Academy of Music

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South Melbourne Town Hall, 28th March

The only way to describe this concert was wow! Wow for the sheer gumption to program such challenging and contrasting works, and wow for the dramatic performance that resulted.

From the first minutes of Peter Hill’s pre-concert talk, it was clear that we were in for something special. Hill, arguably the world’s most pre-eminent Messiaen scholar, was also a incredibly articulate speaker, and gave a wonderfully engaging survey of the composer’s career. The narrative was not overly academic – equipping the audience with valuable knowledge in preparation for music that is without a doubt intellectually challenging. One could say he was preaching to the converted – we had all already bought a ticket – but Hill went beyond this, making the works on the program highly accessible and indeed incredibly exciting.

The concert itself, while possibly a little on the long side, balanced Messiaen’s large-scale work Visions de l’amen in the second half with a selection of smaller ones – Préludes No.1, Catéyodjayâ and two movements of 4 Feuillets inédits – in the first. Directly preceding the interval, of all things, were four of JS Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. As a whole, this seemingly disparate program had a wonderful arc to it, and was a wonderful showcase of both Hill’s versatility and the skills of the ANAM piano students.

Visions de l’amen, clearly the central focus of Hill’s masterclasses at ANAM during the week, is an epic and deeply meditative work for two pianos. Hill played the second piano part throughout, while the six ANAM students shared the first part in something of a relay. Though this set-up had the capacity to be distracting, the result was nevertheless stunning. Each student brought a new energy to the instrument that was very much in line with the varied musical material of each movement. Aidan Boase and Jacob Abela, in particular, were stunning in the final three movements. Hill’s profound understanding of the work underpinned this, making for complete performance that was utterly thrilling.

The students’ performances of the Bach may have suffered a little from the Messiaen work being the week’s central focus, though Gladys Chua played Book II, C sharp major with a wonderful fluidity. Hill’s Book I, C major and B minor were stunning, with an elegance of touch and economy of gesture that show him to be an all-rounder in the most complete of senses.