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Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre |
Doctors and their medical accomplices are back for what I think is a final Corpus Medicorum musical exercise for this year, raising funds for research into lung cancer at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Conducted by Fabian Russell, the body presents a two-pronged program – concerto and symphony, omitting the once customary overture. Violinist Anna da Silva Chen is a member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and here gets the chance to bring her own insights to the Mendelssohn E minor Concerto which had – for this composer – a long gestation: 1838-44. It’s one of those works that most of us know very well but, despite the fact that every soloist has played it, there’s an inevitable pleasure in crossing those familiar pages once more. As for the symphony, settle in for the sprawling Bruckner 8 which can last for 80+ minutes. It’s the composer’s last completed symphony and it also took a long time to finish: 1884-92. You can experience the work in many editions as musicologists have built careers on their re-interpretations and re-formations. The forces required are extensive, no matter which of the two ‘original’ versions you use. A standard ticket costs you $70; concession $40 (that’s what I call considerate); student $30. You have to find some spare cash for the Recital Centre’s variable Transaction Fee of anywhere between $4.50 and $8. Currently (end of June), seats are readily available, so . . . |
SHEKU KANNEH-MASON PLAYS FINNIS |
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra |
Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne |
Thursday August 6 at 7:30 pm |
Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason played at the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, a show that was watched by millions and illustrated trans-Atlantic vulgarity with breathtaking cultural obtuseness. Still, if that’s a stepping-stone to stardom, seize it with both hands because such a chance won’t come again – rubbish: of course it will. Anyway, here he is, eight years after running through some royal lollipops, doing a tour of Australia and fronting the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor Jaime Martin in a new concerto, co-commissioned by the MSO with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Dresdner Philharmonie, and the London Symphony. This new score has been written by British composer Edmund Finnis (no: I don’t know him, either) and was premiered by our guest in LA last November. It was to have been played in Dresden a month ago but Kanneh-Mason hurt himself and couldn’t perform. So we’ll hear it second, before its London airing in October. So lucky. As a preface, Martin conduct’s Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres-mid d’un faune from 1894, after which not much was ever the same in music or ballet, although to look at Terpsichoreans today, you’d think that Nijinsky’s erotic thrusts had never existed. We complete the night with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor of 1888: always popular and reassuring, even with its Paul Hogan-reminiscent slow movement – a test for any principal horn. That andante will bring us a welcome sample of Australian monocultural adaptation – using the foreign-grown in service of our own once-great cigarette advertising industry; makes you proud of the Farrer electors (some of them). Tickets cost between $75 and $139; concessions are $5 cheaper; Under 18s pay $20. And then there’s the $8 transaction fee if you order online or by phone. You could probably get a seat from the box office on the night; the MSO website information about availability is much the same for whatever event you look up, which makes me suspicious. |
This program will be repeated on Saturday August 8 at 2 pm. |
ANAM 30TH GALA WITH SIMONE YOUNG |
Australian National Academy of Music |
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre |
For some reason, the Australian National Academy of Music has only been in operation for thirty years. I would have sworn it was longer, with all those memories of having to trek out to the South Melbourne Town Hall in the organization’s heady early days. Well, not so early; I can’t remember the years when Trevor Green and Ronald Farren-Price began the exercise as its first artistic directors, as I only became aware of ANAM in the reigns of Frank Wibaut and John Harding, followed by the Dean brothers’ halcyon terms. Anyway, Paavali Jumppanen has been in control since 2021 and has settled his institution into its Abbotsford premises. From which domicile it is emerging for this celebration, the body’s orchestra here under the control of Simone Young, who was well into her career when ANAM opened. Tonight, she takes her young forces through, to start, Gubaidulina’s 1971 Fairytale Poem about a piece of chalk which eventually realizes its ambition of drawing landscapes rather than formulae. Then comes a test for first-desk players in John Adams‘ Chamber Symphony of 1992 for 15 soloists, similar to Schoenberg’s Op. 9. After interval (I assume) for inexplicable reasons, the orchestra will play the few seconds that constiutute the Epilogue to Gyorgy Kurtag‘s Beckett-based opera Fin de Partie of 2018.Then, we finish with something more or less traditional: Strauss’s Tod und Verklarung tone poem from 1889 which requires large forces, including two harps, and a belief in the Artist as Hero which is stretching it in this composer’s case. Entry ranges from $65 to $95, concessions $20 cheaper at all levels; Under 30s and Seniors pay between $55 and $85. You also have the Recital Centre’s Transaction Fee of anywhere between $4.50 and $8 which you’ll have to come up with, venal as the whole business is, because there are only a few seats left. |
NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT & THOMAS DUNFORD |
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre |
Tuesday August 11 at 7 pm |
Here is an eccentric duet appearing for Musica Viva Australia: German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt and French lutenist Thomas Dunford. As you’d expect, the pair combine for a program heavy in French Baroque – Marais (six pieces) and Forqueray (three) – with some excerpts from the Bach Cello Suites in G Major and C minor. For something closer to our time, we hear the Lento from Duparc’s 1867 Cello Sonata and that modernist carry-all, Spiegel im Spiegel, written by Arvo Part in 1978 for violin and piano with the string line able to be played on viola or cello; the piano bits on lute, I’m not so sure. Viol master Marais is represented by La Reveuse, Le Tourbillon and Le Badinage from Book 4 of the Pieces de viol published in 1717, Les Folies d’Espagne and Les Voix Humaines from the 1701 Book 2, as well as a Grand Ballet that seems to be a generic title possibly arising from something in that 1991 film Tous les matins du monde. As for Forqueray, his gamba trifecta – La Leclair, Fetes champetres, La Buisson – all come from the only source of his compositions: a volume of 32 pieces published in 1747 (two years after Forqueray’s death) by his son, Jean Baptiste. The ticketing is complicated. Adults can choose from four levels that range between $65 and $163; concessionaires and students enjoy reductions of $18, $15 and $12 in the top three levels; Under 40s get in for $49, while Under 18s pay $20. As well, you have to contribute anything between $4.50 and $8 for the Recital Centre’s Transaction Fee – hard to avoid as already (July 4) there are only about 100 seats still available. |
Hanson Dyer Hall, Ian Potter Southbank Centre |
Thursday August 13 at 7 pm |
It might be under the auspices of the Melbourne Recital Centre, but this particular recital is being held next door in the new building (well, new to some of us) that is part of the Victorian College of the Arts/University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music complex. As for the night’s title, that comes out plainly in a 2009 called Nocturnes by Australian writer Iain Grandage. A two-poem setting for soprano, clarinet and piano, this will involve Sydney-based guest artist Chloe Lankshear as well as Ensemble Liaison regulars David Griffiths and Timothy Young. Before this, we hear Andre Previn’s brief Vocalise of 1995 for soprano (Lankshear), piano (Young) and cello – the Liaison’s Svetlana Bogosavljevic. Putting the singer to more extended use, the Ensemble (well, Lankshear and Young) presents Debussy’s 1887 Ariettes oubliees, six Verlaine settings of exceptional empathy, followed by the composer’s Cello Sonata of 1915, first in a projected series of six such works, now one of the string instrument’s repertoire staples. To end, the players perform Osvaldo Golijov‘s Three Songs for Soprano (and Orchestra) of 2002 which will probably be mounted in an arrangement, although the only one I can find is for string orchestra which is at cross-puposes with the composer’s large percussion battery in the original. Anyway, ticket details are simple: standard is $53, concession and student $42. As well, the Recital Centre is charging between $4.50 and $8 as a Transaction Fee if you order online or by phone. I’d front up on the night, preferably with fee-avoiding cash, even if the venue holds only 400, as opposed to next door’s Murdoch Hall catering for 1,000. |
Melbourne Symphony orchestra |
Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne |
Thursday August 13 at 7:30 pm |
Settle in for a long bout with this night’s title work; it can take up to 90 minutes to get through and you’d have to assume that Jaime Martin, chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, won’t introduce a substantial break along the way. The MSO itself should still be familiar with this score, having recorded it under Mark Wigglesworth for a 2005 release. Although . . . no: not many of those players from 21 years ago will have survived. What will be interesting – in a way – will be Martin’s choices on the two vexed questions about this score: in which order to play the two central movements, and whether to have two hammer-blows in the finale, or three as Bernstein did in his three recordings. Mahler dithered at length about the order of the Scherzo and Andante and his widow got involved in the argument after his death, claiming spousal authority – which you’d have to question, considering the lady’s credentials where facts are concerned. The composer himself cut the hammer-strokes from five, to three, then to two; Alma identified three tragedies in the composer’s life as being represented by these dull smashes, which strikes me as putting the cart before this 1904 horse. At all events, here is Mahler’s largest purely instrumental work in terms of resources needed (possibly four harps!) and it makes for a riveting narrative, which is hard to say about its successors. Before this, and possibly the only work before interval (shades of Stenz putting Ives’ The Unanswered Question before Mahler No. 2), we hear a ‘new work’ by the orchestra’s initial Cybec First Nations Composer in Residence, James Henry. With a background in pop, rock, house and techno, this fresh score will make an ideal introduction to the Austrian writer’s psychological excoriation. The usual ticket prices apply: standard between $75 and $139, concession a whopping $5 cheaper, Under 18s $20. Add on the MSO’s own $7 transaction fee per phone or online order. Once upon a time, Mahler 6 would pack them in; will it today? I’d be tempted to show up on the night, bearing lots of coins. |
This program will be repeated on Saturday August 15 at 7:30 pm. |
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra |
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre |
Thursday August 20 at 7 pm |
In this concert program, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra is putting itself under the control of guest director and Baroque violinist, Augusta McKay Lodge, an Ohio-born musician resident in Paris. She is attempting to shine a light on Anna Maria della Pieta, a Venetian musician for whom Vivaldi might have written a plethora of works including the per Anna Maria Violin Concerto in E RV 267a, which score sits at the heart of this concert. Lodge also takes part in Vivaldi’s Concerto for violin and organ (which part will most likely be undertaken by the ABO’s artistic director, Paul Dyer) RV 774 which was recently discovered in the Anna Maria Partbook – well, the solo violin line was found – and the rest (all of it) was reconstructed by Federico Sardelli. We hear a solo violin sonata by Pisandel, the A minor JunP IV.2. This composer was much admired by Vivaldi but did Anna Maria play this piece? I don’t know; does anyone? Finally, we hear a Tartini violin concerto in G minor GT 1.g01 which could come from anywhere between 1725 and 1735. Was Anna Maria conversant with this score? Possibly: she lived to be about 86, dying in 1782 and outliving all three composers we hear tonight. Also scheduled to play solo is Baroque flautist Melissa Farrow; can’t tell where her contribution comes into play. As for tickets, these are of mind-blowing complexity. Somehow, the modest Murdoch Hall has been divided into an improbable six regions; your standard seat price ranges from $45 to $167; concessions for the top four of these six come in at between $31 and $62 cheaper; Seniors range in the top four areas from $77 to $151; full-time students in all divisions except the top pay $20; Under 40s pay $36 but it’s unclear where they can sit except for the second-top spot. You have to come to the Recital Centre’s bloated Transaction Fee party of anywhere between $4.50 and $8; at time of writing (July 5), there are over 150 seats still available. |
This program will be repeated on Saturday August 22 at 5 pm, and on Sunday August 23 at 5 pm. Tickets are more expensive for both of these performances but their availability is about the same. |
METROPOLIS: SOUNDS OF CINEMA |
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra |
Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne |
Friday August 21 at 7:30 pm |
This one-off celebrates Australian-born film composers; three of them – Thomas Meadowcroft, Bryony Marks, and David Hirschfelder. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra shows a fair deal of dedication to this project by being the commissioners of the program’s opener: Meadowcraft’s Hollywood Parsifals for Foley Artists and Orchestra in which the Berlin-based composer celebrates the makers of film sound effects. How will he achieve this? No idea but a Foley artist, John Simpson, is listed among the concert’s soloists; God knows what he makes of being classed among a group of perfect fools. Marks wrote the soundtrack for the first film directed by her husband, Matthew Saville: Noise, a 2007 thriller which concerns suburban Melbourne murders investigated by a detective with tinnitus. We’re to hear Their World – an extract of about ten minutes from that soundtrack. Finally, we hear three suites from films for which Hirschfelder provided the music: The Dressmaker, Legend of the Guardians, and Strictly Ballroom. These have all been arranged by Jessica Wells, a formidable name in her field. Benjamin Northey conducts and other participants include percussionist Eugene Ughetti, guitarists Slava and Leonard Grigoryan, and Hirschfelder himself playing piano as he has throughout his career for luminaries like Little River Band, the Peter Cupples Band, John Farnham and David Hobson. Adult tickets cost between $59 and $99; concessions are a ridiculous $5 cheaper; Under 18s pay $20, but everyone pays the MSO’s transaction fee of $8 if ordering online or by phone. At the moment, plenty of seats are available, even though the Hamer Hall Balcony is not being used. |
ENSEMBLE Q PLAY BARTOK & BRAHMS |
Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre |
Saturday August 22 at 7 pm |
On a national tour, the Brisbane-based Ensemble Q presents an amiable enough entertainment in the Recital Centre’s smaller space. They begin with Bartok’s Contrasts, the composer’s 1938 trio for clarinet (Paul Dean), violin (Adam Chalabi) and piano (Daniel de Borah). Enjoying the restrained ebullience of several Hungarian and Romanian dance tunes, this score is a splendid display piece for all three participants, packed with striking dissonances and requiring an unfailing rhythmic versatility, especially in its rapid finale. Chalabi and de Borah collaborate in Margaret Sutherland’s brief 1944 Nocturne that illustrates rather well this venerable Australian composer’s occasional fusion of dissonance and quiescence. To end this 75-minute recital, we hear the Brahms Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor from 1875 – the last one and the least played in live performance, possibly because of its emotional bareness or its internal complexity. Anyway, we know Chalabi and De Borah are involved; British violist Benjamin Roskams is taking on the tenor part, but the cellist is unidentified. You’d have to expect that Trish Dean, the Ensemble’s co-artistic director, will be the chosen party for this role. Tickets are $75, concession $65, student $30. As well, the Recital Centre’s transaction charge comes in somewhere between $4.50 and $8, for a service that is grossly over-valued. Currently, plenty of tickets are available, but you can’t count on that remaining the case because the Salon only holds an audience of between 130 and 140. |
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre |
Monday August 24 at 7:30 pm |
I suppose most of us would know these Dutch brothers from YouTube, on which site you can observe their duo skills easily enough. As you’d expect, their empathy borders on the extraordinary, especially in two-piano works like the Mozart concerto K. 365 of 1779 but more obviously in four-hand pieces where the interweaving of dynamic and line is flawless. Plaudits to the Recital Centre for snapping up Lucas and Arthur Jussen as they pass through town on their New Zealand/Australia tour. To begin, they perform the Mozart four-hand Sonata in D K. 381, allegedly written in 1772, possibly for performance by the lad himself and sister Nannerl. Then we hear another four-hand repertoire staple in Schubert’s F minor Fantasia of 1828 which is one of the more challenging duets because of its chameleonic character. After interval (I assume), we move to the 20th century and works by two friends. First comes Ravel’s choreographic poem La Valse, completed in 1920, perhaps in the composer’s own two-piano transcription of that year, but more likely in Lucien Garban’s version, also from 1920. To end, the brothers play Stravinsky’s seminal The Rite of Spring ballet of 1913, its first published version being the composer’s own four-hand transcription. While you can see the Stravinsky, Mozart and Schubert works from this pair on YouTube, I don’t believe they have recorded the Ravel, so that guarantees about 13 to 14 minutes of novelty value. The cost of standard tickets ranges across four levels, from $79 to $139, with concessions of $20 available only in the middle two strata; Under 40s can access the two lowest tiers for a flat $49. You also have to find the Recital Centre’s fee for handling your credit card details if you book online or by phone – that’s an extra $4.50 to $8, depending on your financial status. I don’t think the Circle/Wings seats are available (or in use), but there are over 300 seats left today (July 6) in the stalls. Worth the gamble of turning up, cash in hand, on the night? Keep an eye on the Recital Centre’s website. |
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 IN CONCERT |
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra |
Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne |
Thursday August 27 at 7:30 pm |
This franchise has escaped me – and most of my grandchildren as well. But there must be something in it that appeals – all that left-over Game of Thrones angst, perhaps. Also, as a sequel, it’s rated highly by those who should know – children and film critics. Obviously, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra administration and artistic gurus see merit in taking on the film and supplying the soundtrack in real-time; so much so that they’re doing it four times and the middle two performances have not many seats left. Dean DeBlois’ 2014 film features (mainly) music by John Powell who used a 120-member orchestra, a 100 voice choir, and some odd instruments like the Celtic harp (bring back Mary O’Hara), uilleann pipes, Highland bagpipes, tin whistle (for that James Galway touch) and a bodhran – which rounds out the odd national image that this film’s scenario projects: north and west of Hadrian’s Wall, as well as the Norse part of Scandinavia. All’s well, however, because the country’s favourite actor/actress Kate Blanchett is in the vocal cast; rest easy, Australia, with this secondary consolation for not getting anywhere in the World Cup (as usual). Our own Nicholas Buc conducts but there’s no sign of the MSO Chorus or any of the vocalists needed for the score’s songs. Adult tickets cost between $89 and $167; children and concession holders pay $5 less. Fancy taking your three kids to good seats for nearly $500? Add on the usual $8 transaction fee and you’re in for an expensive night out. The cheapest DVD version at JB Hi-Fi costs $14.98. |
This program will be repeated on Friday August 28 at 7:30 pm, Saturday August 29 at 7: 30 pm, and Sunday August 30 at 1 pm. |
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