ACO brings tapas and plenty of swing to its Spanish conquest

Australian Chamber Orchestra serves up some Spanish tapas with a rich dish of jazz for the main course

A jazz quartet joins the ACO in the Sketches of Spain concert. Picture: Nic Walker

• An uplifting walk in the forest
• A night of triumph and tears
• Good things come in threes

The sounds and smells of Spain have been a rich source of inspiration for composers, many of whom had little or no ties to the country, and this is the theme behind the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s latest concert in a season which is becoming a bit of a virtual global tour.

In February they brought us accordion maestro James Crabbe and the steamy tangos of Buenos Aires and for this tour they have incorporated a jazz quartet into their line-up for a multifaceted survey which takes in Baroque, Romantic and traditional music, culminating in arrangements of works by two modern jazz giants, Miles Davis and the late Chick Corea.

Artistic director Richard Tognetti and his colleagues are, as ever, very much on point in a program which, despite its diversity, holds together surprisingly well, thanks to astute arrangements by Tognetti himself, jazz pianist Matt McMahon and emerging Australian composer Bernard Rofe who fashioned two extracts from Claude Debussy’s Images – Iberia and Par les rues et par les chemins – into a bracing and atmospheric opener for the evening, aided by the muted trumpet of Phil Slater, who was to figure prominently in the second half.

Richard Tognetti performing on the horn violin. Picture: Nic Walker

Tognetti swapped his $10 million Guarneri de Gesu “Carrodus” instrument for a Romanian horn violin – the sound is amplified by a metal resonator and horn bell attachment – for his vamping, sliding take on Maurice Ravel’s Blues movement from the violin sonata. Although not a Spanish piece, this linked nicely to the jazz element of the program, Ravel famously telling the American inventors of the genre that it was music that should be “taken seriously”.

Italian Luigi Boccherini spent most of his working life in Spain and his Night music of the streets of Madrid gives a colourful and dramatic 18th century account of what you might hear outside your window – church bells, calls of beggars in the street, guitars (cellist Timo-Veikko Valve strumming his instrument on its side) and the night watch dealing with a riot before curfew.

Frenchman Georges Bizet didn’t have strong links with Iberia, however, despite his big hit Carmen being so quintessentially Spanish. And Rodion Schedrin, who arranged the Carmen Suite into a ballet with lots of added percussion, was from Moscow. However, the well-known tunes remain irresistible in this piquant performance, with Jess Ciampa dashing between an array of instruments from tubular bells to vibraphone, aided by fellow percussionist Brian Nixon.

Miles Davis in action.

McMahon, Slater, bassist Brett Hirst were more upfront after interval with a wonderful arrangement, jointly by McMahon and Rofe, of Solea from Davis’s Sketches of Spain, the album he made in 1959 with master arranger Gill Evans, inspired by listening to Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Here Slater gave a masterful rendition of Davis’s solo cadenza which evokes the emotive sound of gypsy singers against the backdrop of bass and Nixon’s insistent snare drum tapping out a rhythm similar to Ravel’s Bolero.

Corea’s Spain, itself directly inspired by the Davis album, brought the concert to a stunning finish with a suite-like work of variations, rapid changes of mood and tempos and stabbing syncopations, driven by McMahon’s piano.

Not many string orchestras can swing, but the ACO certainly can and this concert is guaranteed to put a much-needed spring back into your step.

The concert is repeated at City Recital Hall on Friday, April 8, at 1.30pm; Saturday, April 9, at 7pm and Sunday, April 10, at 2pm.

DETAILS

• CONCERT Australian Chamber Orchestra: Sketches of Spain

• WHERE City Recital Hall Angel Place

• WHEN April 5, 2022