CONCERT REVIEW
Affirmation (Adelaide Symphony Orchestra)
An exquisite concert of sonic landscapes, mysticism and mythology, featuring music by Joe Chindamo, Respighi, Lisa Illean and Sibelius.
Adelaide Town Hall
Reviewed on 13 May 2022 by Chris Reid
Ottorino Respighi’s Fountains of Rome (1916), the first of his three famed tone poems on Roman themes, was a fine starting point for this compelling Adelaide Symphony Orchestra concert, as it induced in the listener a sonically attentive and visually imaginative state. Respighi’s music is inspired by and pays homage to that fabled city and its ancient history, legends and mythology. The Fountains of Rome is a work of great orchestral colour and vitality, portraying these glorious landmarks at times of the day that bring out the best in each, and characterising the themes and stories depicted in them.
Colin Prichard and Joe Chindamo on stage at Adelaide Town Hall. Photo © Claudio Raschellá
With our ears and minds thus opened, we then heard the world premiere of renowned Australian jazz pianist Joe Chindamo’s Ligeia Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra, which proved to be the centrepiece of the concert. Commissioned by the ASO, Ligeia is in three dramatic movements: Animato, Adagio/Valzer de Ligeia/Cadenza and Attacca/Avventuroso and it was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s story of that name. The concerto evokes the supernatural nature of Poe’s story, which concerns a beautiful and intelligent woman who falls ill and dies, only to seem to revive in the form of another woman. Evidently the narrator in Poe’s story is affected by opium, so it’s unclear whether the narrator is describing a hallucination. In his program note, Chindamo cited several other influences in his work, including Poe’s theme of duality, the traditional use of the trombone in settings of the Requiem Mass, and Jung’s idea of the ‘shadow self’, and says he intended his writing for the trombone to portray various personalities grappling with their shadow selves. The music is polystylistic, and Chindamo thus condenses many quite profound themes and compositional approaches into the one work.
The first movement of Ligeia proceeds at an energetic rhythm inflected with jazz-like syncopation, with the trombone in the role of narrator sounding at times comical and at times more serious. The second movement is a waltz, but slow and subtle, and it’s more about the idea of the waltz than a danceable piece of music. The effect is to suggest a meandering, romantically distracted mind, and the ‘narration’ thus becomes an introspective conversation, as the trombone interacts with a range of orchestral voices. The concerto shifts from tuneful major key melodies to minor keys and chromatic passages, with moments that variously recall Gershwin, Shostakovich, and movie themes. But these stylistic effects are subtle rather than the focal point of the work, and Chindamo adroitly weaves all these ideas and effects into a coherent whole. The musical polystylism acts as an analogue for the cascading visions and emotions in the mind of Poe’s narrator.
Audience members were offered earplugs on entry to the concert – the trombone is a loud instrument, and the orchestra was at full volume in several passages. In composing the concerto, Chindamo suggested that he wished to take full advantage of the virtuosic capabilities of the soloist, ASO principal trombonist Colin Prichard, and Prichard proved to be outstanding in this immensely demanding work. Conductor Brad Cohen and the ASO were equally outstanding in realising Chindamo’s complex score. This concerto is a magnificent addition to the repertoire and will surely be performed many times.
Colin Prichard performs the world premiere of Joe Chindamo’s Ligeia, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, 2022. Photo © Claudio Raschella
This concert, conducted by Brad Cohen, also introduced us to the fascinating and unique sound world of UK-based Australian composer Lisa Illean, whose music is so different from that in the rest of the concert. Her work is typically quiet and involves micro-tunings, the frequent use of glissandi and contrasting sonorities, and has the effect of heightening one’s perception of sound. Her Land’s End(2016) for chamber orchestra, commissioned for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, evokes the rocky edge of that southwestern tip of England with its lapping waves, damp, salty air and shimmering light. The music evolves slowly, any rhythms are barely perceptible, sounds drift in and out of awareness, and one’s attention is drawn to the harmonics and the textures created by the combinations of instruments. The overall feeling is that the world is moving in slow motion, so that we become more attuned to it.
The segue from Land’s End to the final work of the evening, Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No 5 in E flat (Op. 82), seemed entirely natural. Listening to Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, we find ourselves immersed in the Finnish landscape, with its innumerable lakes and forests and its seasons of spring growth, brief summer sun and dark, snowy winter. It also reminds us of the Kalevala, the epic poem of Karelian and Finnish mythology, that inspired so much of Sibelius’s music, and the steady repeated rhythms of the second movement suggest the forward motion of life. Under Cohen’s baton, the ASO’s resounding performance recreates Sibelius’s magic, and the orchestra’s performances throughout the concert were insightful and superbly wrought, the program reminding us of how music can recreate the world around us.
Music review: ASO’s Affirmation
Earplugs were an optional extra at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s latest Symphony Series concert, a highlight of which was Australian composer Joe Chindamo’s thrilling new trombone concerto.
Music Review: ASO’s Affirmation – InDaily
It’s not the usual thing that happens before a classical concert, but the ushers are handing out earplugs and warning patrons: “The first half gets rather loud.” I mumble, “No thanks, I’d like to hear the music”, but take a pair anyway – just in case. Maybe the new trombone concerto being performed by Adelaide Symphony Orchestra reaches rock-concert volume, I think, because Respighi’s Fountains of Rome surely won’t.
Earplugs would have spoilt things, actually, as another contemporary piece in this program, Lisa Illean’s whisper-quiet Land’s End, would have been completely inaudible.
But to the Respighi first. A respected British musicologist, the late John Waterhouse, once described his three glorious Roman-themed tone poems, of which Fountains is chronologically the first, as “chocolate box” music. And still a view is put about that they possess not much more than superficial charm.
Hearing them performed well, as the ASO does, one could hardly agree. Pines of Rome is, of course, the big one, and when played full pelt it can fairly raise the roof – as nearly happened when Nick Carter conducted it in the Town Hall in 2019.
Fountains of Rome, by contrast, is a more subdued, dreamy work that evokes mood with the greatest subtlety. Brad Cohen was conducting the orchestra on this occasion, and one was immediately reminded one of how alluringly beautiful Respighi’s music is, while realising how it can be underrated.
Arabesque melodies in oboe and clarinet wind and twist their way above a feathery backdrop of strings. The result is so perfumey and decorative that it can just seem to tickle the senses, except that the harmonic substructure is also so well constructed. Respighi has all the sophistication of Richard Strauss.
Tempos were a little slow in this performance, resulting in all this delicate fabric not quite holding together. It felt like things were too languid and lacking in momentum.
Oh yes, on the volume level. Fountains of Rome does get noisy when one gets to the exuberantly splashy, gushing “Fontana del Tritone”; and here Cohen and the ASO upped the tempo and threw good energy into the performance.
Then to the major new work of the night, Joe Chindamo’s Ligeia – Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra, which the ASO recently commissioned. Chindamo, a Melbourne jazz pianist and composer, is widely known to jazz audiences but has written a clutch of classical-based works for orchestra and various chamber combinations that show him to be both versatile and extremely talented.
With any new work, one has to be ready for anything, including, let it be said, disappointment. Not so here. Ligeia comes up as a satisfying, thrilling and stylistically assured piece. Thanks to his background in jazz, Chindamo is not at all self-conscious about incorporating popular musical elements, and along the way one encountered Mickey Mouse-type cartoon references and nods to Bernstein. But it was all so fluently put together. Harmonies, though recycled, rose tall with proud warmth.
Chindamo has a way of making things lodge in the ear, and one wished to hear it again. So Ligeia – its name borrowed from Edgar Allan Poe on account of its contrasty drama – may become a repeater, a work that sticks. Its cause was helped by terrific playing by the soloist, Colin Prichard. The ASO’s principal trombonist since 2018, he took hold of all its tricky technical demands with bravado.
There were not one but two new works in this program. Good to see a bit more boldness from the ASO. Land’s End, by the London-based Australian composer Lisa Illean, was a completely different proposition, calling for a radically pared-down orchestra with string octet, harp and piano at its core. A tantalisingly beautiful piece, it consisted of the quietest wisps and traceries of sound that forever seemed to just hang in the air. It kept one’s concentration on a knife-edge.
The mighty Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 showed Cohen to his best advantage. As with so much of this Finnish composer’s music, there is warmth in his cool-tempered writing, and Cohen found exactly the right balance. His conducting was flowing and cohesive. The ASO seemed in their heartland with this symphony, feeling its surging crescendos as one and playing with refinement. The violins were particularly clean and sweet. Guest concertmaster Alexandra Osborne should be invited back to lead them in another concert.
Hearing a trombone concerto for the first time in living memory – at least in mine – made one ponder how the ASO could be more adventurous in its choice of concertos. Another soloist it could do well to invite for something different would be David Elton. Originally from the ASO, this outstanding trumpeter has gone on to play with many of world’s top orchestras and is now with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. As it happened, he was back in Adelaide on the same weekend performing with organist Anthony Hunt in the St Peter’s Cathedral Concert Series, and it was marvellous to hear him again and witness musicianship at the highest level from both of them.
Affirmation was presented at the Adelaide Town Hall on Friday. The next concert in the ASO’s Master Series will be Joy (featuring works by Mozart, Rachmaninov and Korean composer Unsuk Chin), at the Town Hall on May 27 and 28.
Baroque Oboe (Melbourne Chamber Orchestra)
Diana Doherty shines in this program of early (and one not so early) concerti.Iwaki Auditorium, ABC Melbourne
The Melbourne Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1991 and continues to maintain a busy schedule of projects and performances throughout Victoria. Artistic Director William Hennessy AM has a long and distinguished history as a violinist and educator, and he animatedly led the 14-strong ensemble from the violin through the six works that comprised this program. The focus was on early forms of concerto, particularly the concerto grosso, in which musical material alternates between a smaller group of instruments (rather than a single instrument, which later became standard) and the larger ensemble or orchestra. In addition to concerti grossi by three different baroque composers, featured soloist Diana Doherty performed in an early oboe concerto, a double concerto, and a contemporary work that, although not designated as such, functions as a modern-day double concerto modelled on earlier forms.
Diana Doherty. Photo © Christie Brewster
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) wrote his Opus 6 set of 12 Concerti Grossi in 1714. Such was his influence on other composers that, twenty-five years later, George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) also wrote a set of 12 that he designated Opus 6. Tonight’s concert opened with Corelli’s No 3 in C Minor, the earliest work on the program and an elegantly conceived delight in five compact movements. Melodic lines interweave in delicate contrapuntal balance as upbeat allegro and vivace sections alternate between those with more sombre markings, as is standard in the concerto grosso form. A contrasting work followed from English composer Charles Avison (1709-1770), his Concerto Grosso in E flat major Op 9 No 7. Lyrical and delicate in four contrasting movements, it was nonetheless a more solidly grounded affair than Corelli’s gossamer threads of sound.
Pianist Joe Chindamo (b. 1961) will be best known to most for his involvement in jazz and film soundtracks, for which he has built up a formidable international reputation. More recently, this reputation has expanded into the realm of classical composition, and his Sanctuary for oboe, cor anglais and orchestra is a perfect complement to the other works on this program. Structurally, it is modelled on a concerto grosso, with five contrasting movements, but its instrumentation is that of a double concerto, in this case, for oboe and cor anglais. In this work, Chindamo reflects on his own experiences as the child of Italian immigrants who made their way to Australia in the 1950s, and what he describes as the ‘cultural schizophrenia’ of not being (or feeling) Italian or Australian, “an unsettling dance of conflicting identities.” In the program, Chindamo notes: “Sanctuary is a work comprising five movements (Requiem, Flight, Saying Goodbye, Postcard and Hope), each depicting different aspects of a story about turmoil, separation, longing, reconciliation and refuge. It is a musical narrative written about, and on behalf of anyone who has either been a refugee or immigrant.”
Requiem plunges the listener into a sound world of lush strings and deep melancholy, with uncertain dissonances rumbling in the lower registers. Flight moves into action, with fast, bird-like flutterings and skittery winds that mark the entrance of featured soloist Diana Doherty, Principal Oboe for the last 20 years with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) and Australia’s most famous oboe virtuoso. Doherty shared the spotlight in this work with SSO colleague Alexandre Oguey, Principal Cor Anglais since 1997. An unstoppable torrent of notes ensued as duelling woodwinds traded speedy motifs in a different type of counterpoint. Chindamo’s array of influences is in evidence as Sanctuary moves through evocative, cinematic territory with Doherty’s oboe as protagonist, carrying the narrative through turbulent emotional terrain but arriving ultimately at a hopeful ebullience.
Fittingly, another double concerto next: Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin in B Fat Major RV548. This three-movement work dates from the 1720s and features a glorious Largo (violin, oboe and continuo) in which Doherty’s rich liquid tone wove mellifluously around the violin, which at times had trouble competing. Handel’s Concerto Grosso in C Minor Op. 6 No 8 called to mind the airy delicacy of the Corelli performed earlier, with Handel’s spectacular melodic lines and propulsive rhythms evident in its six contrasting dance movements. The sharing of musical ideas around the violins was a particular highlight – and mention must be made here of Markiyan Melnychenko’s beautiful tone – as was the ever-reliable presence of Ann Morgan’s measured but enthusiastic harpsichord. It was also a pleasure to note the wide variety in the ages of the MCO’s players, which must surely provide many important opportunities for intergenerational mentoring.
Doherty returned for the Oboe Concerto in G Minor Op. 9 No 8 of Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751), dating from 1722. Again her oboe soared, capturing melodic nuance beautifully and seemingly at one with the rest of the ensemble. It concluded a very well-chosen program of contrasting but complementary works that centred on the concerto before it became the solo showpiece that we know it as today. The performances by the Doherty, Oguey and MCO were received with great appreciation by a very enthusiastic audience, and there may have even been foot-stomping.
Woodwind virtuoso’s oboe solo a rare pleasure
By Maxim Boon
Melbourne Chamber Orchestra: Baroque Oboe ★★★★
Melbourne Recital Centre, June 23
Pianists and string players often hold the monopoly on the soloist’s spotlight, especially on Melbourne’s stages. So it was a rare pleasure to see one of Australia’s finest woodwind virtuosos, oboist Diana Doherty, taking centre stage at Melbourne Chamber Orchestra’s latest outing.
Best known to concertgoers as the principal oboe of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Doherty is a performer of such technical command she can master even the most challenging music with expressive ease.
If I were to be overly pedantic I might point out that this program’s title was a little misleading. Not only were Doherty and the musicians of the MCO playing on contemporary instruments, not period instruments (as the concert’s epithet might suggest), but little if any effort was made to observe historical techniques.
A tasting menu of concerti grossi, including a sprightly account of Handel’s chromatically mischievous Op 6 No 8 in C minor, whet the audience’s appetite for a pair of flawlessly executed Baroque oboe concerti (Vivaldi’s double Violin and Oboe in B flat and Albinoni’s G minor). But it was the Victorian premiere of Joe Chindamo’s Sanctuary for oboe and cor anglais that emerged as a highlight. Alongside Alexandre Oguey, Doherty delivered a bravura display, easily shifting gear between moments of quiet lyricism and hectic, jazz-infused exuberance.
Review of Fantasie Auf Nachtmusik by Joe Chindamo
for 13 strings, inspired by Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Mozart by Candlelight (Perth Symphony Orchestra)
A full-length ode to the music and legacy of Mozart.
Jessica Gethin conducting the Perth Symphony Orchestra. Photo courtesy of Perth Symphony Orchestra
Setting the tone for the evening with Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the front desks of the PSO string section captured the instantly recognisable spirit and style of Mozart from the first chord. The force of the sound – and thus, some of the dynamic contrasts – was initially swallowed up by the sheer size of St George’s Cathedral. But as the middle and lower voices of the ensemble came into their own by the fourth movement (or perhaps our ears had acclimatised to the sound environment), the subtle changes in tone colour and mood became more apparent, and the space of the cathedral was no longer an issue. An ambitious update to such a well-known piece was to have each movement broken up by spoken excerpts from some of Mozart’s letters, a touch potentially poignant had the disembodied voice not been so reminiscent of Tommy Wiseau. Strange, yet refreshing all the same.
Calvin Bowman’s Homage to Mozart saw the PSO string forces reduce even further, leaving each principal player in a quartet configuration. Some finely tuned opening chords blossomed into gorgeous playing from concertmaster Paul Wright, whose warm vibrato lent itself perfectly to the post-Romantic idiom the work of Mozart had been reimagined into. The lush Largo gave way to a vibrant Presto as the quartet navigated instantly recognisable quotations of Mozart amongst a series of irregular, rapidly changing time signatures. The cheeky Mozartian spirit was nicely sustained throughout the movement, while also serving as a foil to the previous work.
And so to foil a foil, Johnathan Dove’s An Airmail Letter from Mozart explored some of the darker elements of the Mozartian musical language, calling on extra strings plus horns and piano in his reimagining of Mozart’s Divertimento K287. The horns and the piano were particularly effective here in conjuring up some interesting colours and moods, though by this point the use of Mozartian quotations – as cleverly integrated as they were – bordered on repetitive. Interestingly, Dove’s composition, just like that of Bowman’s, makes use of irregular and constantly shifting metric patterns. In reimagining Mozart, it appears that there’s a shared consensus amongst composers that young Wolfgang would have enjoyed this rhythmic device, but perhaps not any ventures beyond conventional, functional harmony.
Initially, it seemed that the world premiere of Joe Chindamo’s Fantasie auf Nachtmusik was to follow this pattern. Whilst charming and somewhat intriguing, the opening movements of the work seemed to follow the work of Bowman and Dove in their rhythmic structure (with conductor Jessica Gethin guiding the PSO strings beautifully through the metric patterns) and overall feel. But the work eventually came into its own in a big way, experimenting with extended string techniques for some fantastically glassy, artificial colours, and deliberately subverting the Classical cadential patterns of Mozart’s music by shifting the root note in the basses to sound ‘wrong’ (and yet, oh so right!) The finale of the Fantasie explored new harmonic territory to great effect, and the strings of PSO (mostly) handled the curveballs the score threw at them. PSO had been playing it safe up until this point, and it was excellent to see them test the boundaries of Mozart’s legacy in a musically engaging way.
But of course, to conclude the evening, we have to come back to Mozart himself. The Piano Concerto No 17 in G was an excellent vehicle to showcase soloist James Huntingford, whose remarkable musicianship was apparent in his seamless switching between sensitive accompanist to the orchestra to enchanting soloist who brought much charm and humour to the outer movements. However, it was the inner Andante movement in which Huntingford really shone, shaping the music with his evocative phrasing and gentle lyricism. The PSO strings, well and truly warmed up by this point, were solid supporters of Huntingford’s playing, accommodating his lines with ease and expertly handling the material in the tuttisections. The winds, appearing for the first time in the evening, were less warmed up, and experienced a couple of fumbles and intonation issues in the first movement. This was nearly rectified in the opening solos of the Andante, but the texture partially obscured the wonderful bassoon solos of Joanne Littley; the intonation and phrasing of which could have aided the rest of the section. Nevertheless, the performance was met with enthusiastic approval, and I’m confident much of the audience went home that night with a collection of Mozart-inspired earworms burrowing into their minds.
Review: Tempesta (Australian String Quartet)
★★★★½ In a programme spanning four centuries, the ASQ are masters of both the calm and the storm.
City Recital Hall, Angel Place
June 30, 2016
When Christoph von Dohnanyi spoke to Limelight earlier this year, he mentioned the challenges of performing Webern. “I love Webern’s pieces, only they are very hard to play in concert,” he said, “if people turn their programmes, if people cough, and if people come in and out, it makes it hard. Webern needs total silence – the slightest noise is disturbing to the music, very fundamentally.” The Australian String Quartet’s decision to open their Tempesta programme with Webern’s Fünf Sätze was, therefore, a bold one, but it certainly paid off.
Primed by violist Stephen King’s introduction, the audience responded with hushed awe as the quartet swept from crunching dissonances and dramatic gestures to breathy, scurrying whispers and tiny ambient noises. The drawn out chords of the second movement were spell-binding, isolated pizzicato notes falling like drops of liquid into a dark pool. The four musicians deftly flirted with the border between silence and sound, crystalline harmonics glistening over the soft susurration of audience breaths.
Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major Op. 20 No 2 was his 32nd quartet and the first to begin with an instrument other than the first violin. The cello not only opens the work but is really the star of the first two movements and Sharon Draper’s sound cut through the ensemble with commanding resonance. The awareness of both audience and quartet seemed heightened following the Webern, and ASQ achieved an exquisite evenness of tone in the very soft passages.
The rubato in the declamatory unison gestures of the second movement lent it an assertive gravitas, Draper again taking the lead, her sound rich and refined in the first statement of the theme. The movement also showcased the violins: Dale Barltrop’s coppery tone and Francesca Hiew’s brighter – if no less burnished – sound giving the music a polished sheen. While Baltrop’s high register notes didn’t always quite hit the mark intonation-wise in the Menuet, the movement danced along elegantly and the final fugue movement bubbled with playful enthusiasm.
The energy was ramped up a notch in the second half of the programme with the driving, dance-like rhythms of Joe Chindamo’s Tempesta. The jazz pianist’s first string quartet was originally written for the Acacia Quartet in 2013 and was inspired, in part, by the “wild rhythms, angular melodic contours and dissonant harmonies” of Bartók’s string quartets. The first movement, Tempesta, lurched from energetic flurries and aggressive flourishes to brief moments of peaceful reflection and chorale-like melodies. Barltrop and King sparred across the quartet with fluid slides. The second movement, Lament/Seduction, introduced elements of tango, the quartet becoming a twisted, writhing folk band. It was bows down for the aptly named Frenzy, a cacophony of jagged pizzicato, while the final movement, Flight, alternated moments of furtive reprieve with Baltrop’s madly dashing violin runs.
Mendelssohn’s final string quartet opens with a similarly furtive intensity. The composer was incredibly close to his sister Fanny – from their childhood acting out Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dreamin the garden to an adult life in which Fanny was in many ways her brother’s professional collaborator and advisor. This quartet was written in the aftermath of her unexpected death at the age of 41, while Mendelssohn grieved in Switzerland. The ASQ attacked the feverish opening gestures with vicious accents and a tightly restrained, shivering intensity, highlighting the stark contrasts between seething anger and despondent rocking in this tragic movement. The Allegro Assai was more extroverted in its impassioned lament, though rage still simmered below the surface. King’s viola lines in the slow movement were touchingly pure, and delicate sighs from Barltrop adorned moments of what are almost acceptance and peace in this work before the outbursts and shuddering tremolos of the finale beset the audience in angry waves.
From Webern’s whispers to the Mendelssohn’s fire, this was beautifully programmed concert, bringing together quartets spanning four centuries. The ASQ’s expertise as performers was on display in both their stunning virtuosity and the nuanced sensitivity they brought to the quieter moments of this turbulent programme.