Indholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2017 i Limelight

Welcome to 2017 and a special holiday issue of Limelight to see you through the hot summer months. The turning of the year is a time to look both back and forward and this issue is no exception. But rather than sink into a comfortable nostalgia, let’s take a moment to reflect on something increasingly important in these ‘play it safe’ times: risk. A great deal of ink has been spilled on the vexed question of repertoire and opportunities for emerging artists. Now, some companies are natural daredevils. Take Sydney Chamber Opera, or the eclectic Pinchgut, or Ensemble Offspring with their commitment to female composers this year. But too often, it seems, the standard argument is trotted out that if you don’t play enough Beethoven or give ’em another Carmen…

WHAT PRICE THE PRESENTERS? I would like, albeit belatedly, to strongly support the comments made by Patrick Thomas in the October issue of Limelight. The views put forward by Patrick were reinforced by the letter of Emeritus Professor Michael Hamel-Green in the November Limelight. In listening to Damien Beaumont today and his insights into the music being performed (a concert by the Australian National Academy of Music), I was reminded of the value of having music presented in such an interesting and informative manner. The ABC has, as far back as the experimental transmissions in South Australia, had many excellent presenters. These have helped people such as me, who are not musically trained, to better understand the music we are hearing. In looking at the website for your email address,…

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra is to give the belated Australian premiere of Stravinsky’s rediscovered Funeral Song at the Sydney Opera House in June. Charles Dutoit will conduct three performances of Pogrebal’naya Pesnya, a 12-minute work written by the young composer as a memorial tribute to his former St. Petersburg teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. One of Stravinsky’s earliest works (designated his Opus 5), the music vanished following its only performance in 1909. Over 100 years later, it turned up in the library of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory. “The score of this work unfortunately disappeared in Russia during the Revolution,” wrote Stravinsky in The Chronicle of My Life. “I can remember the idea at the root of its conception, which was that all the solo instruments of the orchestra filed past…

“Maybe the teaching profession needs its own version of the Hippocratic Oath” Martin Phillipson is an Adelaide-based trumpeter who plays with major orchestras and was recently part of the Australian World Orchestra in Sydney. He’s not only passionate about playing trumpet at the highest level, he’s also passionate about the teaching of music. When he realised that his primary-aged kids weren’t getting access to instrumental teaching at his local state primary school in Adelaide, rather than whinge about it at a dinner party he decided to actually do something. He started a charity organisation called Instruments of Change, which subsidised lessons and provided loan instruments and donated keyboards and drums. There were a staff of seven teachers who taught during school hours and at one stage they had over 100…

What kind of music did you grow up listening to in Albania? Folk music was part of the culture. Every occasion in our family – weddings or holidays – it was folk or popular music, always. That was the what I grew up with. So not classical music at all. What inspired you then to sing opera? I started to sing when I was six-years old with other children. The first time I listened to opera was when I was 13 or 14. I had to grow and I wanted to start in music school so it was important to know about classical music. In this case I had to audition singing a romanza. The first opera I saw live was Traviata – in Albanian! From the first sound, I…

“THE ELGAR SONATA REALLY ENCHANTED ME. IT’S A WORK I FEEL VERY STRONGLY ABOUT. IT’S AN UNUSUAL, MAGICAL PIECE. THERE’S NOT REALLY ANYTHING THAT FILLS THE SAME SORT OF EMOTIONAL SPACE FOR ME.” James Ehnes Debussy, Elgar and Respighi. It’s a curious line-up, but this collection of sonatas for violin and piano works perfectly. All were written within years of each other: Debussy’s in 1916 (it was the composer’s last major work), Respighi’s in 1918 (the year of Debussy’s death), and Elgar’s in 1919. They’re perfect vehicles for world-class violinist James Ehnes, whose performances demonstrate a brilliant array of tone colours: from bold, impassioned flexing strokes to soft, limpid lines achieved with just the right amount of bow hair. Andrew Armstrong is the perfect partner – a sensitive player who…

“YOU HAVE TIMES IN HISTORY WHERE A PLACE BECOMES A CENTRE, AND AT THIS TIME PARIS WAS THE CENTRE. THAT’S WHY I WANTED TO ADD ITALIAN MUSIC – TO HAVE A COMPLETE PHOTOGRAPH OF THE RICHNESS OF MUSIC AT THIS TIME IN PARIS.” Sébastien Daucé Louis XIV was 15 in 1653 when he took part in a lavishly staged ballet performed on seven evenings in the Salle du Petit-Bourbon at the Louvre Palace. The spectacle was remembered for decades after and gave Louis his title of “the Sun King”; the four “watches” of the night with some sinister post-midnight revelries culminated in a glorious dawn with the King strutting his stuff in a costume of glittering celestial glory. Sébastien Daucé has spent three years recreating this work from fragments and…

“I’M ABSOLUTELY THRILLED AND DELIGHTED TO BE CHOSEN AS ARTIST OF THE YEAR – IT WAS A LOVELY SURPRISE. I ALWAYS FEEL VERY, VERY CLOSE TO AUSTRALIA IN SO MANY WAYS AND I ENJOY VISITING AND PLAYING THERE AS MUCH AS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, SO THIS MAKES ME PARTICULARLY HAPPY.” Stephen Hough In his lovely remembrance of the great pianist and polymath Charles Rosen, published in The New Yorker only a few days after the latter’s death in December 2012, Jeremy Denk writes, “Should a musician have a brain? I mean, a brain over and above what’s necessary to move the fingers, eat, sleep, make charming chit-chat at gala dinners with sponsors, etc. We say ‘thinking musician’ as if it were a freakish breed, like a peacock that talks,…

“HIS FAME AS AN OARSMAN PRESENTED OBSTACLES TO HIS MUSICAL CAREER. THE PUBLIC THOUGHT HE WAS AN ATHLETE DABBLING IN MUSIC, RATHER THAN THE OTHER WAY ROUND” Their souls obliterated by shells floating like dust on the breeze, gently coming to rest on the mud later, returning as flowers Frederick Septimus Kelly is one of Australia’s greatest sons. A century after his death on the last day of the first Battle of the Somme, the time has finally come for his music to be played again, for the notes to rise off the page, like ghosts taking form, and move towards us through time with arms outstretched, before finally embracing us, here, in the present. This is a gift to all who love beauty – the music of a deeply,…

“IT IS IMPORTANT THAT OUR POLITICIANS, AND WE AS A SOCIETY, THINK ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING. WHY ARE THERE PEOPLE WHO ARE DISGRUNTLED?” Cataclysmic upheaval is the theme for 2017’s Canberra International Music Festival. This year it coincides with the centenary of one of the most significant events in the 20th century, and it was this that has inspired Artistic Director Roland Peelman. “The Russian Revolution, or some would say, the coup d’état, of 1917 sent shock waves around the world and did away with the most backward-looking empire in Europe at that time,” says Peelman. “It was also the first Marxist revolution that worked.” “Like the one in 1959 in Cuba, it succeeded in overthrowing the establishment and building a new social order. It also signalled the start of…

When Berlin’s Schaubühne Theater presented its critically acclaimed new production of Richard III at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival, Artistic Director Thomas Ostermeier had a beer in a pub on the other side of town after one of the performances. “Coincidentally, I listened to a conversation of two men standing outside the pub having a cigarette, and one of them told the other one,‘Listen, I just saw the most amazing Shakespeare in my life – and can you imagine? It was in German and it didn’t bother me at all!’It was funny because he didn’t know I was the director,”says Ostermeier. Good job he wasn’t rude about the production then?“Well, I wouldn’t have told you the story if he was,”replies Ostermeier wryly. Ostermeier tells the anecdote in the context of staging…

Lyric Symphony Orchestre de Paris/ Christoph Eschenbach CAPRICCIO C71081 A charged performance captured in full-blooded sound, delivering the music with passionate conviction. Die Seejungfrau et al Danish National Symphony Orchestra/ Thomas Dausgaard CHANDOS CHAN9601 Gorgeous Late-Romantic tone poems and overtures including the sumptuously scored Mermaid. Der König Kandaules Hamburg State Philharmonic/ Gerd Albrecht CAPRICCIO C60071-2 (2CD) The story that opens Herodotus makes for one of the lushest, most underrated operas of the 20th century. Der Zwerg Soile Isokoski, David Kuebler, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne/James Conlon WARNER CLASSICS 7258752 (2CD) Isokoski’s beguilingly sung Infanta is matched by sumptuous playing.…

You have recorded incredibly widely, what brought you to the Mozart concertos now? I hesitated for a long time before deciding to record the Mozart concerti. I was thinking of which ensemble would be perfect. And musically there are so many things to decide. I have to admit that the recording was an incredibly intense one – and a beautiful one. It was a fantastic experience, but it was a good decision not to do it earlier. It proved to be an extremely fragile thing to record. What made you want to collaborate with Italian ensemble Il Giardino Armonico? I’ve been working with Giovanni Antonini for many years, with different ensembles, so I know him from different sides. I think he’s an extremely interesting musician. When he proposed to work…

“Accardo’s priority was to produce as pure and lyrical a sound as possible” For a decade Salvatore Accardo (b. 1941) was first violinist of the chamber orchestra I Musici, but he also enjoyed a successful solo career. His interpretations of the great classics were non-interventionist: his priority to produce as pure and lyrical a sound as possible. (He owns the Stradivarius previously played by Francescatti.) His 1970s recordings of Paganini and others were regarded as the versions to live with. Eloquence has reissued several, including the two Mendelssohn Violin Concertos with the LPO under Charles Dutoit, and the Sibelius Concerto coupled with the same composer’s Humoresques for Violin and Orchestra. The accompanist there is the great Sibelian Colin Davis. (Collectors should be aware that all six Humoresques appear on this…

You Animal, You Force Majeure’s new dance-theatre work, directed by Danielle Micich, explores the most ‘animal’ of the human senses – smell. Sydney Festival, Carriageworks, Track 12, January 14 Terrain Frances Rings’ Terrain takes you to Lake Eyre, exploring the connection between Aboriginal people and land. Bangarra Dance Theatre, Tours Victoria and Tasmania, February 11-March 8 The Sleeping Beauty David McAllister’s spectacular production set to Tchaikovsky’s celebrated score. Australian Ballet, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, February 24-March 4…

Kensington Contemporary presents Dysmorphia Playground from Sydney-based artist Alun Rhys Jones. The sharp, reflective exhibition explores the effects of advertising on social consciousness and throwaway consumerism in the 21st century. Jones’ highly-detailed charcoal drawings depict idealised masculine subjects on shopping bags and crumpled posters. Reflecting tropes of modern masculinity, David Beckham and David Gandy are two prominent subjects of his work. The exhibition is a beautifully realised exploration of society’s relationship with visual media and the processes by which we decode meaning in a mass media world. Jones’ meticulous approach to art-making echoes the highly critical nature of the fashion industry and its drive towards the construct of perfection. Jones graduated with Honours from the National Art School in 2011. His work has been exhibited extensively throughout Australia and internationally.…

NON-FICTION The Hatred of Music Pascal Quignard, Matthew Amos, Fredrik Rönnbäck Yale University Press, HB, 216pp, $35.95 ISBN 9780300211382 From prehistoric chants to challenging contemporary compositions, Quignard reflects on music of all kinds and eras to develop ten accessible treatises on music. Performance Anxiety Strategies Casey McGrath, Karin Hendricks, Tawnya Smith Rowman & Littlefield, HB, 184pp, $233 ISBN 9781442271517 An approachable, comprehensive reference guide to the current research being done on music performance anxiety and stage-fright therapies. Nation and Classical Music Matthew Riley, Anthony Smith Boydell & Brewer Ltd, HB, 256pp, $59 ISBN 9781783271429 A comparative analysis of the relationship between Western art music, nations and nationalism exploring the influence of emergent nations and nationalism on the development of classical music. Who Knew? Answers To Questions About Classical Music You…

“The second movement was beautifully finessed, opening with quiet power” Grieg lies somewhere in between the twin expressive poles of Chopin in the 19th century and Rachmaninov in the 20th, yet there’s a four-square stolidity to the Norwegian original that demands acknowledgement. This is music with an honest, open-air quality, far removed from the salons of Paris or St. Petersburg. That’s not to say you can’t get away with some interpretive liberties – try Percy Grainger’s barnstorming account! – but it also requires a steady hand on the tiller and a clear sense of external architecture. Lang Lang hit the opening button alright, crashing in with power and passion, but his reading of the first subject of the Allegro molto moderato was pulled back and forth by what seemed at…

FINE MUSIC 102.5 SHOWCASING AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS January 5, 8pm The Cellists of the Metropolitan Orchestra perform arrangements of works by Ravel, Handel, Pärt, ABBA, Wagner and Grandison. January 12, 8pm Sadaharu Muramatsu conducts the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra in Sculthorpe’s Sun Music III, Sieblius’s Violin Concerto and Brahms’ Third Symphony. January 19, 8pm Kathryn Selby performs Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, Martinu’s Quartet with Joel Marangella, Charmian Gadd and Alexander Ivashkin, and Dvorák’s Dumky Trio with Sophie Rowell and Julian Smiles. January 26, 8pm The Flinders Quartet plays Mozart’s Third Flute Quartet with Genevieve Lacey, Ian Munro’s Divertissement sur le Nom d’Erik Satie with pianist Dmitry Onishchenko, Rigney’s The Garden of Forking Paths with Slava Grigoryan and Sibelius’s Second String Quartet. Limelight loves your feedback. Here’s how to contact us: •…

“Dame Julie did say Pickering is allowed to get away with a bit of harrumphing” I really did grow up listening to My Fair Lady. I was about six or seven, and my parents brought the Broadway recording back from the UK. I remember that strange, white-bearded gentleman in the top left-hand corner of the album cover with Mr Harrison and Dame Julie dangling as puppets under his cloud. I thought it was God – I’d not heard of George Bernard Shaw at that time – but that extraordinary cartoon has been somewhere in my tiny mind ever since. I was sent to expensive schools where I learned piano and ended up in the school band playing the euphonium. Walking and talking is difficult enough as it is, but marching…

TIM MUNRO CRAZY INSTRUMENTS Tim Munro is a Brisbane-born, Chicago-based flautist, music writer, speaker and teacher. For nine years he was a core member of the American contemporary music ensemble eighth blackbird, during which time he won three Grammy Awards. JASON BLAKE SPEAKING SHAKESPEARE A farmer’s son with no aptitude for farming, Jason is a VCA Drama School graduate (Directing, class of 1993), and studied at NIDA (Directing, 1998) before veering into writing and editing. He is currently the theatre critic for the Sydney Morning Herald. ALEXANDRA COGHLAN GÖTTINGEN Alexandra Coghlan is the classical music critic for the New Statesman, and also writes for The Independent, The Times, Opera, Prospect, Gramophone and The Monthly. She was formerly performing arts editor at Time Out Sydney and editor of Sinfini.…

ABC Classic FM has rung in the New Year with a shake-up of its programming, which includes the disappearance of Margaret Throsby’s Midday Interview from its weekday slot. A lunchtime staple for many a listener, the popular, long-running programme has been replaced by a single three-hour show, Saturday Morning with Margaret Throsby. “The decision was entirely mine, and sought by me,” Throsby told Limelight. “The move [has been] made with the ABC’s blessing.” In the ABC press release, Throsby said: “I’m really excited and looking forward to the new programme format and timeslot, where I”ll [be] co-presenting with a guest who will share stories about their love of classical music.” However, in a group statement, the Chairmen of the Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras took…

LOVIN’ THE LOWIN PRIZES Lachlan Skipworth’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra has won the 2016 Paul Lowin Orchestral Prize, while Brett Dean’s And Once I Played Ophelia for soprano and string quartet has taken out the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Prize. The Paul Lowin Prizes, which are run every two or three years, are among the richest in Australia for music composition and are managed by Perpetual in collaboration with the Australian Music Centre. GRIMAUD CANCELS OZ TOUR French pianist Hélène Grimaud has cancelled her forthcoming performances in Australia citing personal reasons. Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii will replace her for concerts with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in May. Tsujii – who was born blind – will perform Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2 with the SSO. He will also give a…

1. Murder and Redemption, your next programme for the ACO, looks highly original. How did you come up with the idea? I’ve worked with the folk singer Sam Amidon before and I found themes in his songs that made me wonder about building a concert around that poetry. In John Adams’ Shaker Loops people are trying to find some sort of salvation through extreme physical movement – dances, spinning and turning, and generally acting wild. Musically it’s very much on the way up, so I thought we needed something as clearly on the way down – and Janácÿek’s Kreutzer Sonata really felt right. 2. What kind of traditional songs do you use? There’s one called How Come That Blood. The guy just murdered his brother and he’s going to leave…

Violinist Daniel Hope was conducting a public interview with 92-year-old pianist Menahem Pressler at the Berlin Konzerthaus when who should walk on stage but cellist Antonio Meneses? The three of them hadn’t been together since the Beaux Arts Trio’s farewell concert seven years earlier. Pressler was completely knocked for six. The surprise moment took months of secret planning, said Hope. They then played the slow movement from Beethoven’s Piano Trio Opus 11 – one of the Beaux Arts’ signature works.…

A large amount of my work has been inspired by Lewis Carroll’s nonsense books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871). My most recent piece Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup draws inspiration from chapters nine and ten of Wonderland, The Mock Turtle’s Story and The Lobster Quadrille. Along with Alice (of course!), the main characters in these chapters are the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle. Both creatures are composites of two animals: the Gryphon – the head and wings of an eagle, and the body and tail of a lion, and the Mock Turtle – the head, hooves and tail of a cow, and the body and flippers of a turtle. These chimera characters resonate with the style of the piece, which…

In 2015, the Limelight Recording of the Year was a blockbuster recital of mainstream repertoire (Chopin and Mozart) by master pianist Grigory Sokolov on major label Deutsche Grammophon. It was a closely contested fight, but there were to be no giant slayers. This year it was a battle royal with senior artists slugging it out against newcomers and standard repertoire pitched against the weird and frankly wonderful. In the end, only four votes separated the top four discs, but the winner was a testament to a combination of superb artistry, an underrated composer and an independent label that has performed consistently well over many decades. In a sign of healthy competition, the 25 finalists represent a genuine spread across 17 labels ranging from the majors, through the independents to the…

“ALL ARTISTS HOPE THAT THEIR PERFORMANCES WILL TOUCH PEOPLE OR STRIKE A CHORD WITH THEM (EXCUSE MY PUN!) AND WHEN IT HAPPENS, IN THE WAY THAT IT SEEMS TO HAVE DONE WITH THIS ALBUM, IT MEANS A LOT.” Daniil Trifonov It took Franz Liszt 26 years to produce the final version of his Twelve Studies in Increasing Degree of Difficulty. The earliest version dates from 1826, but the pianist-phenomenon decided that these pieces were not difficult enough. Other pianists could still manage to play them! While these 12 Etudes and the others in this recital were designed to showcase Liszt’s superhuman technique, Liszt the poet is still in evidence. Recordings have tended to lean towards one or other extreme. Generally, young pianists show off their skill. Older pianists stress the…

“THESE SUPERB PERFORMANCES HAVE THE TRINITY CHOIR’S TRADEMARK BLEND OF PASSION AND TECHNIQUE, AND ALL PLACED AT THE SERVICE OF THE MUSIC’S VARIOUS MOODS.” Tony Way, Limelight, August 2016 I was a choirboy at Winchester Cathedral for four and a half years and as I sang Tallis and Byrd, I sang Howells. It’s very much part of my existence if you like. When we sang Collegium Regale as choristers and we came to that Gloria, it was the thing you really looked forward to singing at a Saturday Evensong.You just went for it and let it soar. Tallis and Byrd seemed quite tricky and, looking back, not so tuneful and exciting. Whereas Howells just sort of blew you away with these great settings with the organ playing.Your voice just flew,…

When Kelly was a 20-year-old student at Balliol, he wrote a hauntingly beautiful love song entitled It Is Not Dawn Till You Awake, which raises the question of who is the “you” that Kelly is writing about. In his diaries Kelly is surrounded by people, and yet each night he seems to sleep alone. There is no mention of someone for whom he felt this deeply and one wonders if he was terribly lonely, or if there was a part of his life that he kept secret even from his diaries. Clearly in his personal race against time, his utterly single-minded focus on rowing, piano playing and composing seems to have displaced the chance of having an intimate companion close to him. There is no doubt that Kelly loved the…

LIVED 1871 – 1942 MOSTLY IN VIENNA, PRAGUE BEST KNOWN FOR LYRIC SYMPHONY, DER ZWERG, DIE SEEJUNGFRAU, LIEDER SIMILAR TO MAHLER, SCHOENBERG Philosopher and critic Theodor Adorno once wrote, “Originating from the same spiritual ambience as Mahler, Alexander Zemlinsky made more of the compromises characteristic of an eclectic than any other first-rate composer of his generation. Yet his eclecticism demonstrated genius in its truly seismographic sensitivity to the stimuli by which he allowed himself to be overwhelmed.” This insightful assessment provides a helpful starting point for developing a more nuanced appreciation of a composer who was often misunderstood and underestimated during his lifetime. As Adorno intimates, Zemlinsky was very much a child of his time, a composer who enthusiastically absorbed a wide array of contemporary cultural influences, but whose distinctive…

“Choir and engineer work together to create a vividly drawn sonic drama” As Dreams Music by Nørgård, Lachenmann, Saariaho and Xenakis The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Oslo Sinfonietta/Grete Pedersen BIS BIS2139 In a world of classical concept albums that talk big but just repackage the same old repertoire, this is a thrilling exception. Night and dreams might be well-trodden ground in classical music, but here the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir and Grete Pedersen make them strange and alien once again in a bold and beautiful programme of choral works by Saariaho, Xenakis, Nørgård and Lachenmann. We talk a lot about ‘journeys’ in classical music, but the skill of this album is precisely this, that it takes the listener by the hand and guides them from Per Nørgård’s fairly earthy, comfortingly melodic Drommesange…

PREVIEW Versailles: Treasures from the Palace offers Australians a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the opulent world of French royalty in their own back yard. On display at the National Gallery of Australia, more than 130 paintings, intricate tapestries, gilded furniture items, monumental statues and other objects have made the journey from France, most for the first time. “We are delighted to bring the grandeur of the culture of Versailles exclusively to Canberra and make it possible for all Australians to access and appreciate the social, political and cultural aspects of this unique phenomenon. If ever absolute power can be expressed through unbridled opulence, this is it,” said Gerard Vaughan, NGA Director. The Palace of Versailles is one of history’s largest royal residences. It was also the seat of French political…

NOTHING LIKE THE PRESENT THEATRE Cate Blanchett makes her Broadway debut in Sydney Theatre Company’s blistering production of The Present, directed by John Crowley, which opens at the Barrymore Theatre on January 8 after three weeks of previews. Andrew Upton’s adaptation of Chekhov’s sprawling, untitled first play, often known as Platonov, premiered in 2015 to rave reviews. The original Australian cast of 13, led by Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh, has travelled to New York with the show. Three previous STC productions have toured to New York but this is the first to make it to the Great White Way. CIRCA CEO SLAMS FUNDING FUNDING The CEO of Circa, Yaron Lifschitz, has condemned what he describes as a “government entrenched oligarchy of privilege”, saying that Australia has “a two-stream arts sector”.…

The Hollow Crown – The Wars of the Roses Genre: Shakespearian drama Release date: Available now Format: 3DVDs BBC proves Bard’s histories are the original Game of Thrones Bard publisher Oxford University Press recently concluded that according to its diligent research, no less than 17 plays attributed to William Shakespeare were co-authored, with supposed rival Christopher Marlowe now officially credited as co-writer of the three Henry VI plays. That’s fascinating, but makes no difference to the plays themselves, nor to this second set of new films handsomely adapted for BBC television. Where the preceding series (adapted from the four plays making up the ‘Henriade’) had a number of directors, the three films in this sequel are helmed by a single director, a man of the stage who has…

Three recordings with Australian connections have been nominated for the 2017 Grammy Awards to be presented on February 12. A Chandos CD of Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass, featuring Australian Heldentenor Stuart Skelton, and conducted by Edward Gardner, is up for Best Choral Performance. Sydney Symphony Orchestra Artistic Director and Chief Conductor David Robertson has also received a nod. His recording of John Adams’ Violin Concerto Scheherazade.2, with Leila Josefowicz and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, is nominated in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category. Limelight gave the recording four and a half stars. Robertson conducted the Australian premiere of the work with Josefowicz and the SSO last March. Kasper Holten’s Royal Opera House production of Szymanowski’s King Roger has been nominated for Best Opera Recording.Co-produced with Opera Australia, King Roger plays…

Salonen Violin Concerto, Nyx Leila Josefowicz v , Finnish RSO/Salonen DG 4790628 Last year I conducted Esa-Pekka Salonen’s brilliant and virtuosic Violin Concerto in Christchurch. It’s a wonderfully crafted and engaging work which the audience really responded to. I look forward to conducting more of Esa-Pekka’s music. Copland Symphony No 3 NY Phil/Bernstein DG 4191702 I’m conducting Copland’s Third Symphony with the SSO this year. Recent political upheavals in the US have made me hear this piece very differently. With its embodiment of post-WW2 idealism and optimism, this American monument takes on renewed relevance. Prokofiev The Symphonies LSO/Valery Gergiev DECCA 4757655 (4CD) I seem to gravitate toward 20th-century modernism in my recreational listening. I adore Prokofiev and the greatest advocate for his music currently is Valery Gergiev.…

PAULINE OLIVEROS 1932 – 2016 Known as the creator of “deep listening”, the experimental American composer Pauline Oliveros passed away in November, aged 84. Born in Houston, Texas in 1932, Oliveros played the piano, violin, French horn and accordion as a child, before going on to study music at the University of Houston and San Francisco State College. Along with American composers Morton Subotnick and Ramón Sender, Oliveros co-founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center, where she was a co-director until 1965. She taught at the University of California, where she was director of the Center for Music Experiment from 1976-79, and founded the Pauline Oliveros Foundation in New York, which became the Deep Listening Institute. Oliveros pioneered the concept of Deep Listening, based on principles of improvisation, electronic music,…

It was in 1910 that the famous composer and conductor Gustav Mahler determined that his young wife, Alma Schindler Mahler, was having a torrid affair with Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius. The discovery followed on from the death of Mahler’s beloved four-year-old daughter, a diagnosis of heart disease and his quasi-forced resignation as director of the Vienna Court Opera. Believing himself on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Mahler sought the counsel of Professor Sigmund Freud. The historic meeting took place far from Vienna at a famous restaurant, In the Gilded Turk, in the Dutch city of Leiden. Mahler had made the long train journey for the explicit purpose of undergoing psychoanalysis. While exact details of the conversation between the composer and the psychoanalyst remain a mystery, it is known that…

BORN ECHUCA, 1992 STUDIED SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC LIKES DOGS, TRAVEL AND MANGO SORBET! DISLIKES SLOW INTERNET, BURNING MY TONGUE AND RUNNING As a young singer, who were your inspirational voices? Growing up, I was always in awe of Julie Andrews. My dream was to be Mary Poppins! Then, through studying opera, I was introduced to incredible sopranos such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney and Patricia Petibon. These women are absolute technicians and charismatic performers. I am also inspired by contemporary music singers that exude musicality and passion, such as Glen Hansard, Kristin Chenoweth, David Phelps and Sia. This year I have been fortunate to have been coached by operatic royalty – Renée Fleming, Yvonne Kenny and Dame Felicity Lott – who continue to motivate me! So did…

“BEETHOVEN HAS A WAY OF SHINING A MIRROR ONTO YOU, JUST SAYING “OKAY, THIS IS WHERE I AM, THIS IS WHERE YOU ARE”. YOU JUST HAVE TO TRY AND BE AS HONEST AS YOU CAN IN THE MOMENT. THAT’S ALL YOU CAN DO.” Sir Simon Rattle Simon Rattle is on record as saying that Furtwängler’s 1942 recording of the Choral Symphony epitomises everything genuinely great about the Berlin Philharmonic. And here’s the great paradox of this fresh Beethoven cycle, recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic in October 2015 – a decade on from his first attempt with the Vienna Philharmonic, Rattle has managed to make the yin and yang of HIP and a Romantic underbelly coexist and these Berlin Philharmonic readings sound less obviously indebted to its own heritage. Indeed, the…

“WHEN I LISTEN TO COLLEGIUM REGALE, I SEE THE VAULTING IN THE KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL, AND THE WHOLE BUILDING BEFORE ME. I FEEL HOWELLS HAS CONJURED THAT WITH HIS MUSIC, AND THAT SPEAKS TO ME.” Stephen Layton Every cloud, they say, has a silver lining. In the dark days of World War II, Cambridge was a bleak place; emptied of students and the famous windows of King’s College Chapel put in storage. A middle-aged Herbert Howells was called upon to deputise at St. John’s College. Having weathered the death of his young son from meningitis and finding his style of music increasingly unfashionable, Howells found solace in university life. Amongst the supportive colleagues he found was the Dean of King’s, Eric Milner-White, who suggested that Howells should write some settings…

“I FEEL LIKE I’M IN MY ABSOLUTE PRIME AT THE MOMENT. LISTENING TO THE RECORDING, I THINK IT SHOWS THAT I’M IN A PLACE WHERE I CAN EXPERIMENT VOCALLY AND TAKE RISKS. THE DISC ISN’T ONLY ABOUT THE VOICE, BUT DRAMA – DRAMA IN MY INTERPRETATION, AND REAL THEATRE IN THE ORCHESTRAL PLAYING.” Emma Matthews Those lucky enough to see soprano Emma Matthews in action will know that she lights up the stage. Her glorious, agile voice and perfect diction is invariably matched by tons of charisma and real dramatic nous. She has great comedic timing, a point she brought home spectacularly as Fiorella in Rossini’s The Turk In Italy, for this reviewer the highlight of Opera Australia’s 2014 season, when she played superbly off Italian buffo baritone supremo Paolo…

It’s 16 years since Barrie Kosky, ratbag genius of ustralian theatre, left for Europe. In the intervening years, he has established an international reputation as an opera director, with around 40 audacious productions to his name – none of which have been seen at home. The last mainstage opera the Melbourne-born director staged here was Alban Berg’s Wozzeck for Opera Australia in 1999. But that is about to change, with three Kosky productions arriving in Australia in as many years.“It’s a bonanza!”he quips over the phone from Berlin, where he has been Artistic Director of the Komische Oper since 2012 – the first non-German to lead the famous Company. First up, his rapturously received Glyndebourne production of Handel’s oratorio Saul is the centrepiece of this year’s Adelaide Festival. Then, in…

“IT WAS THE MOZART CONCERTO NO 17 – IN G MAJOR – AND SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE DEVELOPMENT I JUST FELT THE TOOTH COMING OUT. IT WAS QUITE ANNOYING” Believe it or not, it wasn’t the piano that started virtuoso pianist Daniil Trifonov on his musical journey. “My parents never forced me to be introduced to piano,” the soft-spoken Russian tells me over the phone from Deutsche Grammophon’s office in Berlin. “Until the age of five, I never showed any signs of interest. We had an upright at the time but I was never exploring it.” Both of Trifonov’s parents are musicians, so as a listener he was exposed to music early on. “My father is a composer. I remember some of the first music I heard was his works.” That…

“THEY HAD MANY AND VARIED REASONS FOR DREAMING UP THESE INVENTIONS OF SUCH FANTASTICAL STRANGENESS” Musical instruments are sophisticated pieces of technology. Each is the result of countless generations of work, involving leaps of imagination, years of testing and refinement, struggles and failures. Some are played for centuries, some for years, some only for days. But there is another, altogether stranger category. This class of instruments may result from a deep consideration and a lifetime of work. They may have strange names, such as ‘The Panharmonicon’ (illustratrated on the left) or ‘The Daguerreotype of Sound and Instrumentum Nostrum Magnum’. They may be of gargantuan size, of staggering strangeness or of utopian scope. They may have been written about in dozens of books, mulled over by generations of scholars. And yet,…

“WE SHOULD BE CAREFUL NOT TO ASSUME THEY REPRESENT WHAT WAS ACTUALLY BEING SPOKEN ON STAGES AT THE TIME¨ The Complete Works of Shakespeare, as represented by the recently released 100-CD box set of the revered Argo recordings made between 1957 and 1964, is one of the weightier souvenirs you can take away from the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. Arguably the most influential recorded Shakespeare project conceived until the BBC commenced its television series in 1975, the 37 plays, 154 sonnets and four narrative poems captured on tape under the direction of George Rylands, with actors including Peggy Ashcroft, John Barton, John Gielgud, Michael Hordern, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen and Prunella Scales, set a benchmark that, for better or worse, has profoundly shaped the way listeners around the…

FIN-DE-SIÈCLE VIENNA Alexander Zemlinsky’s brand of anxiety-ridden, erotically charged late-Romanticism could to some extent be regarded as the musical manifestation of Art Nouveau. In some respects his music explores similar preoccupations to the decadent painting of his famous Austrian contemporary, Gustav Klimt. ORCHESTRATION Already in the large-scale symphonic poem of 1903 Die Seejungfrau, Zemlinsky marshalled the massive forces of the late-Romantic symphony orchestra with a lushness and grandeur that presages the epic Hollywood cinema scores that emerged in the 1940s. Yet later in his career, he was able to gradually pare down this opulence by composing music that is much leaner and more Neoclassical in texture. HARMONY Zemlinsky expanded and intensified the chromatic harmonies of Richard Wagner’s music-dramas, but that’s as far as his harmonic experimentation went – he resisted…

“For rarities you can’t beat the great Harold Williams singing the rollicking John Bax” From Melba to Sutherland Australian Singers on Record Various artists DECCA ELOQUENCE 4825892 (4CD) Here is a true labour of love: a history of Australian singers on record from the Nellie Melba generation to that of Sutherland and beyond. Music historian Roger Neill and recording expert Tony Locantro have spent 13 long years bringing this project to fruition, and the results – presented by Decca Eloquence on a four disc set – are fascinating. “Why has there been such an extraordinary procession of world-class Australian singers over such an extended period of time?” ask the producers. While providing no exact answers, this comprehensive survey includes some 80 wonderful singers in a wide range of…

Prize Fighter Get ringside for a rare theatrical combo: engrossing storytelling paired with the visceral thrill of live boxing. Sydney Festival, Belvoir St Theatre, January 6-22 Which Way Home A touching road-trip comedy more than 40,000 years in the making, from writer-performer Katie Beckett. Sydney Festival, Belvoir St Theatre, January 11-29 The Testament of Mary For two thousand years Mary has been silent. A woman seen but not heard. Until now. Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf Theatre, January 13-February 25 Born Yesterday MTC’s 2017 Season opens in glamorous 1940s style with Garson Kanin’s Broadway classic. Melbourne Theatre Company, Southbank Theatre, January 14-February 25 John The Australian Premiere of a powerful and intimate new work from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker. Melbourne Theatre Company, Arts Centre Melbourne, February 10-March 25 The Way…

Nude: Live Choreographed by Rafael Bonachela, art and dance collide when Sydney Dance Company come to Nude: Art from the Tate Collection Art Gallery of New South Wales, January 7-23 On The Origin of Art Four guest curators investigate what is at the heart of the urge to create, and pleasure of creating art Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, until April 2017 David Hockney: Current The NGV presents a major solo exhibition of one of the most influential living artist, featuring over 1,200 works. National Gallery of Victoria, until March 13…

MONDAY - FRIDAY 6am Classic Breakfast Start your day with a delicious selection of the best in classical music, including your daily Swoon 9am Mornings Spend your morning with great music, including new releases and classic performances, plus the latest news and stories from the world of music 12pm Afternoons Classical music to take you through your afternoon at home, at work, or out and about 4pm Classic Drive A journey home through classical sounds, designed to relax, refresh and delight you 7pm Evenings Brings you recent classical concerts from Australian and international orchestras and ensembles 12am Night Music Classical music that’s perfect for all-night listening, presented by some of your favourite ABC Classic FM voices SATURDAY 6am Weekend Breakfast The relaxing and entertaining way to wake up to your…

FINE MUSIC 102.5 Fine Music 102.5 (previously 2MBS) is Australia’s first FM radio station, broadcasting a mix of classical, jazz and contemporary music. To listen, tune in to 102.5FM or stream online at finemusicfm.com 3MBS 3MBS is a fine music community radio station in Melbourne. 3MBS passionately supports fine music, especially Melbourne musicians and composers, and is the only locally-based classical music radio station in Victoria. To listen, tune in to 103.5FM or stream online at 3mbs.org.au 4MBS One of Australia’s premier classical radio stations, 4MBS has received many awards for the promotion of young and emerging artists in Australia. Based in Brisbane. To listen, tune in to 103.7FM to listen or stream online at 4mbs.com.au 5MBS While mainly a classical station, Adelaide’s 5MBS also broadcasts a wide selection of…

1. Which great composer was once arrested after having been mistaken for a tramp? 2. About which of his oratorios did Handel once lament, saying:“The Jews will not come to it because it is a Christian story; and the ladies will not come because it is a virtuous one.”? 3. In Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna, the protagonist is frightened by a horrific what? 4. Which revolutionary Frenchman declared that:“Any sound-producing body utilised by a composer is a musical instrument“? 5. Gottfried van Swieten wrote libretti for which three works by Haydn? 6. The Finnish composer Veli-Matti Puumala’s harrowing opera Anna Liisa shares what grisly crime with Janácek’s Jenufa (pictured above)? 7. Clemens Kraus complained that“the box office success exceeded my worst expectations”after which composer was finally staged at theVienna State opera?…