Richard Tognetti, Artistic Director and Lead Violin of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, ACO staff and guests keep a blog here exploring music, performing and much much more.
Welcome to the ACO Blog. We trust you you enjoyed Vivacious - Vivaldi's Four Seasons directed by Alina Ibragimova. Tell us what you thought. Feel free to submit your feedback here as a Blog Comment or by using the online form on our website.
Gyorgy Kurtág's epigrammatic and mysterious works can be explored further on several releases on the brilliant ECM Label.
Signs, Games and Messages ECM 1730 (more). The complete set of string pieces. Játékok (Games) ECM 1619 (more). A collection of solo and duo piano works performed by the composer and his wife. Includes his luminous Bach transcriptions. 'Perpetuum mobile' from Játékok, performed by the composer on YouTube. Kafka Fragments for Soprano and Violin ECM 1965 (more). Perhaps Kurtág's best-known work, Kafka Fragments is a dream-like, bitterly humourous exploration of the jottings of Franz Kafka, who, like Kurtág, favoured the elliptical, the compressed, and the subconscious in his works.
Glenn Gould, one of the greatest Bach exponents of the 20th century was one of the greatest explainers of Bach. Thanks to YouTube we can enjoy some of his observations.
Further Reading: Douglas HofstadterGodel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (Basic Books) A meditation on consciousness, artificial intelligence and language (and a whole lot more), intertwining the life and works of the mathematician, the artist and the musician. Hard to explain in a single sentence but quite simply astonishing. (Amazon.com)
Christoph Wolff Bach: The Learned Musician (WW Norton & Co.) Life and works. Aimed at the educated layperson but with a fair bit of analysis that could be on the dry side for the casual music-lover.
VIVALDI The Four Seasons
Further Listening: Classical music recording website Arkivmusic.com lists some 225 versions of The Four Seasons. If you're like us, you probably already have a recording or two. Some favourites include:
Simon Standage, Trevor Pinnock, The English Concert (DG/Arkiv 474616) Arranged for flute by James Galway with I solisti di Zagreb (RCA Victor Gold Seal 60748) Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica (with Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) (Nonesuch 79568) The moody Piazzolla seasons contrast nicely with the Vivaldi. Stylish performance. Isaac Stern, Schlomo Mintz, Pinchas Zuckermann, Itzhak Perlman and the Israel Philharmonic (DG 419214) The lavish cast has a lot of fun playing one each of the concertos.
What's your facvourite recording? Drop us a note and let us know.
Further Reading: Read the sonnets in the original Italian at Wikipedia, here.
HC Robbins Landon Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque (University of Chicago Press) Short but solid life and works.
We haven't read it, but there's a historical novel about Vivaldi's time at the Pieta rather racily entitled Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick (Harper Paperbacks). Vivaldi is the first-person narrator. If you've read it, share a quick review?
BERG Lyric Suite
Explore expressionism, yearning, decadence and the unconscious with these key works of Viennese (and German) art.
Further Listening: Alban BergAlban Berg Collection, Various Artists, DG(Violin Concerto, Songs, Operas etc) Richard Strauss Elektraand Salome
Thomas Mann Doctor Faustus and The Magic Mountain (Penguin) Music and madness in Mann's allegory of a country's slide into Nazi complicity. The Magic Mountain examines pre-World War I Europe throught the microcosm of an alpine sanatorium.
Virtual Virtuoso By Gillian Bramley-Moore, Courier Mail
She's ridiculously young for one so talented but there's nothing of the dilettante about Alina Ibragimova, writes Gillian Bramley-Moore
There is nothing tame about Ibragimova's fiery execution in performance.
"My parents are musicians and I think I listened to my mother play the violin before I was even born,'' says Alina Ibragimova on the phone from Sydney. "I always wanted to be a violinist. When I was four, I asked my parents for a green violin and then I burst into tears when they gave me one that was brown. The sound was revolting but I came back to it six months later.'' At 23, Ibragimova is one of the world's most successful violinists, and will be guest director for the Australian Chamber Orchestra next Monday night.
Based in London, she is a regular on the international festival circuit and has played concertos with world-class ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, but she doesn't fit the classical stereotype.
She loves shopping for shoes, would perform in jeans if she could, spends hours communicating with her cellist boyfriend on Skype via the internet, and adores Tom Waits.
She also enjoys Ella Fitzgerald and admires Operator Please, Bjork and The Beatles. As for classical stuff, whatever she is currently performing is usually her favourite piece. She is remarkably down-to-earth for someone heralded worldwide as a fiddling sensation.
To a question about how she knows Richard Tognetti, she snaps: "I don't. I've never met him. My agent was sent a letter requesting that I do this Australian tour, directing the ensemble from the violin, and, because of the ACO's reputation, I said yes.''
Ibragimova's approach to the industry is quirky, but then her teacher, Gordan Nikolitch, is a most unusual coach.
"Sometimes I'd play for him in lessons and sometimes he would ask me to watch a movie, or play darts,'' Ibragimova says.
"When I was panicking about having to play the Beethoven Violin Concerto, I asked for a lesson. He agreed, but said that I should meet him in London's Tate Modern. We looked at a Mark Rothko painting for half an hour and talked about shape and form. It helped.''
Can anyone enjoy classical music?
"I'm naive in thinking that whatever is good will come across well, and then people enjoy it. This was true when I played a tough contemporary program in a casual setting in Shoreditch Town Hall to a non-classical crowd in London. Everyone was standing around a bar and people didn't have to listen, but they did.''
Ibragimova says that working with the ACO as artistic leader will be intimidating at first, but "it will work out fine because I'm also playing my violin (a 1738 Pietro Guarneri of Venice). Leading from the front is different from conducting and I really wouldn't like to do that, although I've had lessons,'' she says. "I'm regarding this tour as if I am playing with an expanded chamber music group. To be a conductor is a different skill altogether and you have to know different things. The program's appealing although it was hard to pin one down because the ACO has performed so much repertoire. I've especially learned Vivaldi's Four Seasons for the occasion.''
If she could have licence to choose an absolute favourite work, it would be a Mendelssohn concerto.
Pressure is something that Ibragimova is familiar with as she studied at the notoriously intense Yehudi Menuhin School, where the hectic schedules stretch from 9am until 10pm.
"Every day I felt so tired,'' she says. "There was so much to fit in: academic studies, solo practice and performing in the lunchtime concerts. Nothing has ever been so difficult as being on stage in front of 60 knowledgeable, brilliant but critical students. But, at the same time, we were like a really close-knit family. Yehudi Menuhin was such a humble person and he took care of everybody. In the very last concert that he conducted, I played the Bach Double Concerto with Nicola Benedetti at the opening ceremony of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights at UNESCO in Paris. When he died, I was at school and the place was thronging with reporters, and someone asked for some music. Nicola and I played the second movement from the same Bach concerto and everyone cried.''
There is nothing tame about Ibragimova's fiery execution in performance, where the emotional essence is of far greater importance to her than technicalities and perfect tuning.
She is bold and uncompromising, despite her mischievous, pixie-ish appearance, and she has developed quite a reputation for being the musician you can ask to replace a star performer at a minute's notice.
"My schedule is worked years in advance and so I enjoy these sudden opportunities that crop up to challenge me,'' Ibragimova says. "I replaced the soloist in a performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony in 2006 at short notice. Last year, I stepped in when Max Vengerov was unable to play at the BBC Proms. It's just something I do.''
Richard Tognetti's 20th anniversary with the ACO in 2009 will be celebrated with the involvement of other fascinating guest directors, including the Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto and English violinist Anthony Marwood. Tognetti's curatorship of trail-blazing programming and collaboration continues in the film documentary Luminous, featuring the work of photographer Bill Henson and an evening of fun and music with Barry Humphries.
ACO's Vivacious tour with guest director Alina Ibragimova, Monday, QPAC, 8pm.
The third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was born.
Incidentally he played the violin and declared that music “is the favourite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.” To improve the state of music in America, Jefferson encouraged its practice, and music played an important role in the life of his family through the generations.
Born: Sir Joseph Banks, British naturalist and botanist
Born: Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, second Prime Minister of the UK
Died: Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, last member of the Medici family (b. 1667)
1743 was also the year that this violin was made. It is 265 years old.
Nicknamed the Carrodus was made by Guarnieri del Gesu in Cremona, Italy. If Stradivarius was the Leonardo of violin making then del Gesu was Michelangelo. Del Gesu (of Jesus) was an irascible genius whose instruments are even more highly sought after than those of Stradivarius. This instrument is now on Australian soil and an anonymous benefactor owns it. The spine-tingling fact about this instrument (apart from its value) is that it is made from the same tree as the il Cannone which was owned by Paganini. Indeed, it’s considered feasible that this instrument was also owned by Paganini but he lost it gambling.
“His pale, long-drawn face with its hollow cheeks, his thin lips that seemed to curl into a sardonic smile, piercing expression fo his eyes which were like flaming charcoals, gave him a diabolic appearance...” The ‘nail in the coffin’, so to speak, was that Paganini refused to see a Bishop that had come to give him the final sacraments when he was on his deathbed. Paganini shooed him away, insisting he was not dying at all. When he did die, the church refused to allow him to be buried on holy ground
I am honoured to be here to address you, and indeed I have my own Davos Connection:
In 1986 on a concert tour of Europe I took myself skiing in Davos, The book I was reading at the time mysteriously and remarkably mirrored the climb my train was making out of the Rhine Gebiet up through the mountains to Zurich and onto Davos. It wasn’t until I described my encounter to an Aus. girl later that night was I made aware that unknowingly I had been living the book I was reading. Quite coincidentally I was reading the opening chapter the Arrival beautiful description of travelling up through the Swiss mountains. It was no other than Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), which is a microcosmic study of symphonic proportions of the decaying Europe below. And of course it is based in a sanatorium in Davos.
Shortly after its publication in 1924 some rather important developments were taking place in our ‘faraway land’. Dame Nellie Melba had passed away in 1931, but an even more important series of events occurred which marks to date the most important climb in the culture of Australian music known as the Heinze Era 1932-1945 which was overseen by Prime Ministers James Henry Scullin, ALP, 1929 through to John Curtin up to 1945.
A great launch pad and a very encouraging start
In a recent book by Martin Buzacott (The Rite of Spring: 75 Years of ABC Music-making, ABC Books) we can read the story of the evolution of the state symphonies we have today.
But after 76 years we’ve not expanded, not one iota. The six symphony orchestras we formed in 1932 with a population of six and a half million (now it’s 21 million) are the same and only symphony orchestras extant today. Indeed their survival is constantly threatened.
For some comparative statistics consider:
Finland, population 5.1 million: 30 professional orchestras
USA, populations 301 million: 900 amateur and 300-400 professional orchestras
Venezuela, population 27 million: 200 youth orchestras and at least 23 professional orchestras (in the 1970s there were two orchestras in Venezuela).
Quite rightly there is enormous concern about our ‘outer ecology’ as you’ve just heard from the Governor General – we’re all alarmed about the impact of global warming, but I think we also need to consider our ‘inner ecology’, where ‘cultural cooling’ is just as real a threat to our well-being.
In this country there is an enormous imbalance between sporting prowess and cultural endeavour. Consider this:
The elite arts set is viewed as a privileged few, upper echelon, crème de la crème, snobs, snoots, elitists, pretenders, egotists, stuffed shirts and Chardonnay sipping wankers. Your progeny ought to be prevented from associating with these types.
The elite sports set, on the other hand, is seen as: the best, cream o’ the crop, our heroes, the future, something to shed a tear about, our obsession, worthy of investment, winning for our country. Our kids should be encouraged to follow in their hallowed footsteps.
Incidentally, in Buzacott’s book he describes the ‘agricultural roughness’ of conductor EJ Roberts, nicknamed ‘Shellshock’ and better known as a golfer than conductor who led the National Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra at the opening ceremony for the new Australian Broadcasting Commission on 1 July 1932.
We have become used to these negative sentiments in this country and they fuel an entrenched perception that the arts are elitist, exclusive, and indeed a burden on a society which has an ever increasing challenge to contain the disparity between the haves and the have-nots. It’s a luxury handbag rather than an essential item.
To indicate how easy it is to reinforce this sentiment in Australia consider this ad brought out by the Liberal Party in 1996: “A vote for Labor is a vote for the elite arts.”
Now just for a moment consider swapping ‘elite arts’ with ‘elite sports’ or elite immigrants or kooris.
Or recently a State Premiere staked his credentials on this: “I’m not into opera, I go to the footy.”
Since when were the two mutually exclusive?
Well, I surf and I play the violin.
I’ve been asked to talk about cultural leadership and I do believe that at this point in my career, advocacy is the best form of leadership.
I don’t have much time here and I have been asked to play for you some more so I’ll cut to the chase and be specific. I’ll leave the universal to JS Bach which I’ll play at the end.
In the strongest possible terms I am advocating a national music curriculum to be advanced unencumbered by the states’ educational differences and a visionary and far-reaching cultural infrastructural program be formulated that will help spawn a new generation of Australians that is culturally adept, well informed, open minded and with good reason proud of what we do on this land rather than what we do with it. A national smartening-up, not dumbing-down. Our exemplary sporting achievements – we all know that we punch way above our weight at present we rank number five on the Olympic ladder – ought to – and can be – matched by our cultural endeavours.
Currently in Australia up to three in four children in Government Primary Schools have no music teachers. That equates to over 700,000 children missing out, and often they are the ones who need support the most.
Kim Williams, CEO of Foxtel and a passionate advocate for music education was active participant in the 2020 summit which he believes lives and continues. In a recent speech he said:
If Australia is to continue to care about and embrace the notion of egalitarian ideals as the foundation of our culture then there is much work to be done.
In my view … the quality of that system will have several absolutely fundamental tenets:
First there have to be reliable national standards and national curriculum frameworks – and that is essentially non negotiable;
2) There have to be close delivery connections to local schools and school districts including the empowerment of school principals to appoint and assess teachers so that their performance is directly accountable in the same way that performance accountability is fundamental to all modern commercial and public life;
3) A mixed system will continue but it has to be one where the resource imbalance between public and private in the interests of fairness and equity must correct the systemic distortions that have eroded public education;
4) The whole approach and attitudinal fabric to the role, remuneration, training, assessment and reinforcement of teachers requires wholesale renovation so that we capture the right talented people who make teaching their first choice of career and we ensure that it is a satisfying and fulfilling one subsequently;
5) There must be an unwavering commitment to excellence – one which ensures that the talented are encouraged and appropriately reinforced; and
Finally there must be a real commitment to the primary importance of mainstream delivery of the arts and sport from infant education on as the ying and yang essential to a fit, intellectually vigorous and well resourced nation that is healthy and empowered to confront its challenges effectively.
He goes on to say:
I think I can assume safe common territory with everyone here today in saying that Australia is imbued with an unusually talented resource of active and original creative individuals quite disproportionate to its size. However that resource has an uneven education and resource framework compromising the nation’s capacity to retain talent and drive consistent effort that evolves and improves as boldly as it must to serve the people’s best interest.
Try telling the kids of Wyong Public in NSW, that your vote could be a vote for the elite arts. Consider this:
Case Study - Wyong Public School
The Song Room a private organization whose vision whose vision statement is that all Australian children have the opportunity to participate in music and the arts to enhance their education, personal development and community involvement.
Wyong Public School Students to Learn the Violin and Increase Enrolments!
In early 2007 The Song Room secured the services of a string teacher one day a week at Wyong Public School on the Central Coast of NSW, to teach students to play the violin,
The achievements were beyond the wildest dreams of the whole school community. Only ten months after the students commenced The Song Room program, the school now has in excess of 90 students from Years 3-6 playing in a string ensemble. All of the students in these groups have had opportunities to perform, not only at the weekly school assembly, but also performing at various local Festivals. The School’s 90 violinists also featured on the local news in November showing the remarkable achievements being made by students in learning the violin in such large numbers.
Graham Holmes, Principal, Wyong Public School:
“The children of Wyong Public School largely come from backgrounds where these music and creative arts opportunities cannot normally be afforded to them. It has been through the support of The Song Room that has given these children experiences that they could have previously only stood back and watch other children enjoy. They have grown in their self esteem, in their sense of self, in their aspirational outlooks and most importantly, in their love of music and performance.”
According to Graham, music and performing arts can transform a school:
“It can be the key that unlocks the talents of children and it can play a defining role in uplifting children’s self esteem, broadening their career and personal aspirations and impressing on them that they can too reach their potential, regardless of their personal life’s circumstances.”
For one student who earlier this year had to be removed for several months to a specialist behaviour facility for seriously disruptive, and at times, violent behaviour, The Song Room program has left an indelible mark on his psyche and has set him on a life trajectory of music and performance.
From violence to violins.
There exist a few great models in the world where a good music education opens up enormous vistas and opportunities. I encourage you to examine the Finnish education system on the one hand and the world shattering success of the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra program (El Sistema) comprising street kids – certainly nothing to do with the elite except in their playing.
We need to work with the media to engage all in musical activities.
The idea of designating one Australian town or city annually to be the ‘Cultural Capital’ would serve to focus and stimulate local artists. Take for example NSW’s third largest city, Wollongong, where we find a city with a broken heart, lying supine in a cultural coma with no cultural infrastructure, except for their local theatre. The local council had recently condemned their only venue suitable for orchestral and chamber music performance, the Wollongong town hall.
Making the arts an important concern for a whole community for even just a year would have far-reaching effects in such a city, serving to generate a cultural dialogue with the rest of the country and the wider world.
Let me finish with a quote from Alan Turing the father of the computer.
If the untrained infant’s mind is to become an intelligent one, it must acquire both discipline and initiative… To convert a brain or machine into a universal machine is the most extreme form of discipline. Without something of this kind one cannot set up proper communication. But discipline is certainly not enough in itself to produce intelligence. That which is required in addition we call initiative. This statement will have to serve as a definition.
It’s no moot point that every senior secondary school student should have access to a computer at school.
So wouldn’t it be wonderful if placed next to that computer on every student’s desk were a musical instrument.
I’ll leave you with Bach’s Chaconne.
This is a transcript of a speech RT made at the Australian Davos Connection's Leadership Retreat.
Next year marks Richard Tognetti's two decades of orchestral leadership, writes Clare Morgan.
Such was the weight of expectation on Richard Tognetti before his stint as guest leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 1989, it would have been no surprise if he registered excess baggage on his flight from Switzerland. Read more.
Visit the site for info about the ACO's 2009 Season, launched just last night.
The excellent 'On an Overgrown Path' blog has a beaut story about Pablo Casals, a good way to end the week in which we wrapped up the Intense Tour with Steven Isserlis (a big fan of Casals).
It's a pointer to what a sheltered life I've led. Last night was my first time. At the City Recital Hall, which, acoustically, at least, matches the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall (and then some) and is, I think, more comfortable; it's certainly a more conducively intimate size.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra, during the course of my adult years, seems to have come from nowhere and gone to the stratosphere. For its foundation, we've John Painter to thank. For its continuation and flowering we've many to thank, but, of course, not least among them, longtime Artistic Director, Richard Tognetti.
Tognetti, it seems to me, has quietly, surreptitiously railed against the strictures, often self-imposed, on classical music and musicians. I shouldn't imagine there'd be too many orchestras worldwide in which (male) members have earrings and mohawks. That's bound to signify a more modern, slightly upstart, challenging approach.
The audacious attitude pays off. There is much fine music available to one's ears, but not nearly so much of it delves so deeply into the motivations and spirit of the music. Not nearly so much of it stirs, excites and arouses like ACO renditions. Commitment is physically evident in lead violinist, Tognetti; his second, Helena Rathbone; principal violist, Christopher Moore; principal cellist, Timo-Veikko Valve and, on this occasion, special guest, one of the world's best, cellist Stephen Isserlis. Loving your work would seem such a rare commodity, it's always a pleasure (nay, thrill) to watch and, of course, in this context, we get to hear it, as well.
Last night's programme began with a concerto for cello & an exceptionally well-chosen one, for it allowed plenty of room for Isserlis to show what he's made of: not stern stuff, but a relaxation, comfort and empathy which enables him to take his almost inestimable technical proficiency into another realm; the realm of feeling, so often lost in more serious-minded attempts to reproduce old music. Isserlis, through his humanity and humour, gets inside the music and, I get the sense, the composer's head. This is a musical prize which even surpasses his instrumental gift. Thus, Bach's (but one of the 'lesser' Bachs, in Carl Philipp Emanuel, who died, albeit in Berlin, around the time of first settlement, in Sydney) allegro, largo and final movement of his piece, in A major, were given the kind of airing one expects might have won an ovation from the maestro himself. The piece itself has the unmistakable hallmarks of the many and various Bachs: that pleasing, jaunty, Teutonic symmetry which, had he listened to more of it instead of, say Wagner, might've soothed the savage beast that reared-up in a certain Adolf. It's all about a happy ending; (a characteristic of the form my partner contends to be universally boring, she being more captured by the likes of Bartok, whose demanding work I find, well, demanding work). Essentially, the ACO and, particularly, Isserlis, made a delightful that much more delightful, with an unamplified sound, on sensational instruments, so pure, in its impurity (for we heard every click and moan of bows on strings), so warm and enlivened, it quickened the pulse.
Woldemar Bargiel (did he get teased at school, or was every second kid named Woldermar, in 1830s Berlin?) and his Octet in C minor, were the centrepiece for the evening. Apparently, Bargiel had a bit of a competitive streak and was seeking to rival Mendelssohn, who fashioned the template for octets, at just 16! WB was an elderly 19 when he drafted his and, while it's generally agreed his predecessor takes gold, this is a worthy silver. Also in three movements, but effecting, arguably, a deeper emotional trajectory than the Bach opener, it doesn't perhaps have the maturity or originality which would set it on a winner's podium. Notwithstanding such caveats, it has heart, despite taking itself a little too seriously and introspectively.
A glass of champagne, at interval, was just the thing to settle in for Ravel's brief, but intensely moving and uplifting Hebraic melodies; the first, Kaddish, based on a Jewish prayer and the second, from Yiddish, The Eternal Enigma. The genius of these was in Tognetti's string arrangements, adapted from vocal ones. Both, in their eloquent brevity, proved a simple, but heart bowl of soup can be as satisfying, if not moreso, than an overwrought, elaborate main course.
Bartok, of course, almost requires some kind of warmup and sharpening of the intellect. His rather modern Divertimento for Strings was conceived and written in 1939. My impression is Bartok diverted his attention from impending horrors by losing himself in his music. This seems to be borne out in Bartok's own comments and numerous commentaries. Certainly there is pervasive darkness and foreboding, underscored by BB's trademark rhythmic insistence, carried and communicated powerfully by Australia's national orchestra.
A lusty, vivacious, delicious evening of impassioned playing, from one of the planet's better ensembles.
Lloyd Bradford Syke, Australian Stage Online | 12 Aug 2008
Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald: Usually conductors, dancers and insolent cocktail mixers are the only people who exercise the luxury of allowing their arms and bodies to move in unfettered sympathy with the impulse of music. Humble instrumentalists may let go on the last chord, but elsewhere are constrained by the obligation to get fingers and bows to the right place at the right time...
This is a forum for members of the ACO to place thoughts in a modern agora that encourages debate and response.
It won’t necessarily run as a diary because that would require too much structure, rather we will begin as a free for all; indeed as a microcosm of the World Wide Web. Please use the search tools to find your own structure. We look forward to seeing how it grows and unfolds.
All comments and content of this blog are the opinions of the individual contributors and cannot be construed or held to be theofficial views of the Australian Chamber Orchestra Pty. Ltd.
