Bach adds bite to Tognetti's conversation - Review from The Australian

FROM the stage, Richard Tognetti described the Australian Chamber Orchestra's touring program, Bach and Beyond, as "an imaginary conversation with Bach, across time, on matters musical and theological". In the afterglow of Easter, it's a curious and attractive proposition and a legion of Bach's disciples could have been assembled to parlay at his table. The ACO's composer-participants in this discourse were a curious bunch.

Not surprisingly, old Johann Sebastian produced the most memorable moments in this conversation: a cantata, a motet and even an abbreviated mass.

The principal participants were a quartet of singers whose crystalline voices, young and almost devoid of vibrato, conveyed a kind of dutiful affirmation of the music's underlying theology.

In the quirky acoustic of the newly refurbished Australian National University Llewellyn Hall, the two imported British singers, tenor Andrew Staples and bass Matthew Brook, sounded somewhat overshadowed by their Australian counterparts, soprano Sara Macliver and mezzosoprano Fiona Campbell. Llewellyn Hall seems to favour instruments over voices, contributing to a sense of unevenness within the vocal quartet. Bach's vocal lines require the agility of an instrument. Here, their hazards were negotiated with a sigh of relief rather than certainty.

The conversation was elevated by impressive contributions from the ACO strings and several soloists, particularly the limpid oboe playing of Shefali Pryor, and the near immaculate continuo of organist Calvin Bowman and cellist Timo-Veikko Valve.

Interleaving 20th-century pieces between the movements of the Missa Brevis in G Minor was brave and enlightening. Arvo Part's celebrated Summa provided five minutes of blessed relief from contrapuntal complexities, and Macliver's electrifying performance of the Litany movement from Schoenberg's Second String Quartet delivered the requisite dose of existential angst. The ACO made heavy work of British composer Diana Burrell's Der Meer, her 1991 depiction of the movements of tides. Its 16 minutes of rambling density contained enough ideas for several pieces, with architecture about as sound as a ship made of Lego. Surely this should have been the moment for an Australian voice at Bach's table instead.

Overall, Tognetti's fascinating and illuminating ruminations on the connective tissue and power of music worked, mostly. The question posed by the title of Bach's cantata -- "where are we going?" -- was argued, but not settled. Nor could we have expected more.


Vincent Plus | The Australian | 12 Apr 2010