| MOSTLY MOZART – MANNHEIM TO PARIS | | Melbourne Recital Centre & Australian National Academy of Music | | Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre | | Wednesday April 1 at 11 am | | Full credit to the Australian National Academy of Music, some members of which organization, under the control of horn player Carla Blackwood (herself a one-time ANAM member) will be presenting two Mozart chamber works that very few of us have experienced in live performance. First off is the Quintet in E flat for Piano and Winds K. 452 of 1784, the specific winds being oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn. There's no indication who is the lucky pianist, but the work has a fine collegial ambience which extends to a combined cadenza for everyone but that keyboard in the finale. At the recital's end, Blackwood performs – with a violin, two violas and cello from the ANAM personnel – an earlier Mozart from 1782: the Quintet for Horn and Strings K. 407, also in E flat. A good deal shorter than the other Mozart on the program, this work gives more prominence to the wind player and exploits the instrument's middle register in sympathy with the rich viola output. In the middle of these benign scores comes Louise Farrenc's 1852 Sextet in C minor for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet bassoon and horn. This is dramatic and often turbulent in the best Romantic mould, but you'd be hard pressed to retain much of its material. Anyway, she's the Paris end of the morning's title, but why is Mannheim mentioned? Both the Mozart works were written in Vienna, as far as I can tell. Entry is $59, with a concession rate a whole $7 cheaper; students and Under 40s get in for $49 – and don't forget the Recital Centre's 'Transaction Fee' of anywhere between $4 and $8.50 if you book online or by phone. So I wouldn't. | | Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre | | Thursday April 2 at 2:30 pm | | Good to see that Rick Prakhoff and his singers continue to mount major choral works, in particular this supreme masterwork of 1727 through which I first made the acquaintance of the Melbourne Bach Choir over twenty years ago. The ensemble has generally proved highly competent, ably abetted by a 'Melbourne Baroque Orchestra' that I can't remember appearing in support of any other choral forces. This year, the ripieno lines in the opening and closing choruses of Part 1 are to be given to us by the Yarra Voices, a children's choir based on Fitzroy North. Prakhoff's soloists are headed by tenor Andrew Goodwin, an Evangelist sans pareil. Adrian Tamburini will be singing Jesus; the soprano is Lorina Gore, Sally-Anne Russell the alto. Our tenor will be Henry Choo, while Simon Meadows and Christopher Hillier share the recitatives and arias for bass. If you're going to do Easter with all the bells and whistles – and for Christians, this is the highpoint of the liturgical year – there's no going past this experience, made all the more affecting because its composer was the beau ideal of a true believer. Every stage of this solid drama is intensely moving, Bach's depiction of Christ's route to Calvary purposeful and vivid. Seat prices fall into four grades: $139, $119, $99, $79; concessions $125, $99, $89, $69. Students pay $125, $89, $69 and $55. Everybody has to put in the Recital Centre's fee of between $4 and $8.50, depending on the price of your ticket, if you book online or by phone. No possibility of avoiding this grasping impost as the event is usually booked out; there are only 92 seats left at the time of writing (March 20). | | Good Shepherd Chapel, Abbotsford | | A much smaller scale offering than Bach's marathon for a Passiontide observation, Haydn's sequence of slow meditations (and a presto earthquake to finish) is an exemplary study in emotional restraint and studied simplicity. Obviously, the Affinity Quartet players are presenting the composer's 1787 version, written at his publisher's request and much more popular (and easier to mount) than the earlier orchestral or the later choral versions. Nothing is spelled out for you, apart from the stimulus offered by the actual words that Christ spoke in extremis. As well, there's no getting away from the sombre effect of so many adagio movements in a row. But the end result is more refreshing than funereal. As for the performers, the quartet will be without its first violin, Shane Chen, whose place will be taken by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's principal first violin, Holly Piccoli. The rest of the Affinities remain intact: violin Nicholas Waters, viola Josef Hanna, cello Mee Na Lojewski. All of them – including the transient import – are past ANAM members. Ticket prices seem to be a matter of engaging with the purchaser's conscience. There's A Little Extra for $65; Standard is $45; A Little Less comes to $25. But, no matter what you decide you can pay, there's a booking fee of $5 at every level – the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. . . . | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Robert Blackwood Hall, Monash University | | Here's the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra going back to its roots. We have a collaboration between said MSO and the Zelman Memorial Symphony Orchestra, named after the first MSO leader/founder. As far as I can make out, the MSO will set the ball rolling with one of its favourite lollipops from years ago: Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture – the jolliest of quick romps and the only section we know of the 1827-1842 opera. This will be followed by the Meditation from Massenet's opera of 1894, Thais, with concertmaster Natalie Chee outlining the soulful top line. More opera bursts upon us with the Carmen Suite No. 1, arranged from Bizet's 1875 opera by Ernest Guiraud in about 1885. This comprises the last part of the Prelude, the Aragonaise, Intermezzo, heroine's Seguidilla, interlude before Act 2, and Toreador theme from the Prelude and Act IV crowd scene. After this collation of popular hits, members of the current Zelman Orchestra will sit down with the MSO and take on Beethoven's A Major Symphony. than which there is nothing more exhilarating in the composer's output that doesn't involve voices. Benjamin Northey conducts. As for entry prices, standard seats cost $50, concession ones are a whole $5 cheaper, and children pay $20, while everyone is oblige to yield a $7 transaction fee for ordering online or by phone. Here also, it's an unavoidable grift because the night is selling rapidly with only 89 seats available as of tonight (March 21). | | Ensemble Liaison & Friends | | Hanson Dyer Hall, Ian Potter Southbank Cntre | | Well, it's not the gemutchlich Vienna of Strauss and Franz Josef but the later one of Freud and Mahler that is being celebrated here. And not just in the form of Austrian writers. True, the Liaisons will be playing some Webern, but not the hard stuff: from 1905 comes the Langsamer Satz for string quartet which, despite the commentators, is mainly in E flat Major, not C minor and an exemplary spin-off from Verklarte Nacht. Speaking of the Schoenberg circle, we also get to hear Zemlinsky's Op. 3 Trio, written in 1896 and originally a half-hour long work for clarinet trio – which will probably be the form it takes tonight because of the Liaison foundation personnel – clarinet David Griffiths, cello Svetlana Bogosavljevic, piano Timothy Young. For no apparent reason, the ensemble presents Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes of 1919, written for an ensemble then playing in New York. This calls for clarinet and piano as well as a string quartet. For that Antipodean touch, the group gives the premiere of a work that it commissioned: Stuart Greenbaum's The Drowned World, a five-movement score for the Liaison trio lasting about half an hour which takes its impetus from the Ballard dystopian novel dealing with climate change. As for the Friends, these are violins Sophie Rowell and Jasmine Milton, with viola Hanna Wallace. Tickets are simple: standard $53, concession and students $42 – but don't forget that $4-to-$8.50 transaction fee that the Recital Centre imposes on every online or phone order. You might have to come up with this odious extra as the players are now working in the building next door to the MRC in which the Hanson Dyer space seats only 400, compared to their former base of operations: the 1.000-seater Elisabeth Murdoch Hall. | | DISNEY'S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST IN CONCERT | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne | | Friday April 10 at 6:30 pm | | We're coming up to 35 years since this Disney film came out but it's stayed in the public eye, I'd suggest, due to the familiarity of the Broadway musical version that has been a dollar-spinner for quite a few companies since the original bastardization of 1994. Still, like Snow White, it's been a Disney mainstay and will doubtless engage with young Melbourne audiences. Speaking of which, standard entry ranges from $88 to $136; concession holders and children pay $5 less (ah, the joy of a blatant money-grab), and you have a $7 booking fee if you order online or by phone. Which you might have to do because the event is selling fast. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will be directed by Jen Winley, currently the West Australian Symphony Orchestra's associate conductor and one of the few musicians endorsed to conduct Disney in Concert undertakings. I've seen the film a few times but cannot recall any of Alan Menken's songs or set pieces, not even the Academy Award-winning title song. But I reckon I'd be in a minority on this night, especially after the rousing finale to this tale of a love that supposedly transcends appearances, only to smooth out differences in the end – something like what we hope will happen with the Iran excursion. | | This program will be repeated on Saturday April 11 at 1 pm and at 8 pm. | | Australian Brandenburg Orchestra | | Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre | | Thursday April 16 at 7 pm | | You'll get some fine Baroque majesty in this program from the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra under artistic director Paul Dyer, as well as a good dollop of Baroque instrumental power. Employing the additional services of his Brandenburg Choir, Dyer directs two of Handel's 1727 Coronation Anthems: the inevitable Zadok the Priest, and the The King shall rejoice which was meant to be sung at the actual moment of the monarch's crowning. Preceding these powerful D Major statements come excerpts from two Bach cantatas. The first is Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, from which 1723 work the well-known Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring chorale appears under its original title of Jesus bleibet meine Freude. There's also the opening chorus to consider; I don't think the singers will give us the mid-work chorale, Wohl mir, dass ich Jesum habe which is simply a pre-repeat of Jesus bleibet. Then comes the second cantata: Wir danken dir, Gott of 1731and here you have only the opening titular chorus and a monumental final chorale in Sei Lob und Preis. For the secular scraps, we're promised Bach's gripping D minor Double Violin Concerto from around 1730 headed by Shaun Lee-Chen and Ben Dollman, and Telemann's difficult-to-date Overture in D which is actually a suite comprising the overture, two minuets, a passacaglia, an air, a trumpet duet called Les Postillons, and a concluding Fanfare. As usual with the Brandenburg organization, seat prices are all over the place, with standard ones ranging from $45 to $167 with reasonable reductions for concession holders and seniors, even better for students and Under 40s. And you can't ignore the Recital Centre's $4-to-$8.50 transaction fee that is piled onto your expenses. | | This program will be repeated on Saturday April 18 at 5 pm and on Sunday April 19 at 5 pm. Seat prices are considerably more expensive for these. | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne | | Thursday April 16 at 7:30 pm | | Kahchun Wong, principal conductor of the Halle, takes the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra through Mahler's Symphony No. 1 of 1888 in the later stages of tonight's program. This is one of the composer's most approachable works; even the slow movement is a kind of quiet laugh with its Frere Jacques opening on a solo double bass, and you're spared the emotional wrenches of later symphonies' adagio segments. The orchestral resources aren't too far over-the-top, although you need 15 woodwind and 17 brass to meet the composer's requirements. Still, the last movement is always in danger of tipping into excess-climax country – in fact, I can't recall a performance where it hasn't, Starting the night is an Australian work from the MSO's Cybec Young Composer in Residence, Andrew Aronowicz: his newly-minted The Erl-King, which the orchestra commissioned. This has nothing to do with Schubert – well, not much. It's based on a short story by Angela Carter telling of a maiden ensnared by the woodland murderer; she turns the Goethe plot around and kills him. For a concerto, we have Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme with flugelhorn player Sergei Nakariakov replacing the usual cello soloist: it's offering the sort of altered perspective that brings me out in hives. This Russian/Israeli musician has recorded Tchaikovsky's defenceless work, so you'd have to assume that some recording gurus think the exercise was worth it. Your normal tickets range from $75 to $139, concession tickets are a whole $5 cheaper, children under 18 enter for $20; everybody pays the $7 transaction fee if you dare to book online or by phone. | | This program will be repeated on Friday April 17 at 7:30 pm and on Saturday April 18 at 2 pm. Friday is a 'relaxed performance' – $35 for everyone except children who get in for $15 – and that nomenclature seems to suggest that any kind of behaviour is tolerated – even doing a Berlioz and shouting out 'Where is the cello?' | | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | | Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne | | Thursday April 23 at 7:30 pm | | Two films in one month? Overkill? Well, you can't really apply that term to this saga of prehistoric mayhem in which too many characters get away from the claws and teeth of the ravening re-created to generate credibility. For all its scientific and narrative nonsense, Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster still keeps you on tenterhooks, especially when the kids are threatened by a gang of velociraptors. The score, to be played by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under Nicholas Buc, was not one of John Williams ' more memorable products; for my money, it never improves on the spaciousness suggested in the credits theme, although this gets worked to the limit through its wearyingly repetitive C-B-C motif. Yet the score is mildly imaginative when illustrating the behaviours of the island's various animal denizens although I'm sorry but, when those computer-generated images trot or wing into view, I can't help chortling at the cast's various reactions. So what? This will be sold out: a financial, if not a critical success for the MSO. Standard seats fall between $89 and $165; concession holders and children get in for $5 less, which must be galling for the elderly and parents. Add to that the $7 transaction fee per order and it's an expensive night out, especially for a film that lasts only a bit over two hours although the powers-that-be have determined that there will be an interval. | | This program will be repeated on Friday April 24 at 7:30 pm and on Sunday April 26 at 1 pm. | | SONOROUS XIII: ROS BANDT & VIJAY THILLAIMUTHU | | Melbourne Recital Centre and Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio Limited | | Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre | | Thursday April 30 at 7 pm | | Nothing concrete is scheduled for this exercise which lasts for two hours without interval. The cunning have already booked out the available beanbags; everybody else has to cope with your normal Primrose Potter Studio seating for $45 ($40 concession; yeah, I'm panting at the door) along with the Recital Centre's flexible $4-to-$8.50 transaction fee. It's No. 13 in the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio's series called Sonorous and nobody can doubt that it will be because we're promised octaphonic sound as the many electronic instruments on offer are manipulated by Ros Bandt, a veteran in the field, and Vijay Thillaimuthu – a younger gun who is one of the supervisors at the MESS site. Bandt has a wide field of expertise; my main experience of her work was through her participation in the early music group La Romanesca. But that was decades ago and streets away from this evening's form of music-making. If you're up for a couple of hours being exposed to Sensurround with a strong emphasis on the auditory rather than the intellectual, I'd suggest this recital could be revelatory. You'd hope that the two sound manipulators have a far-reaching repertoire; that's a helluva long time to sit passively. | | | | |
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