New-look ASQ

This was my first chance to hear the Australian String Quartet since the change-over of first violin and viola. Hearing the dramatic flair and maturity of the new combination made me realise how unadventurous the previous line-up were. Below is my review published in the West Australian newspaper on Wednesday.

 

 

 

It is probably too early to expect the current Australian String Quartet line-up to have established their ‘sound’. The group has welcomed a new viola and first violin in the past twelve months and suffered a further shake up to their first program for the year with injured cellist Rachel Johnston withdrawing at the last minute. Despite this the quartet, with replacement cellist Michelle Wood, seemed comfortably gelled when they reached Perth, the final stop in the national tour. A combination of youthful zealousness and discerning musical interpretation helped create vivid sound worlds from the three works on the program.

Mozart’s String Quartet in D major K 499 was delivered with poise, shaped by delicate phrase endings and melodic inflection. Kristian Winther led from first violin with shining sound and fluid bowing, supported with astute  precision by Anne Horton on second violin and Stephen King on viola. Michelle Wood’s self-effacing cello contributions meant the ensemble balance was a little top-heavy at times.

The gloves were off for Louis Andriessen’s Charlie Parker tribute Facing Death. (check out the version on Youtube, much slower and less exciting.) The quartet took a fast, abrasive approach to the jazz riffs with a swinging be-bop drive (despite the absence of a rhythm section). Winther and King in particular played with idiomatic jazz groove. Andriessen’s heavy-handed jazz mannerisms become relentless around the twelve minute mark and despite the quartet’s virtuosic pace the piece seemed over-long.

The dramatic flair in Brahms’ Quartet in A minor Op 51 No 2 was appropriately understated and made a sharp contrast. The group made the most of Brahms’ ever-changing textures and each meandering phrase was an intriguing journey. The gentle transparency of the andante movement and the ghostly menuet were highlights.

The quartet continues to impress, even with last-minute changes. Let’s hope it makes the same good impression on the audience, which is dropping in subscription numbers and could do with an injection of youthful energy.

 

This review copyright The West Australian newspaper 2013.

Orla Boylan dramatic soprano

Orla Boylan and her singing teacher sat laughing in disbelief in the La Scala opera house waiting room. It is 1995 and the Irish cell biologist had just won Milan’s prestigious ASLICO singing competition.

“I had never imagined a career as a singer,” the down to earth diva say\\SLs. “It was only a hobby that suddenly became more serious. I’m only just now believing it possible.”

Now in her forties, Boylan is relaxing in front of the fire enjoying a moment at home in Skerrie, north of Dublin. Despite her lack of institutional training as a singer (her university degree is in science) Boylan has achieved impressive results as a lyric soprano and is now moving into the vocal fach of a dramatic soprano. Her hectic freelance schedule this year involves reprising Senta (The Flying Dutchman) in various corners of the globe including Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Russia and Taiwan. This week she is in Perth for a lieder recital and orchestral performance with the WA Symphony Orchestra.

 

Borlan’s first visit to Perth was for La Boheme with WA Opera in 2002 and she returned as Procne in Love of the Nightingale (which won her a Helpmann Award), soloist in Britten’s War Requiem, Ellen in Peter Grimes and Chrysothemis in Elektra. Borlan’s penchant for hefty roles and dark subject matters comes as a surprise given her bubbly personality. 

“I like the dark characters,” she admits. “It is about expressing things everyone has inside but you don’t usually get to show. It’s quite cathartic.”

Boylan will perform in a more intimate setting when she launches WASO’s new international recital series at the Government House Ballroom on Monday. The recital will give Perth audiences a chance to see principal conductor Paul Daniel performing on piano, an instrument he studied parallel with conducting at the Guildhall School of Music. Boylan and Daniel often worked together during Daniel’s tenure at the English National Opera but this is their first time together in recital. The repertoire includes songs by Sibelius, Barber, Richard Strauss, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder and a scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

The Masters Series orchestral concert this weekend will feature Boylan singing Strauss’ Four Last Songs, pieces she has been singing since she was 23.

 

“I heard the Four Last Songs on CD and took the music to my singing teacher and said ‘I want to learn this’. How precocious wanting to sing Strauss in my early twenties! But that was how I learned the repertoire, by finding recordings I liked.”

Her first performance of the songs with orchestra was in 1995 for Ireland’s VeronicaDunne Singing Competition with Joan Sutherland as one of the judges. Boylan won the competition and afterwards met Sutherland.

“She was this major megastar talking to me like she was my grandmother. She said, ‘Marvellous breath control, how do you manage it?’ and I said, ‘You’re asking me?’”

Boylan has since performed the songs with La Verdi under Xian Zhang, the Sinfonieorchester St Gallen under Jiri Kout and the Halle Orchestra under Sir Mark Elder.

“It is beautiful music to sing, like floating on honey. The orchestra is like supportive air beneath, keeping you buoyant. I am so grateful to Richard Strauss for writing so beautifully for voice and I’m so grateful to be a soprano.”

Boylan’s gradual transition into the dramatic repertoire of Wagner and Strauss has met with critical acclaim. The Times reported a “radiance and warmth in Strauss’ lines that is matched by tender insight in the word-painting”.

Boylan says the repertoire is a constant challenge. “It takes all my strength, energy and focus. It is a challenge to technique and to stamina; you are singing with your entire body and there is no settling for mediocrity.”

 

 

This article copyright The West Australian 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bartok Extravaganza

“It’s important for the festival to broker opportunities for people,” says Chris van Tuinen, “that’s what we are here for.” The program manager for the festival’s classical music program has coordinated the combination of the WA Symphony Orchestra and the WA Youth Orchestra into a massive conglomerate orchestra to perform Bartok’s opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and ballet suite The Wooden Prince.

The experience for the youth orchestra members will be immeasurable and Tuinen is quietly proud of his achievement.

“Bluebeard is huge, it requires quintuple winds with 115 players on stage. And no one in Perth has done The Wooden Prince before. Bartok was such a unique composer, perhaps the only one who was able to synthesise the different approaches of the twentieth century.”

The opera and ballet double bill will be presented as a concert performance at the Perth Concert Hall. To manage the undertaking van Tuinen has drawn on contacts from his time as a repetiteur with Opera Australia. English conductor Sir Richard Armstrong, a regular visitor to the east coast since 1985, will make his Perth debut conducting the combined orchestra.

“Richard is just a kid from Leicester who played piano to keep warm and then ended up at the Royal Opera as a repetiteur under Solti,” van Tuinen says. “I love that he’s tough as nails but quietly spoken. He manages the production side of things so well. I couldn’t think of anyone better to do it.”

The seventy year old Armstrong, who has directed both the Welsh and Scottish Opera companies, is delighted to be coming to Perth to conduct the rarely heard repertoire.

“Both scores have an enormous palette of colour. Bartok used the biggest orchestras of his composing life in these pieces. I have never had the opportunity to experience The Wooden Prince live in the theatre, it is so rarely performed still. Perth audiences are so lucky to have this opportunity.”

TheWooden Prince Suite (1914-16) is Bartok’s condensed version of his original ballet, which was a simple fairy tale with a moderately happy ending. In contrast DukeBluebeard (1911) is a deep psychological study showing influences from Strauss, Wagner and Debussy.

Armstrong says he has worked with youth orchestras before and will treat the young players exactly as he would those of greater experience.

“My job is to encourage the best from everybody's potential. I am most impressed that so many players from the WA Youth Orchestra get to perform works such as these with the WASO...it is the most inspirational way to learn.”

The orchestra will be joined by baritone PeterColeman-Wright singing Duke Bluebeard and soprano Lisa Gasteen as his headstrong wife Judith. Gasteen is returning to the stage after several years break due to injury. The renowned dramatic soprano is based in Queensland where she has established a national opera school. She seldom performs since a nerve injury in her neck in 2008. Performing Bluebeard marks her return to a dramatic role in front of a large orchestra.

Van Tuinen says he lured her to Perth by offering an alternative to the Wagnerian roles she had been singing.

“I knew Lisa was singing again and that she didn’t want to get back into the cycle of endlessly doing the same eight roles.”

For the technically and dramatically complex role of Judith Gasteen will have to draw on the skills that made her one of the world’s most sought after Brunnhilde’s. The opera is sung in Hungarian and is a psychoanalysis of the grisly Bluebeard fairytale.

Van Tuinen has gathered the forces capable of impressive dramatic commitment. Now audiences must prepare for the impact.

 

WASO and WAYO perform Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and The Wooden Prince

Saturday 2^nd March Perth Concert Hall

 This article copyright The West Australian newspaper 2013

Kronos Quartet an activist ensemble

"I believe music is one of humanity’s greatest discoveries,” says David Harrington.”There is something that happens when you put two violins, a viola and cello together that can add up to so many dimensions of human experience.”

 

The founding member of the Kronos Quartet is talking about the string quartet sound which has enthralled him since he first heard the late Beethoven quartets as a twelve year old.

“I put on a record of the Eb Opus 120 and fell in love with the sound of those Eb major chords. I wanted to make that sound. And it’s been the same thing ever since.”

The exploration of the string quartet sound has consumed Harrington, now 64, for his entire career. It was the driving force behind the formation of the Kronos Quartet which over the past forty years has become one of the most famous new music ensembles in the world.

Harrington formed the group after hearing George Crumb’s Vietnam War elegy Black Angels. “I was 23 and searching for a way to express myself after the confusion of the Vietnam War. I heard Black Angels on the radio and there was no question; I had found what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.” 

Harrington grabbed some friends – John Sherba and Hank Dutt are still in the ensemble, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler joined in 2005 – and formed a quartet dedicated to new music.

“It was impossible to do in American society at the time. Musicians are not something society cares much about. But I decided the only way was to totally jump in. It’s policy I’ve stuck to ever since.”

Leaping in the deep end has paid off. The Kronos Quartet now has a reputation that spans the globe with a hectic touring schedule supported by nine administrative staff at their San Francisco base. The Grammy-award winning ensemble has commissioned over 750 works from artists as diverse as Philip Glass, Nelly Furtardo, Nine Inch Nails, John Zorn, Astor Piazolla and Tom Waits.

One of Harrington’s favourites was a quirky piece by Australian composer John Rose.

 

“I learned from John Rose that barbed wire fences can be musical. I wanted our audiences to know that musicians can turn these objects of confinement into music. So we brought John’s fences to America and performed his Music for Four Fences on them. It was totally sane but it looked quite wierd on the surface.”

Harrington describes the group as an activist ensemble.

“We are attempting to rethink the role of music and instruments, to expand the frame of reference. I want our work to challenge earlier ideas about the function of the string quartet.”

On a recent trip to Copenhagen they premiered Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s Theatre of Voices which is based on Pachelbel’s Canon.

“The piece starts out as variations on Pachelbel and then goes totally berserk. It is absolutely thrilling. Many people know that melody yet somehow this piece makes you feel like you’re hearing it for the first time. It is really fun and beautiful; the musical past coming alive in a new way.”

The very latest commission involves American poet/composer Laurie Anderson and will be premiered with the composer first in America then in Perth in February. The piece (as yet untitled) is a sequence of songs featuring elaborate visual and electronic effects. The quartet will also perform a concert featuring Steve Reich’s WTC 9/11 – memories of September 11 – pitched against folk-inspired works.

“A lot of what the audience will hear will be new and I hope they won’t feel confined by the traditional definition of the string quartet. I hope they will be able to enjoy exploring and learning something new – I’ve never met somebody who doesn’t!”

After forty years of avant-garde music is Harrington ever tempted to sit down and play Beethoven?

"The idea of going back never occurs to me. The past and present are actually working together all the time, there’s no real divide. I prefer to spend my life thinking about the next great piece that needs to be made.”

In 2011 the Kronos quartet’s contribution to music was recognised with the Avery Fisher Music Prize and the Polar Music Prize, two of the most prestigious awards given to musicians. But Harrington says the real reward has been along the way.

“I’ve had so much fun. The work we’re a part of is so gripping, I can put all my imagination into this. The awards were the frosting on a cake that already tastes great.”

Kronos Quartet and Laurie Anderson Wednesday 27th February
Kronos Quartet plays Steve Reich Thursday 28th February

 This article copyright The West Australian newspaper 2013

New arrival

It has been awhile since my last blog but I make no apologies! I have been somewhat preoccupied with this:

Tahlia Joy Appleby arrived on Australia Day. It was a beautiful water birth and she and I and the rest of the family have been thriving ever since.

Tahlia means 'dew from God'. We feel incredibly blessed to be a little family of four.

Happy Birthday Miriam Hyde

Strange, as one contemplates the scope of such

A universe, so ordered so sublime,

That it should be so hard, and mean so much

To give one quaver its due point in time.

Miriam Hyde 1913-2005

 

100 years ago TODAY Miriam Hyde was born. Her mother, a concert pianist, lulled her baby to sleep with the concertos she was practicing. As Miriam grew up games were made of guessing the pitch of porridge bowls and train whistles; it seems a career in music was predestined. The prodigiously talented teenager completed her Bachelor of Music at the Elder Conservatorium by the age of eighteen and was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music.

Miriam was part of the first generation of women composers I researched for my book Women of Note. Growing up in the early 20th century it was unusual to have career ambitions.

‘When I won my scholarship I had my first experience of journalists,” Hyde said in a Film Australia documentary on her life. “… the heading was “Marriage and Babies No No No says Miriam Hyde”.’

Miriam had great success in London (she performed her own piano concertos with the London Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra) but it wasn’t so easy to freelance back in Australia. Allans publishing encouraged to change her name to Hydekovsky – it was considered amateurish to be female without a foreign name.

In 1938 Miriam surprised herself and married Marcus Edwards, with her good friend Dulcie Holland playing the organ at the ceremony.

‘I had always extinguished any attraction,’ she said in her autobiography Complete Accord. ‘My first duty was to deliver the musical grade.’ But she couldn’t resist their chemistry ‘and the mutual interest in music. We seemed to have a very compatible temperament.’

Generally Miriam found marriage and motherhood complementary to composing. ‘I was able to keep a few pupils because Marcus was always so supportive. I still wrote some small works.’ Large works, however, were out of the question, due to domestic claims that ‘tend to wear down that long musical vision until confidence even to embark on a big work has waned.’

Most of her output is for piano but she also produced a large number of songs, a range of instrumental and chamber music and a surprisingly large number of orchestral works.

The titles of Miriam's music (Spring, Reflected Reeds, The Quiet Meadow, Dryad’s Dance) show a debt to Ravel and Debussy but her English pastoral style is also strongly influenced by Rachmaninov, who made a lasting impression when she saw him perform in London.
 
Her most outstanding works are the result of deeply felt experiences. The highly regarded slow movement of her Piano Concerto No. 1 she wrote while convalescing from a nervous breakdown during her London student years, and her G Minor Piano Sonata was written as an outpouring of emotion during the war years when Marcus was a prisoner of war.

Miriam's best-known works were written for the Australian Music Examinations Board. Here is a student performing Spring.

Sadly anything that was large-scale or difficult (ie not for student mass consumption) was often refused publication. Recording was even rarer. Miriam's success in getting her Piano Concerto recorded in 1996 by the WA Symphony Orchestra only highlighted the vast number of works that were lying unheard. Thus disappointment she voiced in the poem I quoted at the start which poignantly questions why it should be so hard ‘to give one quaver its due point in time.’

In 1980 Miriam was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire but the recognition was marred by sadness; it coincided with Marcus separating from her and their (now adult) children and moving to Switzerland to care for an ailing female friend.

His departure devastated Miriam. ‘I wondered if life was worth living, I could’ve become suicidal. [My daughter] Christine tried to make me believe I still had a lot to do musically. And I carried on. After that I gave a fairly major recital and I was determined that I would go on doing so.’

Marcus returned five years later and Miriam welcomed him back, no questions asked. She relates in her autobiography that with the harmony restored to her marriage her life returned to the ‘complete accord’ she had enjoyed previously.

In 1991 Miriam was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) In 2004, a year before her death, she was named Woman of the Year by the American Biographical Institute and received an Australasian Performing Right Association award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music.

Miriam Hyde was not perhaps revolutionary but she was female, Australian, and prolific. Her success in balancing domesticity and career was groundbreaking and she produced music that was an authentic and skilled expression of her experience as a woman and as an Australian. Happy 100^th birthday to a remarkable woman!

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miriam Hyde at 100 - radio tribute

ABC Classic FM are celebrating 100 years since the birth of Miriam Hyde with a series of broadcasts tomorrow including one by the Australian National Academy, performed in the presence of her family, and a replay of the concert given in honour of Miriam's 90th birthday.

Tuesday 15th Jan 1:05pm ANAM Concert ABC Classic FM

Tuesday 15th Jan 8pm  Replay of 90th Birthday concert ABC Classic FM

Tomorrow I'll also post my tribute to Miriam, a remarkable woman composer whose legacy continues to inspire.