City Recital Hall

Australian Chamber Orchestra

Lawrence Power (director/violin)

Photos by Jack Liebeck

Review by Paul Neeson (Arts Wednesday)

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British violinist and violist, Lawrence Power was guest Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra in a program entitled Isles of Light. Not only is he a highly talented musician and programmer, but a true story teller with a theatrical flare. The program consisted of British music throughout the ages from the Renaissance to just the other day. Power warned us up front that we would see the ACO in a completely new light, and he was spot on.

The premise of the concert was the 1910 premiere of Vaughn Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. It included music that inspired the composition as well as composers who were there at the time and were inspired by the groundbreaking work. Thrown in for good measure was also a brilliant new work commissioned for the tour from Garth Knox. According to Power, the Vaughan Williams work was received with awe and wonder, and the use of church modes lead one reviewer of the premier performance to comment, “one is never quite sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new”.

The show (and yes it was a show in places) opened with an English mixtape demonstrating the legacy and endurance of English song. Fragments of Renaissance tunes from Purcell and Tallis were interspersed with arrangements of popular songs by Kate Bush and Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood. And it ended with contemporaries of Vaughan Williams, Ivor Gurney and Edward Elgar. Tallis’ Why Fum’th in Sight is the source of the Vaughan Williams Fantasia, and it was sung by the orchestra. This was a first for me, but no surprise that musicians of this calibre can deliver a melody, complete with perfect harmonies.

Next came the theatre piece, The Ancient Mariner: Concerto for Viola and String Orchestra, a commission by Garth Knox. It is a very modern sounding piece in seven movements, interspersed with lines from the famous poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge read by our soloist, Lawrence Power. Knox is himself a violist and the solo line exploited all the idiosyncrasies of the instruments. The writing was very programatic with the sounds of wind in  the sails, the gulls disappearing with the distant shore and the musicians rocking from side to side in the swell of the waves.

The orchestra was arranged on stage in a boat shaped form facing right to left with Power at the helm. I was wondering why bassist, Maxime Bibeau (one of the tallest members of the orchestra) was standing on a platform  in the centre of the orchestra. When the other members assumed their seats for the maritime journey it became clear that he represented the mast of the ship. Once the albatross (represented by a violin) has been inexplicably shot by a violin bow, it is hung around the Mariner’s neck. 

Acoustically and visually this was a clever and professional piece of theatre and concert-giving. The only place where it lost credibility was when we were asked to imagine the rather handsome musicians as a ghastly crew of “living dead” sailors – I’m picturing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. 

The 2nd half began with Elizabeth Maconchy’s Symphony for Double String Orchestra. I found this a rather pedestrian work, but it represented the 1950’s so warranted an inclusion on that basis. The 50’s was a period when music (particularly English music) was struggling with modernism and trying to find a way forward. 

Herbert Howells was at the Vaughan Williams premier and his Elegy for Viola, String Quartet and String Orchestra was composed in 1917 in response to his friend who had died in WWI. The viola was the perfect choice for its ability to express the absolute pain and torment he must have felt. And Howells’ writing juxtaposed the excruciating pain of the solo line with blankness of open 5ths completely drained of emotion.

And the conclusion was the work at the basis of the program, Vaughan Williams Fantasia. Power extracted all the nuances of the work: the hints of English folk tunes, the hillside meanderings and the brown blandness of the melodies couched in modes rather than major/minor scales. But of course it takes a genius such as Vaughan Williams to know when to break the rules and when to follow them, concluding in a warm and comforting  major triad.

The night was musically brilliant and theatrically clever, well thought out and delivered by world class musicians. It reinforced my opinion that English classical music is warm and satisfying like a custard pudding on a cold and rainy day, but in the end lacks bursts of exhilaration and wow moments. But just sometimes what we need is warmth and comfort.