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Canberra Today 22°/24° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review / CIMF Concert 13, “French Invention”!

YESTERDAY’S ‘French Invention’ concert at the Fitters’ Workshop opened with Olivier Messiaen’s 1937 Oraison (prayer) for ondes martenot and piano, from his sublime suite for six Ondes Martenot Fete Des Belles Eaux (Celebration of Beautiful Water).

Nadia Ratsimandresy
Nadia Ratsimandresy
Pianist Jacob Abela created a stately, reverential space into which ondes player Nadia Ratsimandresy unfolded serene melodic lines. Distinctively Messiaen, Oraison’s phrases are impossibly long, impossibly beautiful and extremely difficult. Ratsimandresy’s control of line, especially her ability to build tension over very long passages, was compelling.

The first half of the program included moving performances of Maurice Ravel’s 1914 Cinq mélodies grecques and Deux mélodies hèbraïques by soprano Taryn Fiebig and pianist Roland Peelman – and also the premiere of Epirus – An Ancient Voice, for ondes & tape an interesting new work by Konstantin Koukias.

Just before interval, Ratsimandresy and Abela returned to the stage for a breathtaking performance of Tristan Murail’s Tigres de verre, from 1974, for Ondes Martenot and piano.

Roland Peelman and Taryn Fiebig
Roland Peelman and Taryn Fiebig
This was the absolute highlight of the concert for this reviewer. The title Tigres de verre is taken from the famous novel Tlön, Ugbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge-Luis Borges, a novel about a metaphysical world that slowly penetrates the real world. Similarly, Murail’s Tigres de verre, like the Borges’ novel, creates two sounding worlds and brings them together to astonishing effect. The work begins with a single resounding tone, in ondes, growing out of silence.

With the crashing entry of piano, however, a new world is placed against the old. High notes bring low notes into being; sustained notes conjure trills or staccato.  And what begins as opposition ends as fusion – the ondes and piano become extensions of one another. Where the piano provides a note’s attack, the ondes gives the sustain. Pointillism is layered over legato lines to create new textures and colours. Ratsimandresy’s mastery of this unusual instrument was very evident  – the ondes was consistently poetic, at times sounding like some kind of fantastical bird, spanning extraordinary timbres and tessituras.

Alice GilesA change in repertoire and mood marked the second half of the French Invention concert. Two quintessentially French chamber pieces were presented, Jean Françaix’s 1933 String Trio, composed when he was only 21 years old, and Jean Cras’ magical Quintet for flute, string trio and harp from 1934. The Boccherini Trio brought Françaix’s pastoral Trio to life with a conversational style and light scherzo humour. The violin, played by Suyeon Kang, was particularly moving in the slow movement.

Jean Cras was a naval Rear Admiral, twice decorated in the First World War, as well as an inventor, scientist, philosopher and composer. No longer widely performed, Cras once enjoyed the same celebrity as better known symbolists like Debussy and Ravel. Cras’ Quintet for flute, string trio and harp is the music of fairy tales, a landscape that opens onto harp peals and undulating flute.  Alice Giles took the spotlight in this work, effortlessly rendering impressionistic phrases – characterised by parallelism and pentatonicism – with obvious affinity for the genre.

Another brave and interesting program from a festival, which, by all indication, will become one of Australia’s top musical events.

Pictures by Peter Hislop

 

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