| Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre | | Tuesday March 3 at 7:30 pm | | A popular visitor, the French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet has appeared here as soloist and fronting concertos. Apart from his craft, he brings to the stage a peacock's couture. Does it make a difference that parts of him glitter? Not really; if you're offended by such quiet flamboyance, you can always look at the Murdoch Hall ceiling or ponder the ushers perched on the side walls. Tonight he is playing all the Debussy Preludes (written between 1909 and 1912) and his expertise is unquestionable; after all, he has recorded the two volumes twice – in 1996 and notably in 2023 with a cover design by Vivienne Westwood. You'd have to anticipate that Thibaudet is going to take his time over the 24 pieces, as the Recital Centre publicity refers to a length of one hour 50 minutes. Even if that includes a 20-minute interval, we'll have a leisurely view of these atmospheric studies. But that seems to be his way; where younger players take about 75 or 77 minutes in their readings of both livres, this pianist's earlier recording brings them in at 82 1/2 minutes. Still, he's getting faster: his 2023 double LP performances come in at 81 1/2 minutes. Full adult tickets range from $79 to $139; concession holders can get a $20 deduction in the middling-quality seats, while Under 40s can get into the same sections for $49. As usual, you face the Recital Centre's sliding transaction fee of between $4 and $8.50 – the organization's peculiar form of book-keeping where no books are involved. | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne | | Thursday March 5 at 7:30 pm | | Starting the year proper after those Myer Music Bowl shenanigans, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra settles into staid mode under its chief conductor Jaime Martin. Tonight's flavour is American, aiming for the popular jugular with the Star Wars: Suite for Orchestra by that Hollywood colossus, John Williams. It was published in 2000 when the composer was in the throes of coping with Lucas' second trilogy and the melange of themes has become part of our consciousness. The evening's guest is French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet who plays the solo role in Gershwin's Concerto in F of 1925, which he recorded in 2010. Despite its creaking structural bones, especially in the final Allegro agitato, this score is appealingly brash and sentimental in turns with some energetic bravura passages for the soloist. To end, Martin directs Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances of 1940, the composer's only work written completely in America. Always harking back to his past experiences, this three-movement construct is eventually a buoyant joy, showing the same high spirits as you hear in the Paganini Rhapsody. Tickets range from $81 to $139, with concession holders getting in for $5 cheaper. You also have a $7 transaction fee which always strikes me as particularly grasping when you consider the capacity of Hamer Hall. But you have to front up the cash to be sure of a seat as it's bound to be a popular event. | | This program will be repeated on Saturday March 7 at 7:30 pm. | | Australian Haydn Ensemble | | Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre | | Wednesday March 11 at 7 pm | | As far as I can tell, the Australian Haydn Ensemble is a string quartet comprising violins Skye McIntosh and Matthew Greco, viola Karina Schmitz and cello Daniel Yeadon. These members all appear to have their professional lives in Sydney and this recital will be their first collegial Melbourne appearance. Welcome, brothers and sisters, to town. What are you offering? Haydn? Oh, great. We're to hear the Op. 33, No. 3 of 1781 nicknamed The Bird because of some acciaccaturas in the first violin part of the opening movement's first bars. Nonetheless, it's 19 to 20 minutes of sparkling C Major magic. Then Mendelssohn's early E flat, written when he was a tyro teenager in 1823, two years before the superb Octet; it lasts for about 24/5 minutes. Finally, Mozart K 387 in G, nicknamed Spring although it was written in the Vienna December of 1782. The first of the 'Haydn' quartets, the work is a model of the composer's genius at melodic curvature, and it comes in at a little under 30 minutes. All of which, even allowing for an interval, lies well below the specified two hours' duration of this event. Perhaps we'll have lots of talk; oh joy. Your tickets cost $60, $45 concession, or $55 if you're a Senior which seems generationally odd. Also, you will cope with the Recital Centre's graduated transaction fee – anywhere between $4 and $8.50 – if you book online. It might be worthwhile just showing up at the box office on the night. | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne | | Thursday March 12 at 7:30 pm | | Don't know about you but I find the most energising part of Strauss's long exercise of 1896 in musical philosophizing comes at the start when the orchestral tutti cuts out and you're left with the full organ C Major chord. How they'll achieve this effect in the organ-less Hamer Hall will be a delight to watch and hear. Even better will be the machinations to get a decent blast in Costa Hall. Anyway, it's downhill all the way after that powerful opening as the composer tries to illustrate selections from Nietzsche's rambling tome. Preceding this exercise, a less-swollen Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor Jaime Martin escorts Maria Duenas through Beethoven's Violin Concerto of 1806. A young Spanish musician, Duenas has recorded the work and may be playing her own cadenzas to the second and third movements. At the night's start, for an overture we hear a 2020 work by Australian writer Melody Eotvos: her The Deciding Machine of 2020 which serves several purposes. It's a memorial to the centenary of women's suffrage, a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, and holds a titular reference to Ada Lovelace who wrote the first computer algorithm for Babbage's projected 'analytical engine'. Your standard tickets range from $51 to $142, with concession holders relishing a $5 discount. Children are charged $20 and you have to pay $7 if you book online or by phone. About this last, I wonder what would happen if you questioned exactly where this fee goes; e.g., which employee is paid for handling your credit card details, especially if you're a regular client. | | This program will be repeated in Costa Hall, Geelong on Friday March 13 at 7:30 pm and again in Hamer Hall on Saturday March 14 at 2 pm. | | SHANGHAI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne | | Friday March 13 at 7:30 pm | | In a welcome display of camaraderie, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is presenting a large group of visitors in the form of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, conducted by music director Long Yu who has held this position for 17 years. Half their one-night stand is Chinese music, while the second part is a warhorse very familiar to Melbourne audiences: Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2 of 1907 – a big sprawling series of four canvases packed full of Romantic surges and emotional richness. Before that, we hear some selections from the ten-movement Chinese Kitchen: A Feast of Flavours, written in 2024 to a Shanghai Symphony Orchestra commission from 30-year-old composer Elliot Leung who has enjoyed remarkable success in China and the United States, bridging the Trump/Xi divide with aplomb. As for a soloist, the orchestra hosts pianist Serena Wang, a San Francisco-born 21-year-old talent who fronts the 2009 Er Huang Concerto by Qigang Chen, Messiaen's last pupil. The title refers to a type of Beijing opera, Chen employing tunes from that art-form in a lavish orchestral palette. To hear these guests, you'll pay between $81 and $139, concession holders enjoying a munificent $5 reduction; children get in for $20, but everyone faces the $7 transaction fee – a shameful example of grift generated by our dependence on credit cards and online booking. | | Australian Chamber Orchestra | | Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm | | Saturday March 14 at 7:30 pm | | Back for the third time, violinist Ilya Gringolts takes the Australian Chamber Orchestra through a program that oscillates between the old and the new with an even hand. Clearly, the entertainment's core is intended to be Tartini's Devil's Trill Violin Sonata in G minor which the composer said he wrote in 1713, even if those in the know claim it came from about thirty years later; what a dreamer. Scoring with two concertos is Vivaldi: first, with the RV 237 in D minor, possibly written in 1617 and notable for a sprightly third movement; and the C Major RV 507 for two violins that Gringolts gets to play with ACO principal Satu Vanska in a demonstration of canonic interplay and endless chains of thirds. Fleshing out the Baroque content will be Geminiani's Concerto Grosso No 12, La Follia, which is an arrangement of a Corelli original and which keeps to the well-known theme throughout. Starting the program is Johann Paul von Westhoff's Imitation of the Bells from his Sonata No. 3 in D minor, published in 1694 and consisting of 41 bars loaded with solo violin exercises intended to simulate a carillon. Moving to more recent times, Gringolts leads a string orchestra version of Gubaidulina's brief String Quartet No 2 of 1987 which screams individuality from every bar, so having the ACO players handle it three or four to a line will be more than intriguing. Mieczyslaw Weinberg represents another facet of Soviet composition and we hear his 1942 Aria for string quartet, presumably organized for the ACO forces. As well, Paul Stanhope received an ACO commission for Giving Ground, written in 2020 and based on the La Follia chord progression, so that you have a traditional and a (pretty) contemporary look at this famous sequence. As usual with a hall the size of Hamer, prices range wildly and widely. You can start at $30 for a student and pay top adult for $148. The handling fee is $8.50, which is a tall order for your student struggler; probably why you don't see many of them at these Sunday afternoon events. | | This program will be repeated on Sunday March 15 at 2:30 in Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne, and on Monday March 16 in the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall at 7:30 pm. | | Corpus Medicorum & the Royal Melbourne Hospital Foundation | | Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre | | This bod of medical personnel trying their hands at taxing serious music here takes on two cornerstones of the Russian repertoire under regular conductor Fabian Russell. The Corpus Medicorum showed more than competence the last time I heard them, but that was some decades ago and you might reasonably expect that their achievement level would have risen. In any event, their cause is a noble one: raising funds towards the treatment of lung cancer patients at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. To this end, the organizers have gained the services of Alexander Gavrylyuk to take the main role in Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, written in 1909 and forever linked in Australian minds, for better or worse, with the names of David Helfgott/Geoffrey Rush/Shine. Partnered with this redoubtable work is Prokofiev's most famous symphony, No 5 in B flat Major of 1944. As a Soviet-era score, this stands at the top of the pile through its inventiveness, integration and striking individuality. And it has been the subject of many recordings by eminent conductors, so you can easily familiarise yourself for comparative purposes with a score that was once as regularly heard as Shostakovich's No. 5. Tickets for a full adult cost $70, concession holders enjoy a whopping reduction to $40, and students pay $30. But then you have the $4-to-$8.50 fee imposed by the Recital Centre if you book online or by phone. I'd be tempted to show up on the day; at the time of writing (February 28), there are about 450 seats available across the Murdoch Hall. | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne | | Thursday March 19 at 7:30 pm | | Happy company, then, for our own jazz master Joe Chindamo. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under principal guest conductor Benjamin Northey begins its work tonight with Ravel's Pavane pour une infante defunte, from the year 1899 when the composer was studying with Faure. This exercise in introspective retrospection lasts a little less than 7 minutes. Stravinsky is represented by his epoch-making The Rite of Spring ballet that shocked the public – well, the Western part of it – at its premiere on March 29, 1913. Mind you, it wasn't long before the world had a lot more on its mind than the not-quite-emigre Russian composer's full-scale innovations. This lasts about 35 minutes. Which leaves a lot of space for Chindamo – the MSO's composer in residence this year – to fill with his commission piece Are there any questions? which will involve the services of mezzo-soprano Jessica Aszodi and the MSO Chorus. I don't have much information about this new composition, except that it takes its title from Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale novel, and it is a requiem. I've seen and heard Chindamo play only a few times over the years, even more rarely as a composer but his handling of large-scale forces will be a significant demonstration of his participation, from about 15 years ago, in serious music enterprises. Full adult tickets fall between $75 and $139, concessions are a ludicrous $5 cheaper, and children's seats are priced at $20. You will add $7 an order if you try to book online or by phone. The alternative? Just come on the night, cash in hand. | | This program will be repeated on Saturday March 21 at 7:30 pm. | | Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre | | Saturday March 21 at 2:30 pm | | Two doctoral graduates from the Manhattan School of Music, Allie Xinyu Wang and Daniel Le are combining their talents to present a 75-minute tour of some significant contributions to the duo piano repertoire. The musicians begin with some scraps from Ravel's Mother Goose Suite of 1908, which most of us know better in an orchestrated form that came three years later. Then follows one of the repertoire's masterpieces in Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Haydn which came out in 1873 in two scores: piano duo and orchestra. Just like the Ravel, we know the orchestral version much better than the smaller-scale piece; a shame, as the latter is a joy to play and less orotund to the ear. Staying with the strength, Wang and Le give us Rachmaninov's early Suite No. 1 from 1893, the composer being 20 at the time he wrote these four reactions to poems and which he dedicated to Tchaikovsky. We jump forward to Lutoslawski's 1941 Variations on a Theme by Paganini which treats the Caprice No. 24 with respect (until the end) and an acerbic harmonic vocabulary. Finally, the musicians leap across the Atlantic for part of William Bolcom's The Garden of Eden: four ragtime stages in the Fall, originally written for solo piano in 1969, then transmuted for two pianos in 1994 (half of them) and 2006 (the other half). The extract we're to hear is The Serpent's Kiss which takes on fantasia qualities throughout its D minor length and is the longest in the set. Standard tickets are $62, concession $50, student $38 – this last, a strange number but nowhere near as odd as the Recital Centre's universally applied fee of between $4 and $8.50 for labouring intensively over your credit charge use if you book online or phone. | | Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre | | Saturday March 21 at 6 pm | | Acting as both producer and artist, pianist Hoang Pham plays a 75-minute program of various pieces from the extraordinary larder that is Chopin's contribution to piano music. He begins with the C-sharp minor Fantaisie-Impromptu, that favourite from 1834 that sets three against four (or six against eight) in a satisfying musical mesh. We then move to the Ballade No 1 in G minor of 1835, which is another very popular recitalist's choice for its coruscating virtuosity and overt drama. The Two Nocturnes Op. 27 give any listener a welcome experience in tonal subtleties, the first in C sharp minor and the second in D flat Major, this latter showing the composer in 1836 already at his refined best with some astonishingly delicate fioriture. Pham then takes on the Ballade No. 4 in F minor, written in 1842 and a remarkably difficult piece to bring off, even for experts in this composer. The Two Waltzes Op. 64 of 1847 follow: another pairing of D flat Major (the so-called Minute Waltz) and that well-known C-sharp minor one used in Les Sylphides. Taking on another form that the composer made his own, the pianist offers us the Three Mazurkas Op. 63 of 1846, of which the last in C sharp minor may ring some bells. To end, Pham breaks over us with the Polonaise No. 6 in A flat: one of the most recognizable works by the composer and a test for every pianist with a battery of difficulties, including that energising Trio with its octave semiquaver bass-line. A standard ticket to this recital costs $68, with concession holders enjoying a measly and fiscally inexplicable reduction to $61.20 while students pay $34. Everyone who books online or by phone will also have to stump up the Centre's $4-to-$8.50 'Transaction Fee', in which extraction art is meant to make friends of the mammon of iniquity. | | ART OF THE SCORE: JAMES HORNER | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne | | Friday March 27 at 7:30 pm | | Yet again, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is hitting the film score theme, although this time the players will not be providing the soundtrack to a full movie. The aim is to celebrate the career of American writer James Horner who died over ten years ago in a plane crash. Across his career, this composer wrote music for a large number of films, some of which even I know: Aliens (1986), Apollo 13 (1995), Braveheart (1995), Jumanji (1995), Titanic (1997), The Perfect Storm (2000), Troy (2004), and Avatar (2009). Nicholas Buc will be conducting suites and individual excerpts from Horner's oeuvre stretching (according to MSO publicity) definitely to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), The Rocketeer (1991) 'and many more', some of which have been mentioned in my list of familiarities. I'm assuming that these extracts won't be accompanying specific scenes from the various films; if that's the case, it undermines the whole purpose of the music itself which only lives in the power of its suggestiveness. All credit to Horner but I can't think of a single theme from any of the films I've seen for which he wrote the soundtrack – except that Titanic number. Taking fans through the program, two presenters/hosts will negotiate the narrative path: Andrew Pogson, the MSO's Special Projects Manager, and Dr. Dan Golding, Professor of Media at Monash University. Obviously, my lack of recall/filmic insight means nothing because there are plenty of people for whom the Horner music must be memorable; the MSO has scheduled three concerts in a row to celebrate his music. Mind you, the balcony in Hamer Hall is unavailable for these concerts; further, at the time of writing (February 28), plenty of seats are available. Standard price comes in anywhere between $93 and $150; concession holders pay a whole $5 less, if they can be bothered; everyone faces the objectionable $7 transaction fee if booking online or by phone. As I say, it's a month away but nobody seems to be rushing to get in. | | This program will be repeated on Saturday March 28 at 7:30 pm and on Sunday March 29 at 2 pm. | | SOUVENIRS: BRAHMS AND TCHAIKOVSKY STRING SEXTETS | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Iwaki Auditorium, Southgate | | A day after presenting this program at the Castlemaine Town Hall, musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra come back to town with the rarely-heard Brahms Sextet No.1 of 1860, and the much more well-known Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence Sextet, written in 1890 after several years of difficult gestation and followed by an uneasy revision/afterbirth. Even so, the Russian composer's nervous energy makes his work an illuminating pleasure: an excellent coupling of sophistication and (in the later two movements) simplicity. The Brahms is another matter, soaking in warmth right from the broad opening cello statement to the same instrument's tenor clef melody of the concluding Rondo's initial bars. Coupling these scores was a happy inspiration for someone (Michelle Wood, it would seem from the advertising bumf) in the MSO and these players will have just as large a chance of success as anybody, permanent string sextet combinations being few in number. They are violins Kathryn Taylor and Emily Beauchamp, violas Katharine Brockman and Aidan Filshie, cellos Wood and Anna Pokorny. Part of the organization's long-lasting Chamber series, tickets cost $55, concession holders still only getting an insulting $5 reduction. And you have to engage with the booking platform to find out that the orchestra will apply its customary $7 transaction fee at this recital; probably unavoidable because these events are highly popular – which makes this example of fiscal greed all the more contemptible. | | | | |
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