Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Grainger Studio. 2 Aug 2024
Symmetry is the second concert in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s 2024 Sanctuary Series, and it was perfectly named. There was indeed symmetry in the program, which included the first movement (Voices of Silence) from Pēteris Vasks’ Symphony No.1, Huang Ruo’s A Dust in Time, Gavin Bryars’ In Nomine (after Purcell), and then Valentin Silvestrov’s Hymn–2001 at the end.
Sanctuary Series concerts are performed in the ASO’s rehearsal venue The Grainger Studio, and two types of seating are on offer: conventional tiered seats, and … yoga mats! For this concert the ASO is reduced to its string sections (and in reduced numbers). The music on offer is deliberately meditative and soothing, the auditorium lights are almost fully dimmed, and formality is intentionally stripped away (even though some in the audience have come directly from work and are in office attire and suits). Applause is expressly forbidden, and the orchestra takes no bows or acknowledgement. It is all about you and both your emotional and physiological response to the music. Physiological because as you allow yourself to deeply relax and concentrate on nothing but the music, you can almost feel your metabolism slowing down, and for many in the audience, gently induced moments of “…innocent sleep that soothes away all our worries …that relieves the weary laborer and heals hurt minds” take over (with apologies to Shakespeare).
It truly is a wonderful way to listen to (some) music.
Voices of Silence begins with most delicately, almost inaudibly, as cello and violin strings are gently rubbed. The sound builds as if one is gradually becoming attuned to the murmurings of a distant crowd of people that is gradually getting closer. The melodic material is minimalistic in content but maximal in its impact: sustained notes around which dance transitory motifs that are evocative of sorrow, loss and solitude. Simplicity continues with A Dust in Time: two-note phrases, one played after the other, rising, falling, one long, the other short. How long before one becomes captive to the sound and loses track of time? Hypnotic. When it almost seems too much the music starts pulsating, cruelly bringing one back to the present as it becomes more evenly measured as it announces its ending. In Nomine (after Purcell) also uses two note figures. Symmetry. It is unfussed, contemplative and almost unemotional, but it has the opposite effect. As the music plays, one starts to observe the audience, especially the figures lying on the floor on yoga mats. They slowly come to the front of one’s mind and one notices the shapes of their silhouettes, the way they are dressed, partners holding hands, then releasing. All in the name of what? Individuals all responding to musical stimulus in their own way. Hymn–2001 then brings us all back to the present. The melody is more obvious. It is dreamy and languid, but life and hope rises out of it as a solo violin gently demands to be noticed. And we do notice it, and the concert is then over.
Gentle and private bliss.
Kym Clayton
When: 2 Aug
Where: Grainger Studios
Bookings: Closed
