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| Roland Peelman conducting "Music of the Spheres" |
Canberra International Music Festival
Llewellyn Hall – Saturday May 17
Reviewed by Bill Stephens
Though not the final concert of the festival, “The Fire and
the Rose” never-the-less provided Christopher Latham with his perfect swan song
as Artistic Director. For despite the rigours of planning and delivering a very
ambitious festival, Latham had held enough energy in reserve to conduct five of
the seven demanding works on the program, commencing with the mighty “Mars – The
Bringer of War”, one of the seven movements from “The Planets”, composed by
Gustav Holst between 1914 and 1916.
The impressive Canberra Festival Orchestra, made up of ANU
School of Music faculty, staff and students and Sprogis Woods Smith Young
Artists responded to the considerable demands of this piece with commendable
energy and precision, as they also did with the following work, “Romanza”, from
Ralph Vaughn Williams’ WW2 Fifth Symphony, for which he utilised many of the
musical themes from his operatic work “The Pilgrims Progress”. Its lush warm
tones provided a soothing contrast to the bombast of “Mars”.
For the third work “Sunset Epilogue and Evening”, which
Richard Strauss composed in 1915 prior to being absorbed into the military
during World War 1, an organ and harps were added to the orchestra to assist in
recreating a musical impression of a day’s mountain climb in the Bavarian Alps,
climaxing in a fierce thunderstorm which ultimately dissolves into quiet sunset
and eventual darkness. Commendable attention to expression and detail by
conductor and orchestra allowed the composers’ intentions to be easily imagined
by the audience.
“Cortege”, a sombre
but accessible short work, one of two remaining sections of a suite composed by
Scotsman, Cecil Coles, in 1918, preceded,
what for many was the highlight of the evening, the haunting “Symphony
No 1 “Da Pacem Domine”, composed by Ross Edwards, one of the Composers-in-residence for the
festival.
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| Christopher Latham conducting "Da Pacem Domine" Didgeridoo player, William Barton, centre |
For this work, except for a spotlight over didgeridoo
player, William Barton, and the conductor, all other stage lights were extinguished. Light
escaping from the individual orchestra lights suggested a starry sky, creating
an eerie, beautiful and mysterious ambiance.
With just the tiniest pulsing sound emanating from the orchestra, Barton
began to wail. Eventually his wailing was replaced by the sounds of his didgeridoo,
as the evocative orchestrations gathered momentum. An astonishing and evocative
piece of writing, so compelling that when it ended no-one wanted to break the
spell by clapping. However, when conductor, Christopher Latham called the
composer on to the stage, the applause was thunderous. Partly in recognition of
a remarkable composition by Edwards, partly for a remarkable performance by the
orchestra, but mostly for the remarkable achievements of the conductor who had just conducted his last
performance as Artistic Director of the Canberra International Music Festival.
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| Conductor, Christopher Latham, composer, Ross Edwards, soloist, William Barton acknowledge applause |
In a graceful gesture, Latham had programmed the concert so
that last two works were conducted by incoming Artistic Director, Roland
Peelman. It was no surprise to learn that this performance of “Music of the
Spheres” composed by Danish composer, Rued Langgaard between 1916 and 1918, was
its Australian premiere. Not only does the work require huge musical and vocal
resources, it also demands intense concentration from the conductor, the
musicians and the audience. According to the program notes Langgaard claimed,
that in composing the work, he had “completely abandoned any sort of motif,
planned structure, form or coherence”.
What emerged sounded like a series of experiments to find
out how many unusual sounds could be extracted from various combinations of
musical instruments and voices. For a
while, watching Roland Peelman coaxing, imploring and encouraging his vast
resources, like a huge possessed praying mantis, was curiously fascinating but
ultimately, with the realisation that all these extraordinary sounds were leading
nowhere, the whole enterprise seemed like a lot of effort for little result.
Much more interesting was the finale, “Requiem for Eli”,
composed by Nigel Westlake to harness his grief over the sudden death of his
son. Here, Peelman’s inspired conducting gave the orchestra and choirs the
confidence to attack the great crashing walls of despair brilliantly encapsulated
in this brief but brilliant composition, providing a stunning end to a
challenging and ultimately satisfying concert.
This review appears in the May 19th digital edition of CITY NEWS
Photos: Peter Hislop
