Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 12 Mar 2025
The Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) is a nationally and internationally respected classical music performance training academy for Australia’s best young musicians who are well along the path to establishing themselves as musical forces to be reckoned with. Simone Young AM, who should need no introduction, has opined that “ANAM is an extraordinary institution: intense, demanding, challenging and immensely rewarding to be involved with. The musicians are totally engaged and committed.”
ANAM’s recent concert – A Viennese Matinée – as part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express Series is a palpable testament to Young’s assessment. The concert presented a tantalising taste of the musical culture of Vienna, that most musical of cities, and included works by Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven, and J. Strauss. The program was performed by six ANAM students, including three with Adelaide connections, and two of ANAM’s faculty, including Paavali Jumppanen, who is ANAM’s Artistic Director and an internationally celebrated piano virtuoso in his own right, and violinist Zoë Black.
Schubert’s sublimely beautiful Notturno for Piano Trio, Op.148 (D.897) was performed by Jasmine Milton (violin), Jack Overall (cello) and Paavali Jumppanen (piano). The piece begins delicately with bell like tones on the piano and gentle pizzicato on the strings, before the drama starts with an emphatic tutti. The pace was more measured than what is often presented allowing musical technique to be more exposed and scrutinised, but Jumppanen kept a tight rein, and both Milton and Overall, never faulted. A delightful start to the program!
Maria Zhdanovich (Flute) and Georgia White (clarinet) then performed duet arrangements of dances from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. The arrangements were finely balanced and elegant, and the articulation of both performers was exceptional. It’s as if the two pieces were always intended for flute and clarinet alone.
The main item on the program was Beethoven’s monumental Violin Sonata No.9 in A major, Op.47, but arranged for string quintet, featuring Zoe Black and Jasmine Milton on violin, Jamie Miles on viola, and Ariel Volovelsky and Jack Overall on cello. Scholars believe that it is likely that Beethoven himself arranged the work for string quintet in order to draw out the emotion and drama that he intended but could not find it with the piano and violin alone. Interestingly, the usual combination of instruments for a string quintet at the time included two violas, not two cellos, which gives the piece an earthier sound with much more gravitas. However, most people know the Kreutzer in its usual form for violin and piano, and many members of the audience, regardless of their appreciation in hearing the quintet format, stated their preference for the original! The original has a delicateness to it at times, which feels lost when the dialogue between two instruments becomes a cross-conversation between five. Sections of the audience applauded after each of the first two movements, but the applause at the end of the finale was thunderous!
The program concluded with Arnold Schoenberg’s arrangement of Johann Strauss II’s Emperor Waltz Op.437. Originally scored for a full orchestra, Schoenberg’s arrangement for a reduced chamber ensemble underlines his belief that it promotes “a clarity of presentation and a simplicity of formal enunciation often not possible in a rendition obscured by the richness of orchestration”. Indeed, one might suggest the listening experience becomes more challenging, as melody lines and accompaniment become more exposed. In some ways, the reverse was experienced in the listening of the expanded version of Beethoven’s Kreutzer! The full ANAM ensemble clearly enjoyed performing the arrangement, and the final movement was especially appealing in its clarity.
ANAM is an organisation to be cherished and supported at every opportunity. Our Australian musical landscape is the richer for it.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
