Resonance: Hamer Hall

Australian Chamber Orchestra – Resonance: Hamer Hall Resonance was a fair title for the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s current tour, with the program featuring five works of relatively modern times. While contrasting in their intent and musical style, each would have resonated strongly with audiences which first heard them – and most continue to do so. However, I could not pretend that each was equally well received by the audience. Working through the program in the order of performance, first up (appropriately) was a world premiere: Peter Sculthorpe’s Chaconne, commissioned by the ACO to celebrate Richard Tognetti’s 20th anniversary as leader of the ensemble. Sculthorpe says that he has used chaconne-like ground basses for years – but this was his first composition using the dance form favoured by Bach, a composer revered by Tognetti and Sculthorpe himself. A gentle opening soon developed into an elegant dance, which would lend itself to a romantic film score – Australia, perhaps, as Sculthorpe intended to suggest “the contours of the outback Australian landscape and its uninterrupted continuity”. Chaconne was to be the least demanding piece of the night and the orchestra appeared to be all smiles playing it. More musicians joined the ACO for the next work, Vaughan Williams’ well-known Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, with a smaller group positioned to the side of the main ensemble. The work begins with a shimmering introduction before Tallis’s theme asserts itself. Notable elements were the lower strings’ organ-like sound, and principal viola Christopher Moore’s solo leading to counterpoint with the violins. The smaller group led the way into fuller harmony as the work swelled to a restatement of the theme and the final, long-held note. This was the ACO performing at its best, an honest, sensitive interpretation bringing freshness to an often-performed work. The musicians were to be more tested by the remaining three works, one of them yet to be played before interval. One of the mysteries about Bela Bartok’s Music for Strings, percussion and celesta is why he did not add “and harp and piano” to the title, since neither is usual in an orchestral work. Admittedly, the harp had a minor role (other than its commanding visual presence on stage!) but the composer used the piano to add characteristic resonance to the work. Those listening out for the influence of Eastern European folk music will find it in this work – but in the complex rhythms rather than sing-able melodies. Even the opening plaintive notes of the violas make little concession to tradition, with the syncopation of the second movement leaving little doubt that this work is memorable for its rhythm. The ACO almost literally threw its into the task of conveying the spirit of Bartok’s music, with Tognetti at times using his whole body to “conduct”. A succession of scale passages appeared to signal an ending to the work but, almost without pause, a dramatic extended xylophone solo, assertive violas and ominous-sounding lower strings saw Bartok pushing boundaries in the third movement. Finally Benjamin Martin at the piano set a furious and rhythmic pace for the whole orchestra to follow, before a slower, richly harmonic subject was succeeded by the powerful and abrupt conclusion to the work. Interval may have allowed the musicians to recoup some of the energy they had expended – and they needed it for the first work after the break: Shaar by the Romanian-born composer, Iannis Xenakis. Horrifically injured in the wash-up of WWll, and profoundly affected by his wartime experiences, Xenakis worked for some time in the Paris office of Le Corbusier and, as a composer, was influenced by the iconic architect’s view that architecture “must start again from zero”. Shaar was evidence of this view, with unison notes throughout succeeded by vigorously atonal passages, with a succession of (to this listener) almost cacophonous climaxes. If this was difficult music to listen to, it must have been many times more difficult to play (and some orchestra members had admitted in a radio interview on 3MBS that morning that they too had had to work hard to understand the composer’s intention). However it was in its faithful rendering of this challenging music that the ACO again showed the qualities that make this one of the world’s great chamber orchestras. Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen – Study for 23 solo strings” which followed, seemed like a walk in the park after the Xenakis. This is not to detract from the ACO’s performance which was, as expected, superb. Tognetti led the group through the increasingly lush harmonies of Strauss’s composition so that the 23 strings gave the illusion that there were many more players on stage than we could see. Australian Chamber Orchestra – Resonance: Hamer Hall nationally, until 19 August