Michael Kieran Harvey: The War Sonatas 

In an old church building tucked away in Leicester St, Fitzroy, a solitary Grand Piano shone out proudly in a re-vamped open contemporary and innovative performing space: The Eleventh Hour Theatre. A timber floor, lancet windows and edges of paint peeling from white walls added a spiritually timeless yet decadent atmosphere for the premier performance of Three Piano Sonatas (2023), The War Sonatas, composed and performed by Dr Michael Kieran Harvey, one of the most notable promoters of Australian premiers and contemporary music. The hall was packed to overflowing.

Program notes by Harvey illuminated his recognition of music written as a “response to the insanity of war” and his “deep feelings of anger, despair and sorrow” that he felt for innocent victims.  Writings and collaborations of friends Peter Singer and Dr Arjun von Caemmerer were significant in Harvey’s dedications, with the latter being present in the audience to speak to each sonata. 

In his introduction to Piano Sonata #8: “P. Singer” (War Sonata #1), Caemmerer read the powerful words of the note left on Putin’s parents’ grave by Irina Tsybaneva in 2022: “Parents of a maniac, take him to your place. He causes so much pain and trouble. The whole world prays for his death. Death to Putin.”  We knew then to expect a mountain of intensity from a pianist whose technical power would show the piano no mercy.  Three broad sections: Allegro, Onrico (fantastic, unreal, dreamlike) and Ritmico, fully spoke of Harvey’s emotions as torrents of fierce and rampant heavily accented chords, and dense blasts of driving tremolos and rippling explosions, surrounded us with relentless pedalled resonance and chromatic aggression.  Punctuations of silence offered little rest or hope, holding us captive in suspense as we anticipated further build-ups of rapid aggression and vibrancy. In moments of calm, Harvey created an eerie softness with fragile ripples of chromatic beauty, a touch of harmonic relief and changes of colour and timbre. But never for long, as low chromatic steps in the left hand would build shadows, fear and drama with driving crescendos, ending the work with earthy, ground level explosive chords and darkness. 

Harvey’s virtuosic and powerful technique was an astonishing sight, with extreme and impetuous dynamics surrounding us as his alternating hands became an impressive blur during repetitious movement. Preceding Harvey’s War Sonata #2, we reflected on culture, time and place with further spoken word by Dr Arjun Caemmerer with his poem, “World War 1 – Not all Singers Sing from the Same Songbook”, from The War of the Words. He referred to the historical timeline of war as humans built weapons of mass destruction, ammunition factories, metal works and machinery. So too, a new architecture was developed in this Sonata. An opening 4-note stepwise theme was repeated and developed persistently over growing chordal accompaniment like expanding orchestral sections building physically with new timbres and power. Flying upper florid patterns rippled and scattered through the skies, a fusion of jazz rock and Indian influences were felt in defined syncopated rhythms, with a pointed nod to Frank Zappa and guitarist John McLaughlin in the titles of the sonata’s movements: Zappaesque – Rubato – Giusto Tempo. We heard a long section hinting at the lighter textures of a jazz ballad, with a long low bass melody, almost like an improvised bass solo moving freely against colourful high shimmering percussive fills. As expected, Tempo Guisto returned the madness of incessant and aggressive activity, with strong bass octaves pounding out forthright melodies and seemingly interminable upper metallic activity. 

An extraordinary drawing dominated the Program notes: Leonardo da Vinci’s unforgettable and confronting Illustration for his thoughts on Virtue and Envy, which later was the inspiration for Jean-Michael Basquiat’s 1988 painting “Riding With Death”, and the title for Harvey’s War Sonata # 3. As our technologies for destruction develop at a galloping pace, AI and nuclear seem the accepted “reality”. This Sonata opened with high, sparkling fragmentations, crystalline and almost eerie, things heard but not seen, until added fractured bass themes joined the pedalled resonances joining an aural atmosphere of disturbed Heaven and Earth. A thunderous yet spacious design evolved, producing much tension from Harvey’s repetitious and pounding left hand. Random clashes of pairs of semi-tones came like a shower of electric sparks, more so with repetitions of semi-tones and single upper notes. Walking accompanying beats weighed humanity down as a forthright palette of piano timbres suggested AI “reality” and humanity gone mad. The longest silent pause for the evening gave us nothingness, oblivion. But war doesn’t end so easily. Harvey took us further into a final storm with repetitive polyrhythmic drive and a wild crescendo of ascending clusters to the top of the keyboard over a pounding left-hand bass. 

Brilliantly conceived and performed, Michael Kieran Harvey’s premier performance of his three War Sonatas was a tense, dramatic, hypnotic and deeply confronting musical experience, adding powerful new works to universal piano repertoire.

Photo supplied.

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Julie McErlain reviewed Michael Kieran Harvey’s Birthday Concert piano recital, “The War Sonatas”, given at Eleventh Hour Theatre, Fitzroy, on July 7, 2024.