quartets

Back to writing. Carl told me that writing string quartets was exacting and he was right, no surprise. Carl usually is right.

The string quartet is finally taking shape, with a draft of the first movement finished. It seems to take a decent spell somewhere with uninterrupted lengths of time alone for me to be able to do this stuff. Part of the reason I remember growing up in the burbs with fondness, rather than the derision you hear so often, is that there were these uneventful stretches. Uneventful, that is, until you invented your own events! I remember summer holidays when I wrote short stories, painted paintings, threw the discus, played cricket in the street with brothers and neighbours, read through all the Beethoven sonatas… I digress.

The quartet is loosely based on a book of Australian woodcuts I found at the Ballarat Gallery in 2008. We’d gone out to Creswick for Mum’s 70th and returned via the cold old hole, looking in on this, one of Australia’s best colonial collections. The pictures vary greatly in quality, and many represent immigrant talent, in a couple of cases that of war interns, rather than local. I’m surprised that some of the pictures that seem the most evocative to me are not artistically very accomplished. The picture of a woman hanging out the clothes on an old-fashioned line is rough and ready but has a colour and movement that beckon. That’s the subject of the first movement, although I think I’ll call it ‘Sails in the Wind’, as a kind of generic representation of sheets of fabric flailing in a fresh breeze.

There’s a vignette of Corio, looking in from the bay, that is not much more than a silhouette of the low sky line, a few black horizontal lines as the sky. Again, it’s quite raw and minimal but a series of almost parallel chords immediately came to mind, with a saddish melody growing out of them. A tiny lino cut of a magnolia suggested a view of an interior, so the second movement is shaping to be a conception of a distant afternoon in Corio, along with snapshots of things and activities vaguely perceived.

Last is a beautiful, undulating picture of a Sydney tramline, indicating the era in which most of the pictures were created. I think a kind of constantly altered passacaglia will do here for the rolling gait of the tram, and we’ll see what calls and incidents will suggest themselves above the clattering wheels.

It’s due for first performance at the Coriole Festival South Australia on 1 May 2010, so the Goldners are anxious to look at it asap. Must get my act together and finish it for them.

vale Geoffrey Tozer

The sad news arrived on Friday that the great Australian pianist Geoffrey Tozer had died of liver failure the previous day. It’s a shock, and I can’t quite believe he’s no longer available at the other end of the phone.

I first met Geoffrey in Melbourne about twelve years ago. He volunteered at the last moment to turn pages for me, which he naturally did with great deftness. Belinda Webster assured me afterwards that there was nothing he liked better than to turn for people. Some years later, I remember a concert at ANAM where Frank Wibaut was about to play the Bartok sonata. Frank came forward and started to explain something about his busy schedule that week, how he had had to teach the sonata to students… I wasn’t sure where it was going but I did notice a gentleman standing up for some reason. Right at that moment, Frank was appealing to some kind member of the audience to come up to turn his pages, and there was Mr Tozer, who had guessed what Frank was about to ask.

Now, it was clear that Frank did not know who Geoffrey was. Seated behind Frank and looking out into the audience, Geoffrey was a study. Every nuance of Frank’s playing, even if almost imperceptibly, fleetingly reflected itself in Geoffrey’s open childlike face. A couple of times I almost laughed out loud at the bemused look that was prompted by something Frank did. But, beyond the novelty of the situation, it demonstrated something essential in Geoffrey’s unusual character.

Geoffrey didn’t regard himself as an international virtuoso. He often spoke critically against the idea of a precocious, prodigious childhood, which he had experienced. He revelled in the way music plays into life, and the converse, so that participating in any way was always special for him, whether it be turning someone’s pages, giving an inspirational lesson (often for free and for hours) or taking centre stage himself. Above all, he was able to maintain an exquisite innocence.

I only feel unutterably sad that I won’t now have the opportunity to know him better. I never saw him happier than the night my sister’s friend Alan came over to mum’s house and showed old films to us in the lounge room. Quite a film buff was our Geoffrey, and he LOVED cartoons, especially the old ones with all the great music… We had the chance two years ago to play together at a festival in Kangaroo Valley. We talked a lot about music, who we admired, what we were writing. In the taxi on the way home one afternoon I asked him what he was writing at the moment. “Oh,” he said, “I’ve just finished another piano sonata.” Can I have a copy, I asked. “Oh no, I haven’t written it down yet.”

I hope that there is something written down.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/06/geoffrey-tozer-obituary

sad strains of a gay waltz

My friend Andy Ford is finally getting ready to acquit an Oz Council grant to record his extraordinary Waltz Book, a decade after its germination. What a project. During a pub conversation, Andy proposed a modest project of a few waltzes — Andy, correct me if I’m wrong — which somehow grew to be the epic it is today: sixty of them. I don’t remember much of that day. The beer was damn good and the afternoon balmy. Andy probably said something like, “What would you say to a dozen waltzes?” And I probably said, shlurring my speesh, “Sheeshly?” Andy, thinking I was upping the ante, went away and produced an hour’s worth, when all I was trying to do was to find out if he was being serious.

So anyway, we spent two days just before Christmas last year at Angel Place, during a heat wave, trying to pin them down on DAT. I won’t pretend it was easy. Some of them are real hard, But mostly, getting them back in the fingers was a great joy, as good music always is when you come back to it after a time away. Listening to the edits last night, and also listening to Andy’s wonderful opera Rembrandt’s Wife, I have never enjoyed his music more. These two works are among his finest, and much of the music is sublime.

Thanks for the melody, Andy.

what they’re really thinking

MCO tour

Esther Benjamin from the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra asked me to write something appropriate for their newsletter The Bridge. This is what I came up with. I think Percy Grainger would consider it a ramble…

I love touring.

It’s often said that pianists are among the most solitary of musicians, practising obsessively in their rooms, alone with their imaginations, egos and neuroses, and it’s not far from the truth at times. There are many things that have offset this unhealthy way of life in my case. Having a family: number one. Not a lot of solitary time with two teenage daughters and a beloved wife who rushes around organising everything and everyone. Then there is the fact, linked to the three females already mentioned, that I don’t practise much any more, compared with the eight or so hours a day I used to put in back in the fevered days of international competitions in my early twenties. Also, working with students and colleagues periodically provides social relief and intellectual stimulation that I could not live without. I think that, were you to plot on a graph the number of words I spoke over the course of a year, you would see troughs relating to my periods of practice and sharp peaks to my times teaching at ANAM and to festivals, concerts and tours. My wonderful recent tour with the delightful MCO would certainly appear as a raised outcrop.

Finally, of course, there’s composing. I confess that I wish I had been a bit more muscular in my approach to writing when I was a student, trying to make my way in the profession early on. That was in the early 1980s, when ‘serious’ music was still defined by its impenetrable complexity and capacity to annoy and depress an audience, to paraphrase Satie. I remember a particular instance when I presented a piano piece to my composition supervisor at the VCA (we didn’t have an actual lecturer in composition then, curiously). Poor Richard was bemused, as his own music was as different from mine as Fernyhough to Hindson, and I was left with the distinct impression that I had somehow disappointed him. So I set about trying to please him, writing a ‘graphic score’ and transposing it into relatively conventional notation. The piece, which I immediately knew to be worthless in its musical insincerity, was greeted with enthusiasm, which depressed me even more. And so I gave up composition for ten years, apart from a bit of ongoing dabbling, and concentrated on playing the piano.

By the time I returned to Australia in 1995, though, my daughters had been born and I realised that I needed to write for my sanity, and that the only music that was worth writing was that which gave me satisfaction. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since and, as Maxwell Smart would say, loving it! When Bill Hennessy asked me to write a piece for the MCO and come touring with them at the same time, I leapt at it. Bill’s interesting philosophy, relating to the rebirth of the composer-performer tradition, is one I utterly agree with, and the opportunity to share some time on the road with him and my brilliant young colleagues was time I will treasure. I especially like playing in Australian country towns, where the appreciation of such orchestral concerts is palpable. This tour, also, reminded me of the very first one I made with the MSO way back in 1983, after I had won the I & V (now Young Performers), a tour that also finished up in Horsham in midwinter. Some of the excellent young players in the MCO weren’t even born then, and I saw myself in them, starting out in this wonderful, demanding but beautiful profession.

Asia-Pacific Chamber Music Competition

I never do this. When I attend a competition, usually as a jury member these days, I maintain professional discretion and hold the party line when the results come out. This time, I feel like commenting. Mainly because I suspect I’m going slightly mad and have possibly suffered some subtle form of hearing loss.

OK, so I should declare that I am a member of the Artistic Committee of this competition and have served more than once as a jurist, as well as chairing the selection panel that chose this year’s entrants. This, however, does not mean that I had already made my mind up about who should win. How could it? I have the memory of a goldfish.

All I know is, I heard every note played by each of the final groups and, listening technically as well as musically, arrived at a pretty definitive conclusion. The standard of string quartet playing was satisfyingly high, but the stand-out groups were the Tasman Q, a group from NZ who have been tutored by the Takacs Q to brilliant effect, and the Hamer Q, resident at the Australian National Academy of Music. The intonation and ensemble of the TQ were rarely less than impeccable, their Janacek and Bartok were breathtaking and their Haydn was easily the most accomplished of any of the performances of works from the Classic period. In the final, they began Schubert’s Death & the Maiden nervously, as one might expect, but by the finale, which they took at a blistering pace (rivalling a certain account by the then Tankstream Q in 2001), they were back to the electrifying level of earlier rounds.

The local contenders, by way of contrast, performed their Mozart quartet in an comparatively sketchy way, with the excellent Rebecca Chan suffering from frequent partial eclipses of melody. Throughout the competition, the Hamer Q played well, sometimes very well (the Vine quartet was terrific) but lacking the verve and textural transparency of the Tasmans. It is hardly contentious to say that their melodic lines were often partially obscured because of faults in internal balance, faults that were absent from the TQ.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t begrudge the HQ their success — far from it. I’m very proud that such a promising, talented quartet has arisen from the ANAM, where I have taught on and off for ten years. But I am disappointed that such a fine young group as the Tasmans is sent away with not much more than fleas in their ears. They deserve much better than that.

As for the trio result: 1st prize, Nibbana Trio from China; audience prize, Yarra Trio from Melbourne. I have two things to say. The standard of trio playing was arguably below that of the quartets. The Yarras were, to my ears, more artistically accomplished, interesting, colourful and exciting than the Nibbanas. The Nibbana’s Brahms, my goodness. The pianist couldn’t even count. A pretty ordinary student performance with few points of interest and many technical flaws. The Yarras played a strange mangled über romantic work by the 13 year-old Korngold, not a good choice, with great passion and colour. Yes, a bit wild at times, but never inappropriately so. I prefer this any day to the bland competence of the Nibbanas.

Matthew Westwood in the Australian reports that (jury chair) Carl Vine said the Nibbanas were “by far the most even and musically convincing”. Maybe Carl’s right; I’m possibly wrong, but I certainly disagree.

The other critic, present only at the final,that clodhopper O’Connell in the Age wanly observed that the TQ was “steady”. Twice. How can you play at lightning speed with gusto, huge dynamic range and razor sharp ensemble and be considered steady? Oh well, such is the standard of music reviewing in my beloved home town. After all, I can still remember when erstwhile Age reviewer Kenneth Hince opined vacuously that Messiaen’s music was “largely bio-degradable”…

ACO tour: Black is the Night

‘Great Romantics’. Not just pretty good romantics, great ones.

Well, dear Richard seems a bit uncomfortable being reminded SO many times about the 20th anniversary and all, but hey Richard, it’s only because everyone loves you so much and can’t believe you look so young, have done so much and play so well. But thank you for playing my pezzetto so beautifully, can’t imagine it possibly played better. There are a few more concerts to go. The reviews have been fine:

Herald Sun

Australian

Artshub

And, more for bemusement value than anything else (the ACO blog doesn’t bother with it) is Clive O’Connell in the Age

Notice anything peculiar? Maybe sad old Clive missed his tram and snuck in late…

new year, new piano

Last Saturday was the first Aus Ensemble subs concert for 2009 and the new — MY new — Steinway flew in the day before, arriving at the venue at 6 for a first Southern hemisphere tune by Ara. And it’s a beauty. Chosen by the mysterious Mr Fründ in Hamburg, it has a lovely golden tone and a capacity for very soft and, well, adequately loud. I hesitate to say very loud for fear of alarming my flute- and violin-playing colleagues but some of those chords in the Brahms horn trio were rippers and my pinky could be heard solo-ing above the racket. So I’m a happy camper.

Yes, I have spared more than one thought for my friend Wayne S, whose piano we are retiring to make way for this one. At least one subscriber has interrogated poor Ursula over why we are ‘abandoning’ Albert, our trusty servant of ten years. Well, it’s sad, but we have made a collective choice and are happy with that. At least, we have probably played more concerts on a Stuart than any other group and have given the piano an excellent showcase on the ABC. Wayne, meanwhile, continues to make superlative instruments of great character and individuality.

As for my composing… Hmm. Slow, slow, slow. I think I must be a bit retarded sometimes, the way my mind struggles along. At least the song cycle Letter to a Friend is finished in its short form (three of the original six poems) but I’d like to make better progress with the rest. The ACO piece is done, which wasn’t such a stress cos it’s a version of the song ‘Black is the Night’. Already two weeks behind schedule with the divertimento for the MCO. Help!

I’m glad we were able to join in and do a benefit for the Vics who were ravaged by the bushfires. It was so wonderful to have so many of our colleagues at Clancy to play with us and I want to thank all of them for their generosity and collegiality. Cheers, everyone.

save ANAM

A few of you will be aware that ANAM, the Australian National Academy of Music based in Melbourne, has had its funding suddenly withdrawn by the federal government, so that it will almost certainly close at the end of the year after twelve years. The circumstances are not entirely clear, and questions have been tabled in the Senate, but whatever the pros and cons, the students are suffering and they have not been treated with consideration or given a clear indication of options for next year. Please would you support the ongoing efforts of current ANAM management, led by Artistic Director composer Brett Dean, to rescue ANAM from the dire consequences of this hasty and ill-informed decision by contributing to the online petition hosted at

http://www.anam.com.au/

I purposely won’t go into a detailed account of the background to all this, as I am biased as a member of staff. I do, however, recommend that you look at teh most recent article to appear in the national daily for a pretty fair-minded analysis

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24676904-16947,00.html

Your support is appreciated.

more festivals…

Wilma and David did a beautiful job on the piano trio in NZ (can’t help thinking of David and me as Brett & Jemaine…). mp3s are posted in the chamber section. Next week is Huntington Festival, formerly the baby of Richard Tognetti and the ACO. Then recordings with Roger Benedict for Aunty and finally the Waltz Book by Andy Ford for Tall Poppies. The next composition “Letter to a Friend”, based on texts by Judith Wright, is currently a series of beginnings.