Branford Marsalis and ACO give a classical masterclass

Galloping gauchos, steamy tangos and haunting Celtic lullabies marked the return of soprano saxophone jazz supremo Branford Marsalis to the Sydney stage.

Branford Marsalis performing with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Picture: Julian Kingma

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Galloping gauchos, steamy tangos and haunting Celtic lullabies marked the return of soprano saxophone jazz supremo Branford Marsalis to the Sydney stage.

In a superb and at times ecstatic collaboration with the Australian Chamber Orchestra directed by Satu Vanska, Marsalis gave a masterclass in phrasing, expression and virtuosity and showed once again, if proof were needed, that he is equally at home reading a classical score as he is riffing and “tooting” with his jazz quartet or performing with the likes of Sting.

His artistry was matched by the cutting-edge performance of the strings of the ACO under Vanska, with some lovely solo work from cellist Melissa Barnard and guest violist Carol Cook.

The program got off to a flying start with Marsalis soloing on soprano in the third of Igor Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Clarinet, a helter-skelter one-minute work written shortly after World War I showing the composer’s fondness for the new ragtime and jazz genres.

This led to Marsalis’s big piece of the first half, a ravishing performance of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Fantasia for Saxophone and Orchestra. The work was originally written for soprano sax but the dedicatee turned it down and Villa-Lobos could only find a tenor saxophonist to give the premiere, so he transposed it down.

SENSUOUS

Marsalis has restored it to its factory settings and the result is a gloriously sumptuous sound, with fast — very fast — outer movements and a lovely slow movement.

We stayed in South America for his opening appearance after interval, a string arrangement of Villa-Lobos’s evergreen Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, the sensuous soprano sax floating over Barnard’s Bach-like bass line.

For a change of mood — and instrument, this time the alto sax — Marsalis and the ACO gave a premiere performance of English composer Sally Beamish’s atmospheric concerto, Under the Wing of the Rock, a lament for the Glencoe Massacre in Scotland in 1692, which she originally wrote for her own instrument, the viola. She rearranged it for saxophone after what she described as “an explosion in my life”, working with Marsalis 10 years ago on another piece that changed her musical thinking.

The story is told of a soldier, ordered to kill the mother and her baby who were fleeing the massacre, hearing her singing a lullaby and sparing them, wrapping them in his tartan and giving them food and drink.

The quiet opening evokes the misty, green Scottish landscape and the volume and tempo gradually builds, incorporating Scottish dance rhythms and Celtic song and church music.

Satu Vanska led the ACO in a cutting-edge performance.

Earlier in the concert Vanska had given the ACO’s “Belgiorno” Stradivarius a vigorous workout in a string arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s nuevo tango masterpiece, The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, and later the flying bows of the fiddles and violas vied with the snapping bass of Maxime Bibeau in two movements from Concerto for strings by Alberto Ginastera, sometimes dubbed the Argentinian Bartok.

The program ended happily with the irresistible drive of Piazzolla’s most performed hit, Libertango.

The concert is repeated at City Recital Hall Angel Place on Tuesday, May 21, at 8pm and Wednesday, May 22, at 7pm.

DETAILS

● CONCERT: ACO with Branford Marsalis

● WHERE: Sydney Opera House Concert Hall

● WHEN: Sunday, May 19