Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 13 September 2009 - Marwood, Mozart & Mendelssohn

Featuring:
- Mozart Serenata notturna, K. 239
- John Kinsella Prelude and Toccata - Australian Premiere
- Mendelssohn Sinfonia No. 12 in G minor
- Carl Vine XX
- Schumann Cello concerto (arr. as Violin Concerto by Orlando Jopling) - Australian Premiere
- Osvaldo Golijov - Last Round (first movement)

In contrast to the MSO concert which I was very much looking forward to yesterday, this ACO concert is at the bottom of my excitement list out of ACO concerts this season. There are several reasons to this: (1) I don't know any of the music advertised apart from Schumann's Cello concerto - which is not my favourite cello concerto. (2) Compositions by young Mozart and Mendelssohn are usually, simply put, boring. (3) I have never heard about Kinsella. (4) Schumann Cello Concerto transcribed as Violin Concerto for some reason, doesn't appeal much to me. Despite all of these reasons, this concert proved that I was a fool to prejudge music before listening to them and I enjoyed this concert immensely. Add to that, ACO actually played 2 more programs (Carl Vine's and Golijov's pieces) than the advertised program in the season brochure. Good on them!

Mozart's youth work, Serenata notturna, K. 239 opened up the concert. From the bouncy opening rhythms, quite similar to his 4th Violin Concerto I should point out, this piece delights the audience by its playful main theme which comes back several times in the first movement. Scored for strings and timpani, it's very captivating to listen to the timpani sound contrasted against the rest of the strings. Particularly striking is the timpani solo played on top of pizzicato strings. While the 2nd movement is charming with a lovely trio for string quartet accompanied by the rest of the orchestra, I'm sure the audience will remember the last movement the most. The main theme, which was stated a couple of times in this Rondo movement, is followed by several dramatic pauses, in which the leader of each section would improvise playing musical jokes on their own or play little duets, trios, or even quartets amongst them. My favourites are the double bass and the timpani improvisations. The good thing about these improvisations is that most audience understand that they're supposed to be jokes, and gave a few chuckles after each improvisation.

After the playful and light-hearted Mozart, we're treated with John Kinsella's Prelude and Toccata. A much more serious tone piece, I was really impressed with the Toccata section in which seemingly endless ostinato passages full of running semiquavers are played with extreme contrast of each other, sometimes pianissimo, other times fortissimo. This piece certainly requires a considerable virtuosity from every orchestra players and ACO nailed every fugal-like entry to perfection. The big question mark of unresolved chord that ended the piece is the only bar of music that I don't really like from this piece.

Probably the weakest performance of this concert is of Mendelssohn's String Symphony No. 12. I'm not really fond of the fugue in the first movement of the piece, but I enjoyed the 2nd movement immensely due to the creative writing of a solo viola and cello playing a counter melody against the main theme of the movement played by the rest of the strings. The final movement is fast paced, ending with breakneck speed in the coda and the work ended with the same 3 notes of the first movement of Mozart's 40th Symphony, which is written in the same key (a tribute from Mendelssohn?)

Carl Vine's XX (pronounced eiks-eiks) is a piece written for a solo violin and strings. Marwood stepped in as the solo violin, playing a short passage, echoed by the orchestra, another passage (more complex this time), another echo, and yet another passage (and even more complex) and echo. After that, the solo violin plays a rhapsody-like passage on top of the orchestra accompaniment before it joins back with the orchestra playing unison. Rhythmic is an accurate word to describe this piece and there's even a passage so similar to the opening of Stravinsky's march in the Rite of Spring (right after the introduction). You can watch an ABC short news about this piece here. The Stravinsky bit that I was referring to is played by the orchestra at 01:45 mark. As you can gather from the ABC feature, Carl Vine meant this piece to be a tongue-in-cheek piece, and the end of this piece is a rather unexpected musical joke.

The advertised heart of this concert is Schumann's Cello Concerto arranged as Violin Concerto and reduced set of instruments (no woodwinds or brass). Marwood played the solo part beautifully without going too overly sentimental. I loved the duets between the violin solo and the principal cello in the second movement, while at the same time feeling slightly awkward with woodwind melodies played by the strings. In the finale, Marwood's gorgeous playing and tone really enhanced the enjoyment of those highly lyrical passages. Murray Black wrote a very good review on this in The Australian.

Finally, the audience was served with the first movement of Golijov's Last Round. The marking of this Argentinian composer is an interesting one: Movido, urgente: Macho, cool and dangerous in the program notes. The whole work is based on this simple theme, which was varied with different rhythm, tempo, texture, and colour. As a musical portrayal of a wild tango, ACO attacked this music in a similar fashion with plenty of energy without losing their focus. A great performance to end the concert.

Summing up, I enjoyed this concert very much. ACO's wonderful programming really shone through here with audience being lead away from their comfort zone to try listening to some more challenging works. This would probably convince me enough to renew my subscription next year.

Ensemble Liaison & Friends - Concert 4: Lullaby & Doina

4 November 2008

Featuring:
- Beethoven - Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major, Op. 102 No. 1
- Jean Franciax - Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Piano
- Osvaldo Golijov - Lullaby and Doina for Flute, Clarinet and Strings
- Schubert - Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 "The Trout"

Ensemble Liaison:
- Svetlana Bogosavljevic - Cello
- David Griffiths - Clarinet
- Timothy Young - Piano
Friends:
- Wilma Smith - Violin
- Katie Chilmaid - Violin
- Simon Oswell - Viola
- Alex Henery - Double Bass
- Mardi McSullea - Flute

There's reason for late reviews: these past few weeks had been quite hectic. Assignments, exams, and old/new personal problems had taken their tolls on me and I just did not have time to do blogging. I'll try my best to recall the experience of this concert.

I have never listened to any of the pieces from that night's concert before.

Short summary:
Wasn't really impressed with Beethoven's Cello Sonata. Sure, there were some brilliant passages, but on a whole, it wasn't quite memorable. Also, the cellist sounded a little bit overwhelmed by the pianist in this performance.

The Franciax's piece was described by the clarinetist as a 'circus music' and he couldn't describe it better. A very challenging piece for clarinetist to perform - plenty of notes in fast tempo portraying fun and bouncy atmosphere of a circus act is what came into my mind when listening to it.

Golijov's piece was another interesting one. It was apparently used in the 2000 movie The Man Who Cried starring Johnny Depp and Cate Blanchett. The music was quite haunting and started out very somber. In the middle of the piece, after the double bass player put down his bow and took a deep breath, the music picked up its tempo and the double bass player launched himself to a prolonged, very exciting to watch, fast pizzicato passages. This performance was definitely the highlights of the night for me.

I have to pity myself for not being entirely impressed with Schubert's Trout Quintet. I am not sure what happened but I lost my concentration in the middle of the first movement. Only the folksy tune in the last movement restored my interest of this music. This is the piece that I have to listen again to get why it is so popular.