Tabla de contenidos para June 2017 en Limelight

The arts sector has been up in arms this month over Fairfax management proposals to decimate arts coverage at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. “Arts coverage is not the cherry on the cake to be dispensed with when the economic going gets tough but essential to a vibrant, healthy, civilised society,” wrote former Arts Editors in an open letter to Fairfax boss Greg Hywood, protesting plans to cut 125 editorial jobs – approximately a quarter of its newsroom. “Arts coverage – a review or interview – is often the only enduring record of a performing arts event. Without this, creative voices are silenced and our culture is diminished.” Actors and arts personalities from Richard Roxburgh to Margaret Pomeranz, musicians including opera singers Jacqueline Dark and Taryn Fiebig, and…

WHERE GEESE BECOME SWANS Guy Noble’s article in April Limelight was so accurate and truthful I just had to respond. Being Founder/Director of a small country choir in Queensland about to celebrate its 40th Anniversary, I have lost count of the number of ‘Cape Barren Geese’ who have come to me with exactly the syndrome Guy explained. Told “sorry, you’re just no good at singing” or “maybe when you’re older” they spend the next 30 or 40 years with the concept of not being able to sing – such a tragedy! I’m happy to say these singers now can hold their heads high and be proud of their choral experience, which has taken them on several overseas tours with performances in some of the grandest cathedrals and concert venues in…

US President Donald Trump dropped another clanger in April when he claimed to be “great friends” with Luciano Pavarotti – without seeming to realise that the legendary Italian tenor died 10 years ago. The blunder occurred when Trump met with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Fentiloni at the White House. During a joint press conference, Trump delivered a speech praising Italy’s scientific and artistic achievement, in which he appeared to go off script, adding an aside about his friendship with Pavarotti. Reading from notes, Trump said: “Through the ages your country has been a beacon of artistic and scientific achievement that continues today, from Venice to Florence, from Verdi to Pavarotti – friend of mine, great friend of mine.” Aside from the fact that Pavarotti passed away in 2007, the tenor’s…

BLIND SINGER’S BRITTEN DEBUT, NEW YORK Ju Hyeon Han, a student at New York’s Stony Brook University, made opera history in April as the first blind singer cast in a leading role in an American conservatory or university opera production. The South Korean soprano played the role of Female Chorus in Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. TURNAGE RUNS THE MARATHON, LONDON British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage proved fitter than many of his peers when he ran the London Marathon in support of the Brain and Spine Foundation. Renowned for his operas Greek and Anna Nicole, the 56-year old completed the 26.2 miles (42.16km) in five hours and 28 minutes. ROSS EDWARDS’ MANINYAS, BONN As part of a recent tour to Germany, Houston Ballet performed a 1996 work by the company’s…

“What concert wouldn’t be improved with cheese, crackers and something to sip” As I peer out from stages around the country looking at audiences, I often wonder what is going through their heads. Are they enjoying themselves? Are they being moved or entertained? Were they dragged to the concert by a partner and would prefer to be at home in front of the new series of Game of Thrones? Wouldn’t it be great to wire an entire audience up to an EEG machine and capture the brainwaves inspired by a Beethoven quartet or a symphony by Sibelius? Would the brain waves spike at the same moments, or would everyone experience the music in different peaks and troughs? I know when I sit in a concert my mind leaps about like…

 This is your 40th year in Australia, What keeps you coming back to Sydney? “RETIRING IS KILLING, I WOULD JUST DIE. NO, NO, NO, NO RETIREMENT! IF I GET SICK AND AM NOT CAPABLE OF WALKING, THIS IS SOMETHING ELSE, BUT NO, AS LONG AS I FUNCTION NORMALLY, THEN I WILL WORK” I always had a great time with everybody, and the orchestra is very good. I know the whole country, I’ve been everywhere – in the centre, in the Northern Territory, the Bungle Bungles and I also went to Brisbane and Hobart on one of those ABC tours. Now I go to Sydney exclusively. Melbourne is a great city, but I prefer Sydney in terms of the people, the art of living, the restaurants, the situation of the Opera…

If you want to know who Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel really was, you’d better not be expecting a straight answer. Some would say wife; others would say widow. Others still would say lover, mother, monster, muse, composer, writer, anti-Semite, or even alcoholic. It just depends who you’re asking. Alma was, if nothing else, an enigma. Her greatest claim to fame was her impressive circle of celebrity friends. Her marriages to Gustav Mahler, Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius, and writer, poet and playwright Franz Werfel were the tip of the iceberg. She was close with many of the creative male minds of Europe, including Schoenberg, Berg and Bruno Walter. A fair few were lovers, too. A comprehensive survey of Alma’s ‘men’ can be found in the preface to Oliver Hilmes’ aptly titled…

Woollarawarre Bennelong holds a unique place in Australian history. The best-known Aboriginal figure in the early decades of colonial settlement, he was one of the first indigenous Australians to be introduced to European ways. Forging a friendship with Governor Arthur Phillip, he was taken to London and introduced to society. Not only did he learn to speak English quickly, but he penned the first known text in English by an Aboriginal person – a letter written to Governor Phillips’ wife, thanking her for caring for him while he was overseas. Yet, says Stephen Page wryly, if you google “Bennelong”, the first thing that comes up is the Bennelong Restaurant at the Sydney Opera House: “We don’t even have a strong sense of his legacy.” As Artistic Director of Bangarra Dance…

 I love the word “sappy”. Why did you choose it for the title of your cabaret show Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs? “LIVING IN THE US UNDER TRUMP IS EQUAL PARTS SHUDDERINGLY EMBARRASSING THAT HE IS OUR LEADER, AND EQUAL PARTS JUST TERRIFYING THAT HE’S GONNA DRAG US INTO WAR” I chose the word “sappy” because “sappy” to me means sentimental and emotional in a good way, and in Scotland we use it in a sort of an affectionate way. You call someone a big sap if they’re, you know, getting a little weepy-eyed. But also, it’s got a humour in it. I think it signals to the audience that the show is going to be both emotionally charged but also have some fun and laughs. When you set out…

Sinfonietta Berlin Philharmonic/ Claudio Abbado DG 4273132 Abbado s resonant recording has stood the test of time, as has Philip Langridge’s remarkable insights into the song cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared. Glagolitic Mass Bergen Philharmonic & Choir/Edward Gardner CHANDOS CHSA5165 (SACD) With soloists including Stuart Skelton, the third in Gardner’s 21st-century Janácek comes with superb Chandos sound. Jenufa Elisabeth Söderström s , Vienna Philharmonic/Sir Charles Mackerras DECCA 4758227 (2CD) Tense and biting and radiantly cast, Mackerras was one of the supreme Janácek interpreters of the 20th century. The Cunning Little Vixen Lillian Watson s , Thomas Allen bar , Royal Opera House Covent Garden/ Simon Rattle CHAN3101 (2CD) Simon Rattle’s romantic reading has a stellar cast and the benefit…

“Orchestra and chorus achieve a nuanced sound capturing the sultry magic in this vivid score” Ravel Daphnis and Chloé Les Siècles, Ensemble Aedes/ François-Xavier Roth HMM902277 Ravel called his glittering score to Daphnis et Chloé a ‘Symphonie choreographique’: essentially a ‘symphony with dance’, the perfect description for a work of such majesty, where the music really is centre-stage. The score is usually segmented into three suites for concert performance, making a hearing of the full version all too rare a treat. Thankfully François-Xavier Roth with period instrument orchestra Les Siècles and Ensemble Aedes deliver the full ballet on this recent release with Harmonia Mundi, with the most stunning results. The exact date of inception of Daphnis et Chloé is somewhat disputed, but the original commission came from Diaghilev, for the…

“This homage to Rostropovich’s wide-ranging musicianship is lovingly shaped throughout” Rostropovich Encores Music by Chopin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Popper, Debussy et al Alban Gerhardt vc, Markus Becker p HYPERION CDA68136 In the era of Spotify playlists and three-minute YouTube videos, we might expect to be living in a golden age of the “sample album”. And yet, with a few fascinating exceptions (I’m looking at you, Mahan Esfahani and Daniel Hope), the classical music establishment still mostly dishes us jumbled, forgettable pot-pourris. So why should we care about Alban Gerhardt’s new collection of encores? Well, for one, it’s immaculately played by Gerhardt and pianist Markus Becker. But, more importantly, the programming comes straight from the cellist’s beating heart. Gerhardt grew up with a Rostropovich obsession (even waking each day to the strains…

“Davies and Arcangelo take a controlled approach, despite the talk of Sodom’s apples” Bach Cantatas 170, 54 & 82 Iestyn Davies ct, Arcangelo/ Jonathan Cohen HYPERION CDA68111 There seems to be no end to the talents of Iestyn Davies. A thoroughly modern countertenor, Davies is at home in all sorts of venues, whether they be churches, concert halls, opera houses, recording studios theatres, and wherever he goes he impresses audiences with both the breadth and the quality of his performances. So it is only natural that such a talented performer should want to turn his hand to that greatest of composers, JS Bach. The only problem is, as Richard Wigmore points out in his illuminating notes, “with countertenors confined to English cathedral choirs and castrati to the opera house, ‘alto’…

“South Australia becomes the first Australian colony to give women the vote” In 1894, a powerful brand is about to get even more ubiquitous. Up to this point, Coca Cola has been available to the mass market, but its distribution has been limited: it’s only been available in glasses, filled from soda fountains. In 1894 it’s sold in bottles for the first time, and increased portability enables it to reach every corner of the globe in coming decades. The world’s increased sugar intake needs to be worked off somehow, and sport is a sure-fire answer. On 16 June 1894, the ‘Congress on the Revival of the Olympic Games’ begins at Paris’s Sorbonne University, and within two weeks a unanimous vote has decided to initiate the modern games, beginning in Athens…

The Sleeping Beauty This most lavish production reawakens a world of courtly love, charming fairies and a glittering masked ball. Australian Ballet, Arts Centre Melbourne, June 16 – 27 Dance Dialogues See company dancers and Jette Parker Young Artists in a unique and stunning collection of short ballets. Queensland Ballet, Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane, June 7 – 17 SA Dance Festival The new dance convention brings Australia’s best choreographers and instructors to Adelaide for a two-day celebration of dance. Westminster College, Adelaide, June 11 – 12…

TONY NOMS FOR CATE & TIM THEATRE Cate Blanchett has received a Tony Award nomination for her standout performance in Sydney Theatre Company’s The Present. The New York season marked her Broadway debut. Tim Minchin’s musical Groundhog Day, written with Danny Rubin, has eight nominations including a nod for Best Musical. In April, Groundhog Day was named Best Musical at London’s Olivier Awards. Blanchett, meanwhile, returns to the London stage in 2018 in a new adaptation of the 1950 film All About Eve. The Tony Awards will be announced on June 11. STC’S WHARF RENOVATION THEATRE Thanks to a $30 million grant from the NSW State Government, Sydney Theatre Company has greenlit a major redevelopment of its home at the Wharf. Costing a total of $60 million, it is the…

A Quiet Passion Opens: June 22 Genre: Biographical drama Duration: 125 minutes Neruda Opens: May 25 Genre: Biographical drama Duration: 107 minutes Paterson Available: VOD and DVD now Duration: 118 minutes Genre: Drama A trilogy of poets ranging from the good to the bad and the ugly Films about poets are much like suburban buses – you get nothing for a good long period, and then three come along at once. First came Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, which looked at the creative process of an American bus driver-cum-poet, was loosely inspired by the life of William Carlos Williams and is now available on Video on Demand. This month sees two more – Neruda, examining the turbulent life of Chilean poet and Communist politician Pablo Neruda (from Pablo Larrain, the Chilean filmmaker…

FOR THE DIARY… ABC CLASSIC FM The Classic 100: Love June 10-12 This year, Classic 100 celebrates love, the greatest of all human experiences, from the passion of first love to the heartbreak of love lost. You can hear the Classic 100: Love – Music of Passion and Heartbreak over the weekend of June 10-12. From the drama of the opera and the grace of the ballet, to the longing of a love song and the orchestral soundtracks from our favourite romantic movies, love stories are among music’s most enduring inspirations. Classic 100: Love is your chance to reflect on your memories, dreams and favourite love stories by sharing your music of passion and heartbreak. SIMPLY CLASSICAL Classic 2 broadcasts Australia’s finest musicians 24/7. Listen online & mobile at abc.net.au/classic2…

The Snow Maiden Paris Opera presents a new production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s original 1882 version of The Snow Maiden. Based on a Slavic legend, this magical fantasy follows Snegurochka (Aida Garifullina), born in times of old in Tsar Berendey’s mythical kingdom, the fruit of the union between Spring the Beauty and Grandfather Frost. She bears a secret: her heart is made of ice, and if warmed by human love, it will melt. June 9 – 14 Don Carlo Zubin Mehta is at the helm of the Orchestra and Choir of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino for Verdi’s grand opera about love, ambition and intrigue. The story follows Carlos Prince of Asturias (Roberto Aronica), who is betrothed to Elizabeth of Valois (Julianna Di Giacomo), the daughter of the French king. However, for political reasons,…

INFORMUSIC Informusic, created by two musicology students from the US, promises to be an all-in-one music history resource for students, professors, and classical music lovers. What it really is a handy reference tool for introducing users to major composers and their works. The app boasts an advisory board of musicologists that reviews content for quality and relevance. Composers are detailed in engaging biographies, with their key works available to users both in score format or as an audio file. Drawbacks of the latter include the requirement for an Internet connection, and the sound quality of the tracks lacks consistency. One immediately evident strength of the app is the interactive timelines which contextualise the lives of composers and their works with significant events from the period. “We hope that it allows…

ANDREW ARONOWICZ ALMA MAHLER Andrew Aronowicz is mostly a composer, but sometimes writes words. He has had performances with the Tasmanian and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, and was a 2013 Australian Youth Orchestra Fellow, which is how he met the lovely people (his words) at Limelight. ALBERT EHRNROOTH THE REFORMATION Musicologist and multilingual journalist Albert Ehrnrooth has written for numerous international publications, including The Guardian (UK), De Telegraaf (NL) and Svenska Dagbladet (SWE). He currently resides in the UK from which he happily travels for Limelight. TIM MUNRO PACIFICA QUARTET 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.…

STASHED PIANO TREASURE A hoard of gold coins stashed in a piano at the Bishop’s Castle Community College in Shropshire has been declared treasure after its original owner failed to come forward. The collection of more than 900 sovereigns and half sovereigns from 1847 to 1915 was discovered by a piano tuner. As treasure, ownership now lies with the crown, a committee from the British Museum will value the coins, which add up to the equivalent of 6kg of gold bullion. NEW BOSS FOR OPERAQ Patrick Nolan will take over from Lindy Hume as Artistic Director of Opera Queensland in November. The AD of Australian aerial theatre company Legs On The Wall from 2009 to 2014, Nolan is an experienced director of opera, theatre, physical theatre and large-scale outdoor events,…

1. What first drew you to the piano? My parents were not musicians, but we moved to a house with a piano in the basement. My grandmother sat down at the piano, which was a big surprise for me, because I thought I knew her very well. Immediately I said, how does that work? She explained the whole story, that she had to give up the piano when she was young because of the Depression. She started to teach me how to read the notes. I was very eager, it all happened very quickly. She found a teacher for me, and that's a how it started. 2. Are there any particular pianists you remember listening to growing up? Many. I remember people who had very strong personalities, especially with certain…

Barefooted violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, whose dynamic interpretations are guaranteed to polarise opinion, has launched her season as Artist in Residence at London’s Wigmore Hall. The concert featured an eclectic programme of violin and piano duos performed with Polina Leschenko. While some expressed horror or even disgust at her wild interpretation of Ravel’s gypsy-themed Tzigane, the Financial Times found it a highlight, saying in a five-star review: “She made this well-whipped warhorse seem new”.…

The idea for a work for clarinet and bassoon came from a conversation in 2014 with Tahnee van Herk, principal bassoon of the TSO. I had just completed a little work for chamber orchestra called Tarraleah, which was commissioned for the TSO by Hydro Tasmania. Tahnee asked if I would be interested in writing a piece for her to play with Andrew Seymour, Principal Clarinet in the orchestra, and I immediately jumped at the opportunity. Gradually the idea for the piece evolved into a ‘double concerto’ which could be a companion piece for the Duett-Concertino for Solo Clarinet, Bassoon and String Orchestra by Richard Strauss. One of his final compositions and written in 1947, the Duett-Concertino is one of only about four works that I could discover for anything similar…

“THERE IS DRAMA, FEAR FROM BOTH SIDES AS TO HOW THE VISIT WOULD BE SEEN AROUND THE WORLD AND, OF COURSE, THE ACHIEVEMENT AND SUCCESS” Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China – the first time that a US President had visited the People’s Republic – is considered one of the major successes of his presidential career. In fact, opening up relations with China was an achievement powerful enough to, almost, stand against the Watergate scandal in popular memory of the 37th president of the USA. And it is to this historic event, rather than the scandals, that composer John Adams turned for his first – now his most famous – opera, excerpts of which will be performed in Sydney as part of the Vivid LIVE Festival, conducted by Andrew…

1. THE PERILOUS ESCAPE When Alma was fleeing Europe to escape the Nazis with her third husband, the Werfels reached a roadblock at the French-Spanish border. Werfel, being stateless, wasn’t allowed to cross, so the couple had to find another way around: a hazardous trek over the Pyrenees. From all accounts, Alma took it all quite well. 2. THE DEAL WITH THE NAZIS Hitler was an avid Bruckner-lover, and the Nazis eventually found out that Alma was in possession of the original manuscript of the Third Symphony. Her asking price was exorbitant, but she knew they had the gold. The correspondence lasted years, even after she settled in the US, though for one reason or another the transaction fell through. 3. THE FAMOUS FEUD When Vassily Kandinsky was looking for…

Martin Luther made the congregation sing and his psalm paraphrases set a new benchmark for hymn compositions. But it is as a catalyst for musical change that Luther has been truly significant. His chorales were the point of departure for leading German 16th-century composers like Hassler and Praetorius. The 17th century’s major German composer Heinrich Schütz wrote a number of Passions and Magnificats with texts drawn from the Lutheran Bible. “Notes make the text come alive”, Luther said, and no composer has been a more perfect conduit of the word of God than JS Bach. Lutheran teachings and chorales are infused in Bach’s cantatas, masses and Passions. Felix Mendelssohn was a Lutheran and responsible for reviving Bach’s St Matthew Passion. His Reformation Symphony commemorates the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg…

In contentious times, we know the story. Two sides are separated by a great distance, and cannot find their way to unity without a go-between, a trusted, passionate and eloquent guide. A middle voice. Such is the musical challenge of the string quartet. Two high-voiced violins stand at one pole, a single low cello stands at the other. Sandwiched in between, there is this crucial middle voice. The viola. “There’s only one of you”, says Masumi Per Rostad, violist with the Pacifica Quartet. But that one is mighty. “You straddle worlds of sound, worlds of musical character. Sometimes you’re Eusebius and sometimes Florestan”, he says, referring to Robert Schumann’s invented personality-characters, the first sensitive and quiet, the other outwardly exuberant. The role of violist “requires you to be very mercurial”.…

LIVED 1854-1928 MOSTLY IN BRNO BEST KNOWN FOR SINFONIETTA, GLAGOLITIC MASS, JENUFA, THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN SIMILAR TO BARTÓK, HAAS, KRASA, NOVÁK “Believe me, I cannot escape from our two walks. Like a heavy. beautiful dream; in which I am bewitched. I know that I’d be consumed in that heat which cannot catch fire. On the paths I’d plant oaks which would endure for centuries; and into their trunks I’d carve the words which I shouted into the air. I don’t want them to be lost, I want them to be known.” Leoš Janácÿek to Kamila Stösslová, April 25, 1927 For Janácek, at the age of 72, his visit to Písek and his ‘two walks’ with Kamila Stösslová were a turning-point. Needing to have the house painted, and knowing her…

What does Daphnis et Chloé represent for you? Daphnis et Chloé is Ravel’s most monumental work and certainly one of his supreme masterpieces. He was very much at home with the theme of Antiquity, and he presents a wide range of tableaux, rhythms and orchestral colours. The most intimate music sits side by side with the most grandiose, the most luxuriant. Ravel raised the French ‘Impressionist’ orchestral style to a sort of apogee, just as Schoenberg wrote the last great work of Romanticism with his Gurre-Lieder. What has been your approach here to Daphnis ? The orchestra has done a lot of research on the works of the Ballets Russes and especially the music of Ravel. It’s been well known for a long…

“Sabata is one of opera’s finest actors, able to take hold of a text and run with it” Catharsis Arias by Handel, Vivaldi et al Xavier Sabata ct, Armonia Atenea/George Petrou APARTÉ AP143 In Aristotle’s Poetics, catharsis was considered a desirable state brought about by arousing and magnifying the emotions in such a way that the spectator’s inner being would be purified. The best way to do this, Aristotle reckoned, was to evoke fear and pity by confronting an audience with a vision of souls in torment. The musical equivalent is what Catalan countertenor Xavier Sabata aims to induce on the enterprising Aparté label with a string of mostly unknown opera seria arias by the likes of Orlandini, Conti, Torri, Caldara, Ariosti and Sarro plus a handful of classics from…

“Many of Marchesi’s other pupils also went on to enjoy glittering operatic careers” [ MUSIC ] Divas: Mathilde Marchesi and her Pupils Roger Neill Sydney: New South, 2016, HB, 480pp, $70 ISBN 9781742235240 Nellie Melba’s teacher and the extraordinary women around her “Salvatore, j’ai enfin une étoile!” [At last, I have a star!] So, according to several accounts, did formidable vocal technician and bel canto instructor Mathilde Marchesi (1821-1913) call out in great excitement to her husband when a young Australian singer, Mrs Helen Armstrong, auditioned for her in Paris in December, 1886. In a career spanning five-and-a-half decades, Marchesi taught over 500 singers (all female), including Armstrong, who, at Marchesi’s encouragement, changed her name to Nellie Melba (1861-1931) in honour of her home town of Melbourne. Many of Marchesi’s…

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…

1. The heroine of Halévy’s opera La Juive perishes by falling into what? 2. Which of Bruckner’s symphonies is commonly subtitled“The Wagner”? 3. Where’er you walk is a famous tenor aria from which Handel opera? 4. A song about St Anthony of Padua preaching to the fishes forms the basis of a movement from which Mahler symphony? 7. A petulant young Princess falls for John the Baptist in which two operas, one by a German, one more French? 8. Which composer wrote the orchestral work Mavis in Las Vegas after his name was muddled in a hotel booking? 9. The Greek Passion is an opera in English by which Czech composer? 10. Which Beethoven pupil (and pedagogue feared by piano students today) taught Liszt?…

Opera superstar Anna Netrebko will make her Australian debut in October when she tours to Melbourne and Sydney. The Russian diva, who is arguably the highest profile soprano on the operatic stage, will sing opera highlights alongside her husband, tenor Yusif Eyvazov. Opera singers don’t come much starrier than Netrebko who was the first classical musician to make it onto Time magazine’s list of the world’s most influential people. In 2015, she received an 11-minute ovation as Joan of Arc in Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco at La Scala. Her recent stage triumphs include Verdi’s Lady Macbeth and Wagner’s Elsa in Lohengrin at Dresden’s Semperoper, while her solo recital debut at the Metropolitan Opera sold out. Netrebko and Eyvazov, who have sung opera highlights in concert together in the past, will be…

Miles Davis Kind of Blue COLUMBIA 1367577 The best poetic jazz recording. All the musicians are so inspired and Bill Evans is one my favorite pianists with his very distinguished language. I have bought this recording a hundred times for friends who don't like jazz and if they like it I try Bitches Brew. Schumann Symphony No 4 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Wilhelm Furtwängler DG 4577222 (2CD) This is an incredibly expressive recording. The Berlin orchestra plays as if it is chamber music but with a huge and transparent sound. The Deutsche Grammophon disc may be in mono, but the recording is tremendous. Duke Ellington Money Jungle BLUE NOTE 5382272 Ellington is a genius with hundreds of masterpieces ( I have five idols who I know everything about and were all born…

BARIS YAZGI 1995 – 2017 On April 23, a refugee ship sank off the Greek island of Lesbos. Sixteen people drowned including a 22-year old Kurdish violinist from Turkey called Baris Yazgi. Born in Siirt, he wanted to go to Belgium, where his brother Cengiz Yazgi lives, to study music. When his body was found, he was hugging a violin case containing his instrument and some handwritten compositions. Baris had been a troubled teenager but he loved music, playing the guitar and writing his own songs. Cengiz – who is also a musician – told The Independent that he partly attributes his brother’s recent transformation to his love of the violin – which Cengiz gave him five years ago. "He came a long way, he was good. He was even…

The circumstances surrounding Niccolò Paganini’s death did little to quench the rumours of his devilish dealings. The virtuoso had been plagued by stories of deals with the devil and his ill-health – attributed to everything from tuberculosis, intestinal disorders, cholera, necrotising osteitis in his jaw, syphilis and the negative effects of the mercury taken to treat the syphilis – had lent his features a death-like cast. The waspish critic Heinrich Heine even described him as a “corpse risen from the grave, a vampire with a violin”. “In reality, everyone had noticed and had guessed for a long time that Paganini and Satan were in the most intimate relationship,” wrote the mealy-mouthed French critic François-Joseph Fétis. “That is, provided they are not one and the same thing.” Having fled Paris to…

BORN MELBOURNE STUDIED PSYCHOLOGY AT MELBOURNE UNI, SINGING PRIVATELY LIKES COFFEE, THE OCEAN, DISCOVERING NEW MUSIC DISLIKES DISCRIMINATION OF ANY KIND, GOSSIP, APATHY What first got you into singing, and what did you love about it as a kid? I grew up in a close-knit Italian community and quickly discovered I was happiest when making music. When I started primary school my parents put me into piano lessons. Soon after I joined the Victorian Boys Choir. Did your early involvement with choral music inform your operatic career? Yes, definitely. That early education in choral singing afforded me the ability to sight-read music in both treble and bass clef. Also, by the time I had started studying solo singing, I had already sung in five languages. It put me in a…

How do you fathom the unfathomable? “My mother is a supernatural being, beyond the reach of ordinary mortals”, says Stéphanie Argerich in Bloody Daughter, her revealing 2014 documentary about the complex relationship she has with pianist parents Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich. The title is a comment of her father’s, not, as is often assumed, somehow related to her mother. One of the greatest pianists of the last 50 years, and still playing at the age of 75, Martha Argerich is famously media shy. She doesn’t do interviews, she fell out of love with the recording studio in the 1980s, ditto with solo performances, preferring the camaraderie of chamber music or working with an orchestra. She has a reputation for cancelling, yet she’ll dep for a colleague, as she did…

Do you consider Mstislav Rostropovich to have been the greatest cellist of all time? That’s a difficult question, because if I say yes, I would exclude Pablo Casals. But I think Rostropovich had the greatest influence on the cello. Not only was he, let’s say one of the greatest cellists of his time – we entitled our box “Cellist of the Century” – but what is very special about Rostropovich is that he created, and encouraged a lot of repertoire to be created, for the cello. He was the dedicatee of more than 250 works, which is absolutely huge. So not only is he one of the best cellists in history, he created the most important chunk of repertoire. How significant was the extent of that expansion of the repertoire?…

Luther’s musical legacy is one of seeding an extraordinarily rich polyphonic and harmonic harvest: his chorale tunes are straightforward enough for a congregation to pick up, and usually have a melodic hook that composers down the ages have seized upon. In my view, human beings are spiritual by default – that’s just who we are; how that ‘urge’ is channeled or cultivated, varies greatly from culture to culture, and age to age, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some universal desires to be fulfilled and some universal questions to be answered. Our 21st-century Australia is just as much in need of consolation and transformation as 16th-century Europe. Whether it helps to be religious when you sing or conduct Bach is one of those age-old questions. The consensus seems to…

Brahms • Schumann Piano Quintet, String Quartet with Menahem Pressler CEDILLE RECORDS CDR90000170 The quartet’s latest album, a collaboration with the nonogenarian pianist of the legendary Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler, glows calmly with the love of chamber music embedded within this beloved musical figure. Not for chamber music thrill-seekers. The Soviet Experience Complete String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich CEDILLE RECORDS BOX1003 (8CD) A four-volume, eight-album project of the complete quartets by Shostakovich, programmed alongside works by his Soviet contemporaries, including Sergei Prokofiev, Mieczysław Weinberg, Alfred Schnittke and Nikolai Myaskovsky. The Pacifica’s approach to Shostakovich is warmly lyrical, placing the quartets firmly in the tradition of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, and its brilliantly-chosen couplings are consistently fascinating. Elliott Carter String Quartets Nos 1 – 5 NAXOS 8559362 & 8559363 This two-disc…

SPEECH MELODY Janácrek used to notate fragments of overheard speech, saying that it gave him an insight into people’s psychology and was an essential part of the training of any opera composer. His vocal lines often reflect the rhythmic and melodic patterns of the Czech language. MOROVIAN FOLKSONG Janácrek collected, edited and arranged Morovian folksong for most of his life. Its rhythmic irregularities and rich modal language helped liberate him from his academic training. OSTINATO ACCOMPANIMENTS Janácrek often used short repeated instrumental figures to provide a somewhat disruptive accompaniment for his vocal or instrumental tunes. NO MIDDLE Romantic orchestration tries to spread sound evenly throughout, but Janácrek’s characteristic sound exploits high and low registers with little in the middle. UNUSUAL SUBjECTS A ‘green’ opera with a large cast of animals…

 Eloquence has released the complete Tchaikovsky Symphonies on three double-CD disc sets. The collection is built around Claudio Abbado’s mid-1970s recordings of Symphonies Nos 4 and 6 with the Vienna Philharmonic and No 5 with the London Symphony Orchestra. These strong and cleanly recorded performances have been reissued frequently, even in the LP era. Unfortunately, Abbado recorded Nos 1 and 3 for another company, so Eloquence have found alternatives. No 3 (the Polish), features the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Israeli conductor Moshe Atzmon (who was the Sydney Symphony’s Chief Conductor from 1967 to 1971), giving a mellow reading of this problematic work. No 1, (Winter Daydreams), is the well regarded 1970 recording by the very young Michael Tilson Thomas leading a smooth as silk Boston Symphony. For No 2 (…

Black is the New White A new laugh out loud romantic comedy by acclaimed columnist and playwright Nakkiah Lui. Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 1 Theatre, May 5 – June 17 1984 An exploration of surveillance and identity, Orwell’s dystopian future gets the full theatrical treatment. Sydney Theatre Company, Roslyn Packer Theatre, June 28 – July 22 Mr Burns Mitchell Butel stars as the weary survivors of a post-apocalyptic society console themselves by piecing together an episode of The Simpsons. Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney, May 19 – June 25 Neville’s Island Four Aussie businessmen set out on a team-building weekend only to become trapped on an island in Tasmania. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, June 29 – August 12 Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. A searing exploration of the kind of language that…

Time, light, Japan Bask in and interact with Japanese art exploring time and light through video, photography, sound and installations from the 1990s to now. Art Gallery of NSW, until May 14 Kader Attia Themes of injury and therapy open up in this engrossing exhibition on trauma and its repercussions for the individual and society. Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, until July 30 Artists of the Great War This exhibition presents artists’ perceptions of WWI, from recruitment posters to first hand impressions. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, until June 30…

NON-FICTION Music Remembers Me Kirsty Beilharz Hammondcare Media, PB, 220pp, $30 ISBN 9780994546111 Kirsty Beilharz’s Music Remembers Me brings to life the experience of people living with dementia and their interaction with music through an Australian-first project involving more than 700 aged care residents, with foreword by Richard Gill. NON-FICTION Music, Evolution and the Harmony of Souls Alan R. Harvey Oxford Universty Press, HB, 320pp, $71 ISBN 9780198786856 Music is central to human cultural and intellectual experience. It is important for the welfare of human society and – this book argues – should become more widely accepted in our community as an educational and therapeutic tool. NON-FICTION Mozart’s Starling Lyanda Lynn Haupt Little, Brown, HB, 288pp, $54 ISBN 9780316370899 Haupt explores the unlikely bond between one of history’s most controversial…

 The wistful Marschallin in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier has long been a favourite role for sopranos taking their leave of the opera stage. Here Renée Fleming sings her last performance of one of her most acclaimed roles at the Metropolitan Opera, heading a distinguished cast that includes Latvian mezzo El¯na Garancra, American soprano Erin Morley, and Austrian bass Günther Groissböck. Sebastian Weigle conducts Strauss’ ravishing score, with luxury casting in the form of Matthew Polenzani as the Italian singer. “Hofmannsthal’s libretto deftly combines comedy, fantasy and genuine human drama” In this new production, Robert Carsen moves the opera to the end of the Habsburg Empire, foregrounding the work’s exploration of class and conflict against a rich but decaying world of excess that was to crumble under the horrors of World…

3MBS 103.5 SHOWCASING MUSIC IN MELBOURNE Saturdays at 11am Presenter (and reviewer for Limelight) Sascha Kelly explores what’s on, what’s new and what’s worthwhile on the fine music scene in Melbourne. The programme features local musicians and performances, including guests live from the 3MBS performance studio. This month’s guests include Julie Edwardson, Artistic Director of Emotionworks Cut Opera to discuss their upcoming production of Carmen, and Ensemble 642, who specialise in repertoire from the late 16th to early 18th century. ARTSOUND FM CONCERT HALL Sundays at 8pm This is your opportunity to catch the best of Canberra’s live classical music performances by local and international artists. Every year, ArtSound volunteers record around 50 such concerts. You can hear many of them on Concert Hall and also keep in touch with…

“Down the road I watched the Sydney Opera House being built on my daily commute” The musical experiences I love best are the ‘live’ ones. It’s the ritual of concerts, the communion with other fans, and above all the visceral, theatrical experience of watching music being created in the moment. Another addiction, I’m happy to confess, is the buzz of ‘live’ radio. When that red light goes on, it’s also a branch of theatrical performance. I didn’t set out to be a performer, though my family has its quota of would-be thespians and musicians. My parents met at a Yehudi Menuhin concert and our radio was glued to the ABC. Mum was a good violinist and used to sing opera whilst vacuuming which embarrassed me because it wasn’t a cool…