Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Grainger Studio. 16 April 2014
A symphony orchestra has a responsibility, arguably, to do more than dish up a staple diet of ‘tried and tested’ masters, and to bring new and notable music to the table as well. This is precisely what the ASO did in its recent concert, and two of the three compositions were by Australians. The odd man out, and the least satisfying despite the expressed enthusiasm of guest conductor Jessica Cottis, was ‘The Fall of the Leafe’ by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, a contemporary British composer and current master of the Queen’s Music.
For string orchestra, ‘The Fall of the Leafe’ is based on a keyboard composition by 16th century composer Martin Peerson. Davies adaptation permutes the notes and metre of the original and effectively conjures up an autumnal setting as gentle but erratic breezes unsettle leaves from trees. The piece comprises numerous short phrases and the entire musical contour is somewhat jaggy. Cottis certainly demonstrated a feel for the changing dynamics and sensitively controlled the fortissimos that were immediately and abruptly followed by the softest of pianissimos.
‘Two Memorials (for Anton Webern and John Lennon)’, by Australian composer James Ledger, was the highlight of the concert. Comprising two linked but very different pieces, the two ‘memorials’ remember the musical lives of two very different modern composers who share the unfortunate link of both having been shot dead! The memorial to Webern, like ‘The Fall of the Leafe’, comprised seemingly sporadic musical ideas that were deeply textured and atonal. It contrasted with the almost playful memorial to Lennon that referenced the famous 1967 Beatles song ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and contained some electronic chicanery in the form of sampled sections from the Webern memorial that were played in reverse on an electronic keyboard.
If Brett Dean had composed his ‘Pastoral Symphony’ in post-Stalinist Russia, he would probably have been locked up and his music banned, because it is subversive. It is protest music. It remonstrates against the destruction of virgin rain forest in the northern Australian tropics, and the resulting destruction of the habitat of native fauna. It is somewhat unsettling music, as one hears birdsong – both mimicked by musical instruments and actual recordings – transmute into the sounds of machinery and the ungodly sounds of a world that is rapidly losing its natural environment. Some of these sounds were created by synthesizer and others by the effective use of aluminium cooking foil (!) and a violin bow being drawn across percussion instruments.
As evocative as the compositions by Davies and Dean were, they didn’t resonate with the audience as much as the two memorials by Ledger.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Grainger Studio
Bookings: Closed
