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Review: Packed house for challenging works

“Credo, Credo”

Canberra International Music Festival, Albert Hall, May 18.

Reviewed by Clinton White

THERE were many contrasts in this concert, with works by four very contrasting composers. Fully one third, perhaps even more, of the Albert Hall was taken up by the musicians, leaving rather less spacious quarters for the capacity audience.

English conductor Andrew Mogrelia
Playing for us were the Canberra Festival Camerata with the ANU School of Music Orchestra, pianist Daniel de Borah, and the more than 100-strong Canberra Festival Chorus. English conductor Andrew Mogrelia took assured charge of proceedings.

In the first work, “Garden of Spaces”, by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, the orchestra surrounded the audience.  Almost in slow motion, for such was the tempo, the music moved around us, front to back, side to side, even all together, giving the ultimate surround-sound experience.

This year would have been the 100th birthday of Australian composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks, and after Peter Sculthorpe spoke in her honour, we sang an impromptu happy birthday. Her 1954 piece, “Etruscan Concerto”, is written in three movements for piano and orchestra.

Pianist Daniel de Borah delivered a very assured, but delightfully light and transparent interpretation of this fabulous piece.  The outer movements are bright and rhythmic, while the middle movement is slow and reflective – almost introspective.

The highlight of this concert was the Australian premiere performance of “Credo” by Latvian composer, and Festival composer-in-residence, Peteris Vasks. No superlative could do a modicum of justice to the beauty of this work, performed superlatively under Mogrelia’s sensitive and masterly direction. Vasks has written that  the job of a composer is to “promote harmony, the existence of ideals and the power of love.”  This work and the performance of it embodied that philosophy.  I was in tears at the end of it and I think the audience was, too.

The final piece could not have more different. “Credo” by Estonian composer, Arvo P?rt, is a choral work written as a statement of Christian faith in a secular communist regime.  The beginning was slow, reflective and tuneful with some lovely harmonies.  There even was a long quote from J S Bach’s Prelude No 1 in C Major, from the “Well Tempered Clavier”.  The middle section of the piece was unmusical cacophony; noisy loud, messy and mixed up across the entire orchestra and choir.  In the end, the tuneful harmonies returned, finally yielding to the sublime Bach Prelude and a relieved but subdued finale. Again Mogrelia directed the work brilliantly, even keeping a tight control over the seeming chaos of the middle section.

Before the concert began, someone stood up to read a statement from the vice-chancellor of the ANU, Professor Ian Young.  Unfortunately, it added little to what we already knew and provided little assurance as to the future of the School of Music. A pity, since many of the musicians playing for us were teachers and students at the School.

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