Sometimes it comes as a shock to realise how quickly time passes. Can it really be fourteen years since the end of Brett Dean’s 2006-2010 tenure as Artistic Director of the Australian National Academy of Music? Perhaps his continuing participation in Australian music as a composer, viola player, conductor and educator has contracted a sense of time. As his successor at ANAM, his brother Paul provided a sense of continuity, as has his daughter, Lotte Betts-Dean, with many notable performances as a mezzo-soprano. Having Brett Dean prepare and conduct the ANAM Orchestra for Saturday night’s concert at the St Kilda Town Hall gave this year’s young musicians an opportunity to participate in what has become a significant component of the ANAM musical story, and an insight into Dean’s creative process.
The first half of the program comprised two works by Dean: Music of Memory (2016) and Imaginary Ballet (2021). The latter had been performed three days earlier at Abbotsford Convent, along with an illuminating talk by the composer himself. Without any preamble (or baton), Dean mounted the conductor’s podium for the hushed beginning of Music of Memory. A 14-minute work in three parts, it is “a set of previous works reimagined for string orchestra, each paying tribute to lost friends and colleagues” (program note). Dean has sought to capture the energy and essence of the three people honoured as well as expressing sorrow at their loss.
The first movement, Angels’ Wings (“Music for Yodit”), was commissioned by Toccata Classics founder, Martin Anderson, and ultimately became a memorial to his late wife. It begins on a dark and sombre note, a slow pianissimo on lower strings, like a drone – which evoked for this listener a sense of an almost held breath – interrupted by exclamations from the violins, and finally fading away. Dean has eloquently called it a “floating chorale coloured by the lively flutter of wings in high violin solos”.
György Meets the Girl Photographer, is altogether livelier – propelled by rhythmic energy in the style of an Eastern European dance “in homage to the irrepressibly effervescent and feisty American arts philanthropist and “girl photographer” (her own description), Betty Freeman” and the Hungarian-Austrian composer György Ligeti, whom she photographed. There were snatches of conversation-like exchanges that culminated in an abrupt ending.
The final movement, Between the Spaces in the Sky, again beginning with the softest slow progression, is largely ethereal in nature, but incorporates what appears to be almost a scream of despair from the violins. Commemorating the premature death of British conductor and former Artistic Director of Opera Australia, Richard Hickox, it draws on the sombre gravitas of a requiem and conveys the unbearable anguish of loss.
In all movements the ANAM strings gave an expressive performance with well-integrated sound.
Introduced by Brett Dean as a work for “piano and string trio”, Imaginary Ballet (2021) was played by Harry Egerton (violin), Jack Overall (cello) and Ronan Apcar (piano) with Dean himself on viola. It is a 20-minute work comprising six highly energetic dance movements interspersed with contrasting interludes of stillness. The second interlude pays homage to American composer Charles Ives and the third to Dean’s former teacher and mentor, Australian violinist, conductor and music director, John Curro. An arresting work of huge contrasts in dynamics, tempi and musical textures, it incorporates a range of effects that include string slides and weighty rumblings from strummed and plucked piano strings set against a mournful violin and viola. Building to a kind of surging weeping, it delivered considerable emotional impact. It was an ideal work for cultivating and displaying the virtuosity of the players in addition to being an absorbing experience for the audience.
After interval, the full orchestra and Stefanie Farrands assembled for an impressive performance of what Hector Berlioz describes in his manuscript of Harold in Italy (1834) as a “symphony with viola obbligato”. A tone poem in four parts, it takes its name from Byron’s poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, giving the viola something of the romantic character of Harold as he/it wanders in and out of the musical landscape.
There was a fair amount of physical movement in Farrands’ captivating performance. “Harold in the Mountains” began with a sombre beginning on lower strings similar to what we had heard before interval. Wind instruments joined the slow fugue until a full orchestral crescendo heralded the appearance of “Harold”. Farrands emerged from behind the orchestra to stand beside the harp as they played the wonderfully soulful “Harold” theme in an unaccompanied duet. She then slowly made her way in front of the orchestra to stand beside the conductor. It was a moment of great beauty with the viola beguiling in tone and sensitively played. You could see why Paganini came to appreciate the viola part that he had refused to play even though he had commissioned it. Harold in Italy might not have the virtuosic dazzle and spotlight focus of the standard concerto of his time, but in the hands of an artist such as Farrands it is impressive in its own way as it requires technical skill, musical imagination and special tonal quality to do it justice. There was more gorgeous viola playing at the end of third movement “Serenade of an Abruzzian mountaineer to his sweetheart” and with the off-stage ensemble for the final movement.
The ANAM Orchestra embraced Berlioz’s colourful, highly rhythmic score with enthusiasm and skill, the brass and front desk strings being particularly impressive; Farrands gave Seb Coyne (Principal Viola) special acknowledgement – of course. We didn’t need Brett Dean’s request to keep up the applause so that a “special surprise” encore could be played. Chopin’s Grande valse brillante in E-flat major, arranged by Stravinsky at the behest of Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes, was an energizing way to end the concert.
Hopefully, it won’t be another six years before Brett Dean returns to ANAM to inspire and be inspired by the next contingent of outstanding young musicians.
Photo supplied.
________________________________________________________________________________
Heather Leviston reviewed “ANAM Orchestra with Brett Dean and Stefanie Farrands”, presented by the Australian National Academy of Music at the St Kilda Town Hall on August 24, 2024.
